Be aware of maternity rights

As many of you will know, the law prohibiting sex discrimination has been around for over thirty years. Probably the clearest area of sex discrimination involves pregnancy, for the blindingly obvious reason that men don’t tend to get pregnant. As a result, I find it bewildering when there are new cases before the employment tribunals about discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy. Surely every employer out there should be getting the law right by now?

Let’s look at a recent case and see what you think.

S had been employed as a training manager an clerk. Following a restructuring, the number of clerks positions reduced, although a new post of manager was created. S applied for the new post and was unsuccessful. S was then away from work on sick leave and then on maternity leave. There were discussions about other possible positions for S, but she believed that none of them were suitable and so rejected them. S resigned and claimed constructive dismissal, sex discrimination and breach of the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999.

In case you’re not familiar with the Maternity Regulations, they say that women must not subjected to a detriment for taking maternity leave. The Regulations also say that an employer must offer suitable alternative employment to a woman whose job has become redundant whilst she is on maternity leave.

What do you think the Tribunal said?

I’m sure it will come has no shock to regular readers of these articles that the Tribunal found in favour of S on all counts. I’m amazed that the employer then appealed the decision and I’m entirely unsurprised that the Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the original decision.

To any employers out there who haven’t yet realised; treat any employee who is pregnant or on maternity leave very carefully. If you subject her to any detriment, you will lose. It’s that simple.

One final point, to cheer up any employers thinking that they don’t stand a chance of getting it right: S’ employer was the Secretary of State for Justice, so even they get it wrong sometimes!

Published 22/10/2007. The author of this article is Jon Loney