M.J. Bale axed its retail boss while she was on maternity leave. Now she’s fighting back

A senior leader at Australian menswear brand M.J. Bale has accused the retailer of unlawfully sacking her, alleging she was made redundant days before her scheduled return from parental leave.

Former head of retail and customer relations Phebe Bartle led a national team of more than 450 people, responsible for M.J. Bale’s sales and profitability. However, in September, five months into maternity leave, the company claimed her role was redundant and it was seeking a “flatter organisational structure”.

In her legal action, Bartle will be seeking damages exceeding $200,000 as well as compensation, penalties and an order threatening M.J. Bale’s B-Corp certification which is a signal of high standards of corporate social responsibility. Bartle is alleging unlawful adverse action; discrimination based on family responsibilities and pregnancy; and breaches of national employment standards.

Crucially, she alleges the company failed to follow legal requirements to make someone on parental leave redundant by not properly consulting her about decisions affecting her role. Her case relies on general protections under the act because Bartle’s $250,000-plus salary prevented a standard unfair dismissal claim.

Bartle also claims the redundancy wasn’t an operational necessity, and she wasn’t offered a comparably senior role despite new positions being created and filled during her leave, alongside new international redeployment opportunities.

The legal action coincides with growth and international expansion for the Sydney-headquartered business. This month, the company’s first overseas physical store is expected to open in London, near the historic Saville Row tailoring district, as it also eyes a Vietnam office to support its operations.

Founded in 2009, M.J. Bale now employs nearly 400 full-time equivalent staff across 90 stores and dozens more department store concessions, according to its most recent corporate regulator filings. Many employees are part-time or casual retail staff, resulting in the higher headcount Bartle was responsible for.

In the 2025 financial year, its net profit after tax grew 23 per cent to $4.35 million, from $103.94 million in total revenue. It remains in private hands, with founder Matt Jensen the largest shareholder.

Parental leave redundancy

In a Fair Work Commission application foreshadowing court proceedings, Bartle, an M.J. Bale employee since 2019 who previously took maternity leave in 2021, claims the business failed to honour a return to work guarantee for staff on parental leave. She commenced this latest leave in March after the birth of her second child, Sofia.

Eager to return to routine, the 43-year-old began negotiating her return in July, holding discussions and then face-to-face meetings with management from August. During a follow-up meeting, she was informed a company-wide operational review could affect her role.

But by September 9, the company confirmed her September 22 return date and unchanged pay rate. Bartle agreed to a staged resumption of initially three days weekly, increasing to four by October, before returning full-time for November’s holiday shopping period.

However, on September 17, at a meeting with M.J. Bale management, Bartle was told her role was redundant. A formal redundancy letter was sent to her on September 21, which was dated September 18.

Bartle claims M.J. Bale then reclassified her August and early September return to work meetings and calls as job “consultations” – a statutory requirement to legally make someone on parental leave redundant. She also believes her flexible working requests factored into the redundancy. M.J. Bale denies this.

After informing her of the redundancy, the business then suggested she apply for a junior regional manager role, which was three levels below her executive-level status. Bartle said this amounted to a failure to offer a comparable role, as required by the law, but M.J. Bale noted this was its attempt to explore redeployment opportunities as required under the act.

In M.J. Bale’s response to claims – seen by this masthead in emails sent by the Harmers Workplace Lawyers representing the retailer to Bartle’s representative Hector Douglas HR Legal – the company said its consultations with her were genuine, and that its decision to make the role redundant came after seeing how the business was able function during her five-month parental leave absence.

“Having reviewed how the changed structure was operating, M.J. Bale concluded that a separate layer of retail leadership between the chief operating officer and the state managers was no longer required,” the retailer’s lawyers said. “M.J. Bale decided to retain this flatter structure on an ongoing basis as it allowed faster decision making, gave the state managers direct access to the chief operating officer and reduced management costs.”

Tony Pick, a principal at Hector Douglas representing Bartle, questioned M.J. Bale’s view that his client’s role was redundant given their announced growth plans.

“M.J. Bale is literally expanding internationally and yet it is getting rid of Phebe literally on the eve of her return date,” Pick said.

He was also critical of the retailer’s B-Corp certification given its alleged breaches of employment standards. Bartle is seeking an order for M.J. Bale to submit details of her case to B-Corp’s governing body to reconsider its certification for the retailer. “Companies who treat working mums like this should not be allowed to crow about their ESG [ethical, social and governance] credentials,” Pick said.

Bartle said M.J. Bale’s actions had led her to one conclusion. “Fundamentally I felt they didn’t want me back.” She described her former employer’s alleged attempt to characterise her return to work talks as statutory consultations as “dirty tactics”.

“I have just had a little girl and at the end of the day I want to make the world a better place for her,” she said of her decision to fight her dismissal. “When we talk about gender equality, do we really have it?”

In response to questions from this masthead, an M.J. Bale spokesperson said the company intended to defend Bartle’s claims “through the appropriate legal process”. “As the matter is ongoing, we are not in a position to provide any further comment at this stage,” they said.

The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.