My employment will terminate after my return from family leave, while my substitute has been regularised

I have been on maternity leave and parental leave, followed by two years of child care leave. At the beginning of my child care leave, my substitute was regularised. My employer said they have no work to offer when I return from my child care leave. The employer intends to terminate my employment due to the permanent diminishing of work. Is the termination of my employment legal?

Employees are primarily entitled to resume their previous work after family leave. If the employee cannot resume his/her previous work, the employer must offer the employee equivalent tasks in accordance with the employment contract or, if this is not possible, other work in accordance with the employment contract.

Prohibited forms of discrimination are specified in the Act on Equality between Women and Men. Discrimination shall be considered prohibited under the Act if the employer

upon deciding on the duration or continuation of an employment relationship acts in such a way that the person finds herself/himself in a less favourable position on the basis of pregnancy or childbirth or for some other gender-related reason, or terminates or otherwise discontinues an employment relationship of an employee on the basis of gender.

The regulations concerning the grounds for terminating employment are laid down in the Employment Contracts Act. Employment may be terminated only on weighty and proper grounds; when terminating an employment for financial or production-related reasons, the work must have diminished substantially and permanently.

The employer should have made a fixed-term employment contract with the substitute. Regularising the substitute leads to the violation of the regulation on the employee’s right to resume work after family leave; furthermore, the regularisation led to the current need to terminate employment. The termination of employment described in the example is unlawful, because the diminishing of work was caused by the regularisation decision. Furthermore, the termination of employment described above fulfils the definition of prohibited discrimination provided in the Act on Equality between Women and Men.