redundancy / maternity leave

[Mr_love_monkey]

OK, at present this is an entirely 'What if' situation - butr having been burnt before we want to be prepared.

If Mrs LM tells her work that she is expecting, and wants her maternity leave to start at, for example, the end of march, given she is on a 3 month notice period - what would happen if they attempted to make her redundant and her notice period would finish after she would be on maternity leave? - would they be able to do that?

[Knobbly]

OK, at present this is an entirely 'What if' situation - butr having been burnt before we want to be prepared.

If Mrs LM tells her work that she is expecting, and wants her maternity leave to start at, for example, the end of march, given she is on a 3 month notice period - what would happen if they attempted to make her redundant and her notice period would finish after she would be on maternity leave? - would they be able to do that?

Your best bet is to ring the CAB, but, most employers shy away from any kind of employment issues linked to maternity leave as the employee has far more rights.

[TheDaddy]

Think I'd give Acas (http://www.acas.org.uk/) a ring first if I were you, just in case ;)

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

I thought if you go away on maternity leave your employer is legally obliged to keep your job open till you come back. He cant replace you because you are pregnant, but can get someone to cover you whilst you're on maternity leave.

[jellybaby]

I think it could get complicated. If that position is going to be made redundant then what can you do. The employee would be made redundant whether they were there or away (sick,maternity etc).

ACAS or CAB as has already been suggested

[superbiatch]

AFAIK Mr LM, you need to work in most organisations for a minumum of 2 years before entitlement to full maternity pay. How long has she worked there?

This may help, note i've not had time to read it yet http://www.worksmart.org.uk/rights/maternity_leave

[Chris]

OK, at present this is an entirely 'What if' situation - butr having been burnt before we want to be prepared.

If Mrs LM tells her work that she is expecting, and wants her maternity leave to start at, for example, the end of march, given she is on a 3 month notice period - what would happen if they attempted to make her redundant and her notice period would finish after she would be on maternity leave? - would they be able to do that?

Yes, they would - but AFAIK they would not be able to cicumvent the usual processes of notification and consultation that would apply if she was still at work, and would still be bound by the same rules afterwards - they can't make someone redundant just to get rid of them, and then employ someone else to do the same job.

They would still have to pay her her notice as well, as well as whatever redundancy pay was due. It's not an easy or a cheap way of getting rid of the 'inconvenience' of a pregnant employee, especially with the increased risk of being accused of discriminating against her because she's on maternity leave.

[jonbxx]

Yes, they would - but AFAIK they would not be able to cicumvent the usual processes of notification and consultation that would apply if she was still at work, and would still be bound by the same rules afterwards - they can't make someone redundant just to get rid of them, and then employ someone else to do the same job.

They would still have to pay her her notice as well, as well as whatever redundancy pay was due. It's not an easy or a cheap way of getting rid of the 'inconvenience' of a pregnant employee, especially with the increased risk of being accused of discriminating against her because she's on maternity leave.

Yep, that what we were told when my Mrs was coming up to maternity leave and there were all sorts of shenanigans going on at work.. It's the position that's made redundant, not the person so you can't be made redundant and then replaced.

However, I think you'll find most HR departments wouldn't touch making a person on maternity leave redundant with a 40 foot pole, it's not worth the potential repercussions. Once you're on statutory maternity pay, the costs of keep you on are essentially zero so they'll wait 'til the person comes back. It's a much cheaper solution than cost of lawyers, bad PR, etc.

[TheNorm]

.... It's not an easy or a cheap way of getting rid of the 'inconvenience' of a pregnant employee, especially with the increased risk of being accused of discriminating against her because she's on maternity leave.

What if the post was on a shortlist for redundancy anyway? Should the woman be allowed to stay in post simply because she is pregnant?

[andygrif]

OK, at present this is an entirely 'What if' situation - butr having been burnt before we want to be prepared.

If Mrs LM tells her work that she is expecting, and wants her maternity leave to start at, for example, the end of march, given she is on a 3 month notice period - what would happen if they attempted to make her redundant and her notice period would finish after she would be on maternity leave? - would they be able to do that?

Everyone seems to be considering that the POST may be made redundant, which is unlikely given that she's only just started it.

I think no-one has mentioned the most salient point here which is that your partner is on a three month probationary period. Generally these period are governed by a section of the employment contract that states that at any time during the probabtionary period either party can effectively decide that it's not going to work out and give seven days notice to terminate for no given reason.

