Woman’s miscarriage likely a result of ‘work conditions’

A pregnant worker suffered a miscarriage after failing in her repeated requests to be transferred away from duties that involved exposure to adhesive chemicals and heavy lifting.

Her gynaecologist later confirmed her miscarriage was likely to have been the result of exposure to her working conditions.

Monka Samolis took a case against her employer, Celestica Ireland of Ballybrit, Galway, arising from her tragic loss. A rights commissioner found in her favour and the company appealed the decision to the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

The tribunal hearing concluded in January and its report has now confirmed the decision of the Rights Commissioner and increased an initial award in favour of Ms Samolis to €10,000.

It said: “The tribunal is satisfied that based on this evidence there was a clear breach of section 18 of the Maternity Protection Act by the appellant company and accordingly the tribunal finds that the appeal by the appellant company fails.”

Section 18 of the Act requires an employer to move a pregnant employee to alternative work if a risk assessment shows unacceptable risks for her. If this is not possible, the employee must be granted health and safety leave.

Ms Samolis told the tribunal that she was employed as a production operative by Celestica Ireland from June 2007. She worked in Zone 1 of the production line and her work involved heavy lifting and exposure to adhesive chemicals.

The Galway site mainly integrates plastics, metals and electronics for products such as medical devices and printer consumables.

She became aware she was pregnant on January 20, 2010 and told her supervisor the following day. She asked to be moved to Zone 2 of the production line.

The work in Zone 2 involved final inspection work and did not involve lifting or exposure to chemicals. Her supervisor had replied “leave it to me”.

Ms Samolis said she also asked for a risk assessment to be undertaken but this was not done. She was never told not to work with adhesives or to refrain from heavy lifting.

She again met with her supervisor on January 28. He told her not to worry about the adhesive. She spoke to him once again on Feb 4 or 5 and he told her he understood her frustration at not being moved.

She felt ill on February 12 and reported sick for work on the following day. She went to hospital on February 14 and suffered a miscarriage. She believed her miscarriage was caused by the work situation to which she was exposed.

A medical assessment form from her consultant gynaecologist, which was opened to the Tribunal, confirmed that the miscarriage was likely to have resulted from exposure to her working conditions.

A female co-worker, who was also employed as a production operative, told the Tribunal that she had two miscarriages during her ten years with Celestica.

On her third pregnancy, when she told her doctor of the nature of her work, she was certified as being medically unfit for work for the first three months of her pregnancy.

When she returned in January 2010, she asked her supervisor to have a risk assessment carried out immediately. In mid-February, she was given information about adhesives and another management figure told her the company did not have a policy in relation to treatment of pregnant employees.

Celstica’s main customer did have such a policy and management was going to copy it.

Following a risk assessment, carried out when she was seven months pregnant, she was moved to a quieter production line.

The supervisor told the Tribunal that he had advised Ms Samolis during her first pregnancy in 2009 not to do any heavy lifting and to stay away from adhesives. He did not have a record of this conversation and could not recall if she had asked to move to Zone 2.

The management figure said that when advised of Ms Samolis’ co-worker’s pregnancy in January 2010 he had informed the supervisor of the risks involved. He told him by e-mail that, if a person worked directly with adhesives, that person should be given the opportunity to either work in another area or to be allowed refrain from handling adhesives and also refrain from lifting.

On becoming aware of Ms Samolis’ pregnancy he told the supervisor to adopt the same procedures.

Before she had reported sick on February 13th a verbal risk assessment was carried out, but no record of the assessment was kept by the company. On February 16th the company’s risk assessment procedure became documented.