Employer sacks woman for office time obesity op
A woman in Österlen in southern Sweden has been sacked for taking time off work to go through with corrective surgery against the wishes of her employer.
The woman, who is in her late twenties, recently went through gastric bypass surgery and started to lose weight at a rapid pace, according to local paper Skånskan.
The weight loss in turn led to a series of complications with the superfluous skin, which did not shrink as fast as the woman’s girth and subsequently became infected and full of painful sores.
However, according to the paper the woman received a call from her physician at the beginning of the summer promising her an operation a week or so later, as there had been a cancellation.
The woman jumped at the chance of having her superfluous skin removed and agreed, informing her employer that she would need to have a few days off.
But when she reminded her employer of the planned absence the day before surgery, he told her that she could under no conditions have the time off.
Not able to cancel at such short notice, the woman went ahead with the procedure anyway, only to be told afterwards that there was no need for her to return to work.
After several weeks of negotiations with her employers regarding notice period, holiday pay, and whether or not she had been fired, the woman decided to take her former place of work to court and sued her employer for damages to the value of 155,000 kronor ($23,469).
However, according to Skånskan, the employer is of the opinion that it was a question of a “privately funded beauty operation” and that they were in the right to sack her on “personal grounds”.
The matter was eventually settled outside of court when the employer agreed to pay the woman 82,500 kronor in damages.
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The woman, who is in her late twenties, recently went through gastric bypass surgery and started to lose weight at a rapid pace, according to local paper Skånskan.
The weight loss in turn led to a series of complications with the superfluous skin, which did not shrink as fast as the woman’s girth and subsequently became infected and full of painful sores.
However, according to the paper the woman received a call from her physician at the beginning of the summer promising her an operation a week or so later, as there had been a cancellation.
The woman jumped at the chance of having her superfluous skin removed and agreed, informing her employer that she would need to have a few days off.
But when she reminded her employer of the planned absence the day before surgery, he told her that she could under no conditions have the time off.
Not able to cancel at such short notice, the woman went ahead with the procedure anyway, only to be told afterwards that there was no need for her to return to work.
After several weeks of negotiations with her employers regarding notice period, holiday pay, and whether or not she had been fired, the woman decided to take her former place of work to court and sued her employer for damages to the value of 155,000 kronor ($23,469).
However, according to Skånskan, the employer is of the opinion that it was a question of a “privately funded beauty operation” and that they were in the right to sack her on “personal grounds”.
The matter was eventually settled outside of court when the employer agreed to pay the woman 82,500 kronor in damages.
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