In Miss L Musguin v Breyer Group plc Ms Musguin, an HR assistant, joined Breyer, a construction company, in July 2017 and went on maternity leave with her first child from June 2019 to August 2020. While she was off, a junior HR coordinator was hired to provide cover and was offered a £27,000 salary. When Ms Musguin came back from maternity leave in August 2020, she learned of the assistant’s salary.
‘Ms Musguin was very unhappy that there was only a £3,000 difference between her salary as an HR Assistant compared to the more junior HR Coordinator role’, a tribunal report said.
‘She believed it to be deeply unfair and to undervalue her work and her experience.’
Just days later, Ms Musguin – now pregnant with her second child – made an argument to HR manager Hardeep Rayat that she should get a pay rise.
However, he later informed her that directors Tim Breyer and Neil Fisher rejected his request for her pay rise.
The report said: ‘Ms Musguin’s evidence is that Mr Rayat went into the meeting and that when he met her afterwards he told her that he had made the request for a pay rise but that this had been refused by Mr Fisher because she was due to commence a period of maternity leave at Christmas.
‘Mr Rayat told her that Mr Fisher had said that as she would only be in the business for four months, a pay rise was not feasible.’
Ms Musguin felt ‘disillusioned’, the tribunal heard. Following the meeting, a revised ‘business proposal’ was produced which stated the £2,000 pay rise would be granted if Ms Musguin ‘assumed additional responsibilities’.
She went on sick leave until her maternity leave, suffering sleep issues, the tribunal heard, and has since left the company.
‘Her evidence was that, as she told Mr Rayat, the damage was done: she was not worthy of a pay rise simply because she was growing a human.
‘The refusal of a pay rise is unfavourable treatment. Even if she was not entitled to a pay rise, the refusal to exercise discretion in favour of giving a pay rise because of impending maternity leave is clearly unfavourable. This was an act of overt discrimination.
The tribunal awarded Musguin £9,000 for injury to feelings.
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