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A real estate agent in the UK has earned almost £ 185,000 ($ 254,478) in compensation from her former employer after the firm rejected her application for time flexibility, which led her to resign.
A UK labor court judge on Monday ruled on the confirmation of Alice Thompson’s lawsuit against Manors real estate agents in London.
When he wanted to return to work after maternity leave, Thompson had asked him if he could finish work an hour earlier at 5 p.m. and work four days a week, instead of five, to accommodate services. of her daughter’s daycare.
Thompson resigned in December 2019 after his boss rejected the application, according to an Aug. 24 labor court. Thompson struggled to find work after the UK entered the coronavirus closure in March 2020, due to its effect on the real estate market.
The labor court ordered Manors to pay Thompson £ 184,961 as “compensation for indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex”.
The court said the sum included interest, passive and future losses on income and pension contributions, as well as £ 13,500 for “injuries to feelings”, with an additional amount added to cover any income tax payable.
Thompson told the BBC’s “Woman’s Hour” on Tuesday that it had been a “long and exhausting journey”. Thompson said she was pleased to have had some closure on the issue and was pleased with the amount of compensation awarded as the process was “running out” both emotionally and financially.
Thompson said he did not want his daughter to experience the “same treatment in 20, 30 years” when she joins the workplace.
“I would put my heart and soul into a real estate agency career for over a decade in London, which is not a bad feat because it is a fairly male-dominated environment to work in,” Thompson said. “I thought” how do you want moms to have careers and families? It’s 2021, not 1971. “”
Thompson said his flexible job application was not “taken seriously” and that he would have been happy to hear a counter-offer from his employer. Instead, he said his petition was “closed to all avenues, it was not heard, it was not considered and I had no choice but to resign because I could not make it work.”
A Manors spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Thompson said he first engaged with lawyers to work on the case in late 2019 and that while he didn’t know exactly how much the lawsuit cost him in total, he had “definitely reached tens of thousands” of pounds. .
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