Anyone been made redundant when on Mat Leave?

[Bellared]

It happened to me last August and I'm still looking for work. The company I worked for suggested jobs at depots I could not get to and they knew that but they were vacancies that would not have been vacant when I finished my ML in the December IYKWIM.

Just being nosey really and wanted to know what you did about it if it happened to you.

I feel like writing to them and shouting at them

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

Was this August 08 or August 09, as there are time limits on when you can raise a grievance / go to tribunal

[flowerybeanbag]

Not sure what you mean by 'vacancies that would not have been vacant', and as NSF says there is a 3 month time limit on bringing a tribunal claim. Leaving that aside, do you actually feel they did anything illegal? Was the process unfair, were there suitable jobs available but not offered to you, or anything else wrong?

[Bellared]

Sorry, I don't always explain myself properly . It was August '08 they got rid. They suggested vacancies that were vacant at the time but DS was only a few weeks old and I wanted to finish my leave (Dec 08) first.

[preciouslillywhite]

It happened to me when I was off work with ds 12 years ago...my employers merged my job into two other people's and offered me a less good one.

I went to the Law Centre (this was in the olden days, mind, when you could just turn up and talk to someone)- the solicitor went for constructive dismissal which, when I saw my manager, was apparently what they'd been expecting me to do. We settled on a figure when it was obvious they weren't going to budge and give me my old job back.

Always had suspicions that it was down to a bit of old fashioned sexism- ie during the process of birth inevitably half my brains had also fallen out

[Bellared]

The olden days - he he, I like it. Half of my brains have fallen out due to not being in work!

Hi flowery, when I've spoken to family about it I just feel more annoyed at them as I was the one who trained most of the staff, did everyone elses job, yada yada. The jobs that they did offer (I was in Sales/Account Exec.) were Customer Services and other similar roles would have been great if I could actually get to the depots, they knew I relied on pubic transport and would have found it difficult to get there.

What happened is another courier firm took them over and put their staff in place and got rid of us (even though they didn't really know the customer base that well or how they operated etc)

Do you think that they could be in the wrong getting rid whilst I was on leave even though I feel that they suggested vacancies I felt they knew were inaccessible to me?

I've for some reason been thinking about it lately and have gotten annoyed about it.

[flowerybeanbag]

It's impossible to tell from what you've said whether they did anything wrong tbh.

There's nothing illegal about making someone redundant while they are on maternity leave, provided obviously the redundancy situation is genuine and a fair and reasonable procedure is followed.

There's nothing wrong in offering you unsuitable vacancies either, in fact it's good practice to make any and all vacancies accessible to employees at risk of redundancy.

When on maternity leave you do have a bit of extra protection in a redundancy situation in that if there is a vacancy available that is suitable, it must be offered to you. So the fact that they offered you things that you feel weren't suitable in a way doesn't matter, what would matter would be if there was something available that was suitable, but they chose not to offer it to you.

[Bellared]

Thanks FBB . I was being more nosey than anything and just wanted to see who else it had happened to. One the brighter side of it we got a new fridge out of the money!