I Want My Job Back

I have no doubt that it is often a considerable inconvenience to an employer to have to make the necessary arrangements to keep a women’s job open for her while she is absent from work in order to have a baby, but this is a price that has to be paid as part of the social and legal recognition of the equal status of women in the workplace. Is that my view? No, these are the much more authoritative observations of Lord Griffiths, a House of Lords Judge.

A woman on maternity leave is entitled to return to “the job in which she was employed before her absence”. That sounds pretty straightforward and in many cases it is, but what about this recent case?

The Claimant was employed as a primary school teacher. The school typically rotated class teachers every two years. When the Claimant went off to have her baby she was teaching the reception class. When she came back she was told that she would be teaching Year 2. She brought a claim on the grounds that this was not the same job.

What do you think? Is teaching the reception class the same job as teaching Year 2? Was the Claimant’s job being a primary school teacher, both before and after her maternity leave?

The answer in this case was that she was employed as a primary school teacher and was given a primary school teaching job when she came back to work. This meant she had been allowed to return to the same job and so her claim failed. The key point in this case was that the school customarily expected teachers to rotate classes, so the Claimant wasn’t treated differently from her colleagues.

However, employers have to be careful; a secretary to the managing director who is asked to come back working as a general typist, even if her pay is not cut, is likely to have a valid claim.

If a woman is returning from maternity leave and you want her to come back to a different job, analyse the extent of any changes to the nature of the job, where it is to be done and the capacity or station of the job. The greater the difference, the more likely a claim will succeed.

For women returning to work; don’t suffer in silence. If you’re unhappy with the job you’re asked to return to, discuss it with your manager.

Published 23/05/2007.