A woman in Switzerland has successfully sued her employer after she was fired on the day she returned from maternity leave. The industrial tribunal handling the case ruled that her dismissal amounted to discrimination.

Woman fired 15 minutes after returning to work

The woman in question, Christine, had just returned from her maternity leave on January 4, 2021, when she lost her job. Just 15 minutes after she returned to work at the watchmaker in question, she was summoned to the office where her employer told her that she was fired.

In her termination, the watchmaker said that she had been fired due to a “breach of trust”. Upon enquiry, her employer accused her of falsifying her working hours, but sensing the claim was bogus and she had in fact been fired because of her pregnancy, she started to pursue legal action. In her view, the matter fell under the Federal Act on Equality between Women and Men (LEg), which stipulates that workers cannot be discriminated against on the basis of being or having recently been pregnant.

In the case, the company asserted that Christine had “stolen” eight hours and 51 minutes of working time by falsifying her hours between September 2019 and February 2020. In response, she admitted that she had been imprecise but did not incorrectly log the data on purpose. She added that the company had given her no notice before being fired and that she had several boosts to her salary, bonuses and promotions before she became pregnant.

Firing after maternity leave ruled as discriminatory

Initially, in January 2023 the Industrial Tribunal ruled that while the dismissal was unfair, it was not discriminatory. They ruled that the employer should pay a sum of 15.000 francs, but they then quickly appealed the decision.

Now, in documents recently revealed to 20 Minuten, the court ruled in favour of the employee again, this time adding that the incident did amount to discrimination. They ordered the company to pay her 35.700 francs at a 5 percent interest for every year since the dismissal.

Cases of discrimination remain under-reported in Switzerland

This incident remains one of the few cases where accusations of discrimination end up in court. Official data provided by the judiciary in Canton Geneva noted that 34 cases related to LEg were reported in 2024, while Canton Vaud recorded just 10 cases in 2022 and 2023 combined.

Speaking to 20 Minuten, the Unia trade union argued that these low rates do not reflect the real scale of discrimination against pregnant women. They concluded by citing a report from the Swiss government published in 2018, which found that "more than 10 percent of women say that their employer discussed the possibility of terminating their employment contract by mutual agreement when they announced their pregnancy, or that they discussed dismissal at the end of maternity leave."