At company meetings she was the one who had to prepare coffee for everyone. Or at least that’s what her boss told her to do, claiming it was her job “as a woman.” It is one of the episodes that emerge in the sentence with which the Treviso Labor Court annulled the dismissal of a manager of Keyline in Conegliano, left at home in July 2024 while she was pregnant. Judge Maddalena Saturni, in fact, recognized “discrimination damage” committed by the owners of the company and her family members, ordering compensation of 50 thousand euros in favor of the professional.
“You don’t deserve the management and the position of Group Sales Manager – her superior told her -, I need a man and an experienced one at that”. And in addition to expressing the need for a collaborator of the opposite sex, her boss would also have excluded her “from projects and actions in the commercial field”. He would then also demand availability outside of working hours (“with phone calls at night”) and would finally fail to notify her when meetings were organized with his own subordinates.
“To this – writes the judge – also the dismissal” which, although declared null and void due to the violation of the rules protecting maternity, “can be qualified as the last and extreme act of discrimination based on sex” of the manager. The Court, therefore, agreed with her in complaining of “harassing, bullying and seriously offensive conduct on the part of the company’s top management, also constituting acts of discrimination”.
The sentence highlights how these episodes “constitute ‘harassment’ as they are unwanted (for any worker, including a manager), carried out for reasons related to sex” and that overall they are “clearly disqualifying and oppressive conduct because it is repeated and continued, with greater or lesser intensity”. Finally, the dismissal was canceled as there was no “serious negligence” such as to allow the provision to be made against a pregnant worker.
Furthermore, there is a “lack of disciplinary importance” in the conduct that was contested against her, i.e. the use of company credit cards for personal needs, “a practice known and permitted among the various members of the families” and “indeed suggested and approved by the directors and the president”.
Reproduction reserved © Copyright ANSA