Is my pregnant sister experiencing work discrimination?

[Sandy59]

Hi all,
I’m hoping someone can advise in this area. I’ll try and keep the back story as short as I can.
First of all my sister has gone through a lot of struggles getting pregnant. She’s finally in a pregnancy and has made it to 17 weeks so far which is amazing.
However I believe she’s being treated completely unfairly at work. She had to tell her boss relatively early on about the pregnancy to explain why she was needing time off for appointments etc.
Since her boss has known about the pregnancy a number of things have happened which of course could just be coincidence but I personally believe a lot of it is because of the pregnancy. As a side note, my sister is an unbelievably hard worker, she always has been. She puts everything into her work and is good at what she does. (This isn’t me being biased, she just is a very selfless person when it comes to work, which I suppose is part of the problem)
So the first thing that happened was that someone new was hired in a position higher than her, after she was promised that wouldn’t happen and that ultimately if they needed such a position filling she would be promoted to it. She’s also being made to work over time almost every night (without pay) most nights until about 7 at night.
Most recently she was given a big load of work to get done for a certain deadline. To get it done she decided she would need to stay late one night, however her boss told her not to stay late because she needs to take it easy and look after herself with being pregnant. Sister tried to argue and stay but boss wasn’t having it so she went home. Next day she got in and in a meeting said she was going to need help to get the project done in time. She was allocated someone to help but this person had too much work herself and so didn’t end up helping. So come the end of the day (sister having not taken any breaks all day, not even for lunch) still hadn’t managed to finish. Boss took issue with this and made a big deal in front of the whole office about having to ask the client for more time. Sister left work in tears and rang me telling me about it.
She since has talked to a team leader about these issues, which isn’t actually a pregnancy issue and wasn’t talked about as such. My sister was just telling her that she’s being given too much work with not enough time to finish it in. The team leader relayed this to the boss. Boss has now spoken to my sister telling her she is overreacting because she’s pregnant and that she’s only getting so upset about it all because she’s pregnant.
There’s a couple other things I won’t go into just because it’s info that’s not confirmed yet/my sister shouldn’t technically know about.
I’m sorry this wasn’t short at all I just wanted to explain it all. I’m so worried that the stress she’s under is going to be detrimental to her pregnancy and it’s making me so angry that she’s being treated like this.
Does any of this count as discrimination. Does anyone have any advice on what she could/should do?
Thanks so much to anyone that does read through and reply! Any advice is really appreciated!!

Tribunal assess for discrimination based on evidence provided whether the person (in this case, your sister) was treated in an adverse, humiliating or disadvantageous way compared to other people who don't share their protected characteristic. It can be a difficult thing to determine given that evidence is sometimes isolated incidents, circumstances and activities which are arguably actions executed in the course of the employer running their business.

The less complex discrimination cases tend to be those that are clear-cut events such as "Person A (Woman) was declined a promotion while on mat leave in favour of Person B (Man) because Person B could work long hours, liked banter about football, could drop everything and fly long haul to a client, when Person A could never do all that, due to childcare obligations".

Your sister not taking a break or lunch was a symptom of a root cause, being a tight deadline. She was not forced by her employer not to take a break, in fact it sounds like they encouraged her to look after herself. She should have renegotiated the deadline, and gained agreement with the boss "I can't complete the work by tomorrow as I need at least 2 more days to complete it, can we agree I will give you the report by Wed not Tue".

Leaving the office "in tears" is not a good look. Sorry, but it plays right into their hands and all it does is make them want to tiptoe round her and avoid giving her anything challenging for fear of upsetting her. When was the last time a bloke left the office in tears? See, it does work both ways.

@daisychain01 When I said she left the office in tears I didn’t mean as she was leaving, should have clarified. She only got upset once she had left and was on the phone to me. She never actually flees the office in tears dramatically, she’s not like that. Also her office is mostly female, her boss is female too.
But I agree with you that she needs to say when they’re giving her too much work that she needs longer.
And with the being encouraged to take it easy, yes her boss is saying that but then is later berating her and getting annoyed at her for not having more done. But I do get what you’re saying with her needing to say when an unrealistic deadline is set and I think she knows that now.
Although her boss has also said to her that she’s only struggling to get the work finished because she’s pregnant, which isn’t true at all, it has nothing to do with her being pregnant.
Thanks for your advise on the discrimination situation. I can see how it’s a difficult thing to identify. It’s just frustrating seeing my sister being treated like she is. Hopefully something will get resolved.

Something helpful to suggest to your sister as you are close and clearly supportive of her, is for her to take some assertiveness and leadership training. It will stand her in good stead to develop her presence and use techniques to build resilience that makes people take her seriously and respect her.

Did the company advertise the more senior role - was your sister given the opportunity to apply or was it presented as a done deal? Was it an internal or external hire? The other stuff doesn't sounds great but this stands out for me as where she might have been discriminated against if she'd previously been told she had a good chance of promotion.

So the first thing that happened was that someone new was hired in a position higher than her, after she was promised that wouldn’t happen and that ultimately if they needed such a position filling she would be promoted to it.

It's concerning that they told her they'd just promote her into a position without opening up that higher graded role to all staff to apply. Sounds like their employment processes are completely haywire!