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The following article appeared in The Daily Telegraph of London on April 26, 1996.
The Electronic Telegraph 26 April 1995
Woman 'lost job because she planned to marry'
By Andrew Riley
A CLOTHING firm run by members of a Christian sect was so puritanical it would not employ married women because it believed their place was in the home, an industrial tribunal heard yesterday. If employees cohabited they would be deemed guilty of gross misconduct and liable to instant dismissal, it was claimed.
Lesley Jordan, 30, is claiming unfair dismissal on grounds of sexual discrimination against NMC Workwear in Doncaster, South Yorks, run by members of the Plymouth Brethren. Miss Jordan told the hearing that the owners, father and son Brian and Richard Long, and four of the firm's seven employees were devout sect members. "They all had Bibles on their desks and then Brian and Richard put one on my desk and later asked me to go to religious meetings," she said.
The Plymouth Brethren, founded in 1831, number about 14,000 in Britain and recognise no order of clergy or ministers as distinct from the laity. Miss Jordan claimed she lost her job as sales office co-ordinator last August after she told Brian Long that she was engaged to be married. He allegedly told her: "You will have to leave because we don't believe in married women working."
Miss Jordan told the tribunal that the value her employers placed on the sanctity of marriage was emphasised to her in 1992, a year after she joined the company as a receptionist. She said that when she booked time off work for a holiday, Brian Long had asked her where she was going and with whom. When she told him that she was going with Ian McGrevy, her 32-year-old boyfriend, he lectured her on sexual morality, she told the tribunal.
'If we shared a room it would be difficult to resist having sex'
Miss Jordan said after the case: "He used the phrases 'the weakness of the flesh' and the 'sins of the flesh', and said that if we shared a room it would be difficult to resist having sex. It was very stern and it was as if he was preaching. I felt that it was a lecture. I was so surprised and shocked at being told off as if I was a 16-year-old I just didn't say anything. It went in one ear and out of the other."
The following year she decided to live with Mr McGrevy, the tribunal heard. Knowing she would be breaking the terms of her contract, she left the firm. But in January 1994 she was offered another job as a sales office co-ordinator when the owners heard that she wanted to return.
When she was asked by the company whether she was still living with her boyfriend, she said she was with her parents at their home in Edenthorpe, Doncaster.
Six months later her boyfriend proposed marriage, the tribunal heard. But Miss Jordan said that when she told Brian Long about her engagement he told her she would have to leave the firm because he did not believe in married women working. At the tribunal Mr Long denied having made the statement. Richard Long said in evidence that he had never heard his father make the remark.
Miss Jordan, who now lives with Mr McGrevy in Goldthorpe, near Doncaster, said she told them that she would not be getting married for a year and they agreed she could work until Christmas. But two months later she was handed her pay cheque and told she could go. Redundancy was not mentioned, she said.
Brian Long told the tribunal that the clause in the contract barring cohabitation had been removed at the beginning of the year. He added that there was no ban on married women working at the firm and that married women had been and still were employed by the company. He said Miss Jordan had been made redundant because the company had suffered financial difficulties and redundancies had been necessary. The tribunal reserved its decision to a later date.
After the hearing on Monday, Miss Jordan had claimed that company sales representatives were banned from playing music in their cars and that women employees were not allowed to wear trousers. Brian Long declined to comment on these allegations, save to say that the firm had a uniform for women employees but "they do not all wear it".
The article may still be on-line at The Electronic Telegraph
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