That doesn't mean that such a dismissal could not be considered unfair but the chances of a sucessful tribunal outcome would be fairly small.

[Mr_love_monkey]

errr no, she's not just started, she's been there for 2 years - she's on a 3 month notice period, not a 3 month probation.

..anyway, I'm not talking about her being made redundant whilst on maternity leave I know how that all works.

What I'm asking about is if she tells them that she is pregnant, and she plans to go on maternity leave at the end of March - then they start the process of making her redundant, and her notice period (of 3 months) would finish after she would have been on maternity leave.

Anyway, what it appears is that whilst she is on notice she is still a member of staff and has all the benefits accordingly - so what would happen, is that her notice period would stop as soon as she went on maternity leave (and she'd get the maternity pay from her work), and then remainder of her notice period would finish after her maternity leave

[andygrif]

Sorry, my bad! Not long been up and clearly lost the ability to read overnight!

[Mr_love_monkey]

Sorry, my bad! Not long been up and clearly lost the ability to read overnight!

no probs - I get that when I've drunk too much too :)

[Chris]

What if the post was on a shortlist for redundancy anyway? Should the woman be allowed to stay in post simply because she is pregnant?

No, she shouldn't get any favouritism.

[superbiatch]

So she's already started 90 days notice for redundancy - is that right? :confused:

[Chris]

So she's already started 90 days notice for redundancy - is that right? :confused:

Sounds like she might have had her 90 days 'at risk' notice - doesn't mean that she will necessarily be redundant at the end of it.

[superbiatch]

Sounds like she might have had her 90 days 'at risk' notice - doesn't mean that she will necessarily be redundant at the end of it.

Precisely, i've been through that myself just under 12 months ago, still here doing the same job.

[Mr_love_monkey]

So she's already started 90 days notice for redundancy - is that right? :confused:

Sounds like she might have had her 90 days 'at risk' notice - doesn't mean that she will necessarily be redundant at the end of it.

no, not at all - as I say - this is entirely a 'What if' situation - there has been no threat of redundancy directly to anyone - She hasn't told her work yet, and we're just umming and ahhing about when to do it, because last time she was pregnant she was pretty much pushed out of the door as soon as she told them, the project she was supposed to be working on magically vanished over night.
We should have taken them to court over it, but it was right at the beginning of the pregnancy - and there were complications - so the added stress of that wasn't something that we wanted.

So now we are a bit more reluctant to be so quick to tell them, and are working out 'worst case' scenarios - and aiming to do what's right for us, rather than be 'good'.

[Chris]

Well, nature will decide for you soon enough. There is the small matter of your wife's rapidly growing fundus. The more kids she has, the earlier it seems to appear - Mrs T is starting to bloom now and she's just 14 weeks.

There is a legal deadline by which you have to tell your employer, and advise them of your intentions regarding maternity leave, but I don't think it's helpful in this case as she will be very obviously pregnant long before that.

[Mr_love_monkey]

Well, nature will decide for you soon enough. There is the small matter of your wife's rapidly growing fundus. The more kids she has, the earlier it seems to appear - Mrs T is starting to bloom now and she's just 14 weeks.

There is a legal deadline by which you have to tell your employer, and advise them of your intentions regarding maternity leave, but I don't think it's helpful in this case as she will be very obviously pregnant long before that.

Yeah, basically we're looking at telling them sometime between now and 3 weeks later - at the end of the day they're going to react the same way no matter when we tell them - it's more just a case of trying to be forewarned about what might happen, and what our options are.

[SMHarman]

However, I think you'll find most HR departments wouldn't touch making a person on maternity leave redundant with a 40 foot pole, it's not worth the potential repercussions. Once you're on statutory maternity pay, the costs of keep you on are essentially zero so they'll wait 'til the person comes back. It's a much cheaper solution than cost of lawyers, bad PR, etc.That would be about my understanding of this and certainly my experience of the situation in the past.

If a firm is considering downsizing then there is no reason that the pregnant employees should be excluded. Say you have a pool of trainees, if some are pregnant and you need to make some of those trainees redundant then if the pregnant ones are also the poor performing ones you could make them redundant, however HR and the manager would need to be able to stand up and justify that was the reason for the redundancy.