Teacher at Catholic-run school 'fired for having IVF' wins her job back
Teacher at Catholic-run school 'fired for having IVF' wins her job back
A TEACHER at a convent-run primary school who was 'made redundant' after having IVF has won her job back after taking the centre to court.
The tutor, who had been at the Salvador-Maristas school in Bilbao since 2005, started fertility treatment in 2009, the last of which was in May 2014, which the centre was aware of.
A month after her final course of IVF successfully got her pregnant, she was told in writing that she had been made redundant 'for financial reasons'.
Although the reception and kindergarten classes had suffered losses in 2012 and 2013, the overall year-end results showed the school was in profit at the time.
The Basque regional High Court of Justice found the school had not 'offered a reasonable and objective justification' for the teacher's being 'let go' and that it had not been sufficiently proven that her job being ended was due to motives other than her IVF treatment.
As a Catholic centre, IVF goes against the religious doctrines of this brand of the Christian Church, but the judge also considered that the teacher had been discriminated against on the grounds of her gender, since a man would have been able to have a baby via IVF without the school needing to know.
The High Court of Justice awarded her compensation of €34,037 or readmission to her job, without back pay of wages.
But the teacher appealed to the Supreme Court, which declared her redundancy null and void and ordered her immediate readmission, together with a lump-sum payment of all unearned salaries since August 31, 2013 when she was fired.
The photograph shows children in a school classroom.
