Kelly v Leonardo Employment Tribunal Thread 3

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Ms BM Kelly v Leonardo UK Limited Employment Tribunal – hearing Case number: 8001497/2024

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Abbreviations:
C or MK - Claimant, Maria Kelly
NC - Naomi Cunningham, barrister for C
KW - Katy Wedderburn, solicitor for C
R or L - Respondent. Leonardo UK
ST - Susanne Tanner KC, barrister for R
J - Judge
P - Panel member
GC - gender critical
GI - gender identity
AL - Andrew R Letton VP People Shared Services Leonardo - respondent witness

Tribunal Tweets coverage here

https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/kelly-vs-leonardo-uk-ltd

Thread 1 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?page=1

Thread 2 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5420656-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-thread-2?page=1

This talk of Andy and how decent he may or may not be has reminded me of an exchange I had with a senior manager I was friends with. At the time we were both Labour, and I asked him what he was making of their shitshow around this. He basically said he hadn't thought about it much, and didn't have "skin in the game". I said I'm sure his mother and wife would be chuffed to hear that.
We were a predominantly female work force, at least 90%.

I have sent a card to her solicitor’s address

Do you know for sure that the numbers of cases is increasing since the Supreme Court ruling

This

If I was a customer I'd want to know what other laws Leonardo break when they don't like them

My fantasy response to Andy's "That's your opinion"....

NC: Are there any other Health & Safety laws Leonardo choses to ignore?
AL: As a major engineering firm L take H&S very seriously
NC: So just the ones that only apply to women then.

My view on the postcard issue is that we should all send two. One to Maria via her solicitor and one to the MD of Leonardo UK to express our concern at the way they treat their female members of staff and to point out that LUK put itself into disrepute by breaking the law.

I think that came up, and there was mention of urinals making this inappropriate? But maybe I'm imagining this.

Thanks to all the posters who have clicked agree, thanks or love on my PP but lets please get back on track now.

Lovely points and memories which are leaving me thinking. Are you saying that people don't do plans when cooking complicated meals? Next you're going to tell me that they don't stick them up on the kitchen cabinet with masking tape, cross each step off as you go and then set the timer to remind you when you need to do the next thing. Am I really that scatterbrained that I need that? (Probably best not to answer the last bit.)

I don’t because complicated meal prep sequencing is one of the few things I CAN hold in my head. If I need to involve other family members I have to write instructions for them because stopping to explain breaks my flow. I prefer to cook Christmas dinner on my own and shoo everyone out of the kitchen.

I can remember lists, no trouble, but I 'need' the comfort blanket when I try a new recipe. A lot of them are in wipe clean plastic sleeves and I keep a wipe-off pen so as I add ingredients or follow stages I cross them off. In my defence, I spend a lot of my life dealing with people who claim they only need me for a few seconds or it'll only take five minutes. It never does...

I think that came up, and there was mention of urinals making this inappropriate? But maybe I'm imagining this.

I'm not sure if she asked directly. So if all the urinals were taken out and they only had mixed sex provision, and female, would they like it? Suppose they had done this because of three trans men in the firm.

Ha, found it!

J: [asks re the signage change and checking the number of cubicles] need to understand - ladies rebadged unisex, gents not rebadged?
AL: Not rebadged because it has urinals in it.

They wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing the men. If it got to the point it was even suggested, they’d call it all out a load of codswallop.

Thrashing the comfort and dignity (and even safety) of women is all fine and well though.

But she didn't ask whether he would have found it acceptable. He just thought they couldn't do it.

Professors
I appreciate that the conversation has moved on a lot, so this will be a short post. I had an online conversation this afternoon with two people who studied at Cambridge, one of whom works there as an academic.
They suggested that being able to call someone a professor is very helpful when applying for grants, especially from the EU where they would expect at least one person from the research team to be a professor.

[Leonardo’s] the solution was to ensure there was no single sex female toilets anywhere on site.

This is really important.

Men retain their ability to informally meet, chat, have private 1:1 time, and key small group ‘off the record’ confabs in the bogs. This could be for social bonding reasons or professional bonding reasons.

Women lose all their ability to do likewise. It is blatantly unfair in an industry where men outnumber women at the scale of 80:20%.

Genuine question: I don't understand how rebadging toilets was meant to be a solution in Leonardo's view? Because if you knew it was mixed sex, then you couldn't be surprised at seeing a man? It can't be that...

Even assuming TWAW (and of course they're not) there were definitely no women's toilets anymore?

Yes I think that was exactly their "solution". Mens stays men's as it has urinals. Women's gets rebadged as mixed as then a woman can't say they were surprised by a man in there.

They put a lock on the outside of the rebadged secret one with 2 cubicles, so in theory a woman could lock herself in by herself for privacy so no men could walk in. But that also locked away the cleaner's cupboard with all their equipment.

I think it was the rebadging of the Secret Squirrel loos that makes Leonardo look mean and vindictive, rather than simply incompetent and too lazy to research the law.

I did wonder whether there was some pressure form above for them to get onto the Stonewall top 100 employers or something.

Well, they had three trans identifying males on staff that HR wrongly believed had a legal right to use any toilet labelled female, and they knew women didn't like having the males in there - far from no complaints, they'd had surveys saying the women hated the idea of sharing their toilets with males and now they had MK asking awkward questions about toilet policies.

So they removed all female badging as then women couldn't say they weren't warned that their toilets might now have a male in there with them. And if they didn't like that, they could use the secret squirrel ones (also now rebadged unisex) and lock the outer door for privacy. A lot of men wrongly think (if they think about it at all) that it's no big deal to have the women's toilets be unisex as everyone's in a cubicle in there anyway, rather than standing at urinals.

This only works if you conveniently forget that the women have a right to sufficient provision of single sex toilets at work under the 1992 workplace regs, and/or if you think that sex now legally means gender in all circumstances, a la Stonewall Law - which was the position for many, many organisations, and even lawyers and judges prior to FWS. And unfortunately, still is the (incorrect) position for many people.

At all times, follow the money!

F unbelievable. If that's it, I'm losing my moderate empathy for Andy R here. Even with all the brainwashing etc etc this cannot have been in good faith.

"oh you complain about sharing with a man stealthily? Let's just make it official then"

They put a lock on the outside of the rebadged secret one with 2 cubicles, so in theory a woman could lock herself in by herself for privacy so no men could walk in. But that also locked away the cleaner's cupboard with all their equipment.

Remind me again who is responsible for this shambles?
Leonardo is a global security company that realises multi-domain technological capabilities in Aerospace, Defence, and Security.
😏

I have heard (and not dared or trusted myself to ask for clarification) this alteration plan referred to with an eye twinkle as 'G and T toilets'. Once only. Not in any way connected to Leonardo.
I accept this could mean something very different from what my mind went to, I am not a building project expert.
But this was the moment that made me too angry to try to see both sides.