Maternity Discrimination

Maternity Leave Discrimination Solicitors

At a time when you should be looking forward to the birth of your child, being discriminated against on the basis of your maternity leave is often incredibly stressful and can amount to a claim for maternity leave discrimination. With our free initial enquiry service, we will take the time to listen to you and advise you whether you can make a claim for discrimination. If you can, we will take care of the claim for you so that you can concentrate on remaining healthy for your new child.

Types Of Maternity Leave Discrimination?

There are a variety of actions that can amount to maternity leave discrimination, including:

• Being sidelined as a result of your pregnancy
• Requests for flexible working refused without reason or explanation
• Redundancy (where you are selected on the grounds of your pregnancy)
• Restructuring during your maternity leave absence
• Failure to carry out health and safety risk assessments

Your Maternity Rights

Risk Assessment

Once you announce your pregnancy your employer must carry out a health and safety risk assessment. If the assessment highlights any issues, they must make immediate changes to your working practices, offer you an alternative role or send you home on full pay until changes can be made.

Maternity Leave

You are entitled to 12 months maternity leave as of right regardless of hours worked or length of service. You are entitled to 26 weeks Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML) which you can start up to 11 weeks before your due date. You are then entitled to Additional Maternity Leave (AML) of 26 weeks which starts from the end of the OML period.

You are entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP); the level and durations of SMP depends on your individual circumstances.

Redundancy

If you are selected for redundancy solely for the reason of your maternity leave, you can claim maternity leave discrimination. You can be legitimately selected for redundancy during maternity leave only if your position is genuinely redundant.

Discrimination Case Study

We acted for Mrs H who won a six figure award from the Employment Tribunal after she had to resign from her employment due to a sustained campaign of discrimination and harassment by a senior member of staff. She became ill and was unable to do her work; we argued that she was discriminated against because of her sex, her disability resulting from illness caused by harassment and unfair constructive dismissal. These three areas of employment law are not the easiest to pursue and substantial documentation, medical reports and legal arguments were used to support her claim. After a five day hearing, the Employment Tribunal found totally in her favour and at a subsequent hearing to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to her, a sum well in excess of six figures was awarded.

The employer then appealed to the Employment Appeals Tribunal in London and straightaway lost the appeal against the finding of unfair constructive dismissal. Further legal arguments were put forward by us in respect of the sexual and disability discrimination appeals and the matter was eventually settled out of court to our client's satisfaction. This case attracted national interest and various articles were published in local as well as national newspapers.

You Have Maternity Leave Rights

If you are pregnant and employed you have maternity leave rights. If you feel that you are suffering or have suffered discrimination as a result of your maternity, we will give you our expert opinion and provide you with a list of the options available to you.

There is no charge for our initial telephone consultation, so please complete your details using our Online Enquiry Form or call us free on 0808 178 9002 and we will soon be in touch with you.

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