Employee returning from parental leave was illegally dismissed – received a hefty compensation

Topics

• Labour law
• Legal assistance

An employee who had returned from parental leave was dismissed shortly after their return to work through change negotiations, even though the employee would have been entitled to the new position established in the organisation. The case was settled quickly with the help of Lakikaveri.

What was the case about?

An employee who had worked as a supervisor in a permanent position returned from parental leave but was not allowed to continue in their former job. Neither was the employee appointed to another job. Soon after, change negotiations were initiated in the company and the employee was dismissed on financial or production-related grounds.  
 
As part of the change negotiations, a new position was established, and the person who had acted as a substitute for the employee on parental leave was appointed for the job. However, the dismissed employee who had returned from parental leave would have been better qualified for the job based on education and experience.

How was the matter resolved?

The employee suspected that the dismissal was illegal, so they contacted YTK Worklife’s Lakikaveri service. A lawyer looked into the case and its documentation and concluded that there were no grounds for dismissal, and the employee should have been appointed to the new position. The employer had also violated the employee’s right to return from family leave to their former job or another similar job.  
 
The lawyer from the Lakikaveri service sent a claim letter to the employer, demanding compensation for discrimination and unlawful dismissal. At first, the employer denied the claims, but after a response from the lawyer, the employer wanted to negotiate a settlement. An agreement was reached in which the employer paid the employee more than EUR 20,000 in compensation. The whole process took only about 3.5 months.

Lawyer’s comment:

“In my experience, it is not entirely unusual for redundancies to be targeted at employees who have exercised their statutory right to family leave. In these cases, the employee’s need for legal protection is obvious. The dismissal could possibly have been prevented if the employee had contacted Lakikaveri before the hearing held for the employee before dismissal. In this case, the lawyer could have informed the employee that there were no grounds for dismissal.”

Lakikaveri

Example case

The examples are based on real-life cases investigated by the Lakikaveri service. The member in question has given permission to publish the story, or the details have been changed so that it is not possible to identify the member or the employer.​​​​​​​