To ask my friend to delay returning from maternity leave by 8 weeks?

[phonicspusher]

I am doing maternity cover for a very good friend of mine and she is planning to return to work when her baby is 7 months old. I was pregnant at the beginning of the job and would have been 36 weeks when she returned but I miscarried this baby (she knows this but is just about the only one that does). I am now pregnant again and will be 22 weeks when she returns. I now will not be eligible for maternity pay because I need to be working during week 29(mat pay is very good where we work - worth around four months salary - which would be brilliant as I have no work and no prospect of work after this!!) . Would it be unreasonable to ask her to consider delaying her return to work for 8 weeks so I could get this pay? Presumably it would be illegal to incentivise this in some way if the delay would leave her short of cash? And how will our friendship survive if she says no - I'm so incredibly anxious about money and devastated about the previous pregnancy not working out and I sort of expect her to understand this - I keed thinking "Well, I'd do it for her..."..And although obviously the thing is, please God, to have a healthy baby I do just think its like a kick in the teeth to have worked in this place for 10 years and be out by 8 weeks for maternity pay... grrrr/arrggh!!! WWYD?

I think we also need to be clear that friend is coming back at 6 months 1 was a/l
do we know friend would get old job back if not

also is there a chance you and friend might one day be competing for same job she might just let it slip then.

Am interested in the 2 year permanamt job thing anyone have a link?

Hatwoman

I don?t know how short term contracts suited her as she has not said. However I am not willing to jump on the ?evil employer? bandwagon based on the simple fact that she worked short term contracts for 10 years. I admit it COULD be shoddy employment standards, but does not necessarily mean it IS. Seemly from what little she has posted here it looks like she might have a case through the proper channels, under UK labour laws

Which is why I, like others, have said. A: don?t ask your friend to lie to get benefits that you are not currently entitled to, and B: seek professional advice to address any injustices and entitlements she is owed.

Who on earth would pass on permanent contracts? Me for one. I have worked in public sector(albeit in Canada) where short term contracts come up as well as long term contracts. I have chosen to remain on short term contracts over secure long term contracts. I did this for 6 years.
When I was working for the health authority, I passed over permanent positions I was eligible for and bid on a short term contracts. Even though they were sometimes the same positions. ( ie a maternity cover came up at the same time as a fulltime position?I bid on the mat cover even though I could have bid on and won the full time) The short term contract allowed me to work full time while I was not in school, and structure my life as I wanted.

It also allowed me to try different positions. If I had taken a permanent position I would have had much less flexibility. I could have chosen to take a permanent contract, and all the benefits that went with it. I chose not to. I didn?t ?put up with it? and many people are just like me happy to work short term contracts for reasons of their own. If we regret it later that?s on us not the employer!
All I?m trying to say is people?s choices differ, and there are benefits to short term contracts, even if they are not to your taste. If the OP passed on contracts or positions in favor of short term contracts for whatever reasons( I believe she mentioned somewhere moving from another trust into this particular position, as it was a job she had been seeking) That does not necessarily mean the employer is out to keep workers from benefits, it could also be that the employee choices and preferences did not align with the contracts/positions they had available.

And yes I do think that employee who put up with shoddy work practices for long periods of time, especially when they can seek redress but do not, have to own some of the responsibility. This is does not absolve the employer of responsibly. People may not chose to be in a difficult position, but when they don?t act to change it, they are choosing inaction and for whatever reason they have still made a choice( not to act) I do know what it?s like to work in a field where employers will attempt to skirt the edges of their responsibilities, and I do realize that it is hard to address employment difficulties.

This is not comparable to women being forced to resign when they married. They had no option and it was wrong. There are now avenues for labour disputes( Union ect) . I don?t see this as offensive, harsh maybe, but that?s the way I see it.

I am pretty sure with the repeated short term contracts work you have to prove you have been doing exactly the same job for them for the past 5 years (or however long) and then they can still refuse.

Or at least that was what I was told - off to google it now.

Am glad you pointed out you were NHS OP as you were starting to sound like an academic on your short term contracts and I was worried you were talking about me as it explains my situation pretty well.

Do you have a rededployment list? If you do they cannot not give you a job you qualify for on it because you are pregnant.

Have you accrued any holiday yourself that you could tag onto the end and therefore still be employed

You are right though - it doesnt matter how long you have worked for them, it is whether you are employed during the qualifying period that matters.

You will however be eligible for SMP which will work out at around £500 per month after tax etc. Bear in mind you will also be eligible for child benefit at £22 ish a week and some tax credits. You may well have an 'income' of around £750 a month anyway - how much difference are we really talking about in relation to the mat pay (minus tax etc which you still pay). You can hopefully save a bit by being home on mat leave, sell stuff on ebay etc.

What I am trying to say is that if you want to have at least 6 months off and I am guessing the 4 months would be on SMP, how much is this overall. I do not know your situation but I would be tempted to ask family (if possible) for a short term loan or even get a loan myself. That is maybe not good financial advice but what we have done each time to allow me to stay home on mat leave longer - we ended up borrowing perhaps 3k each time and then paying it back but reasoned a baby and breastfeeding were a huge investment and we would spend more than that on many things.

Also going back to work doesnt mean you have to stop breastfeeding but this probably isnt the right place to say that...

audi much much harder to fight your employer when they have a monopoly

(I'm guessing there is more private provision in Canada therefore more chance of working again if you do fight but I don't know so apologies if I'm wrong)

ilovecrisps:

There is not more private provision in Canada, as far as I'm aware. We have a universal health care system very similar to the NHS. It is basically a monopoly. I do understand that fighting back can have consequences, but not fighting also has consequences.

I have been thinking hard on this and I think the best thing to do is accept the current situation and do some extra work shifts now to cash up and prepare for when I am off. And then just take this situation on the chin.
I agree that to try to make an arrangement in order to gain the benefits, however much I feel entitled to them, is not the right thing to do morally and probably not legally and so I will not do it. My friend is not yet aware I am pregnant again and what I will do is to have another chat to her about her plans and say if she is enjoying mat leave then I would be more than happy to cover for a few more months and leave it at that. If yes, then great. If no, then no pressure has been put on her from me.
Incidentally have not chosen to be on short term contracts in preference to permanent - that is simply how they are packaged as one rises up the NHS training grades - but the net effect now is of a contract which ends whenever they say it does!
I think what I am finding upsetting is that just before realising I was pg first time around, I took on the maternity cover post at a time when an extremely stressful and busy period was coming up, as a favour to and under some pressure from the friend so she could avoid this whilst pg. The move was slightly better status but reduced my job security from 10 months to 7 months. (I was concerned about this but I thought I could get another job quite easily back to back - although not now so easy/possible with what will be a 5 month bump at the end of this contract!!). I then miscarried whilst in the middle of the very busy horrible period my friend was avoiding, so I have lots of complicated and irrational feelings about having "sacrificied my baby and benefits" for her "baby and convenience". And whilst I completely appreciate this isn't fair on her as she was completely unaware (I do not need miliions of posts to tell me how awful I am again thanks), it is something I am feeling and am going to have to work through. Maybe a counseller would be more use than an employment lawyer!
Thank you for listening and for all your comments, I am surprised at how much traffic has generated! I will now quietly vanish!

The difficulty here is that if you are known to be friends, your employers would reasonably assume that she had done it for you. And that would undermine her professionally which in many jobs would lose her much more than 8 weeks pay worth of goodwill and reputation.

Phonics, I have just read the whole thread. I am not an HR expert but have worked for the NHS for several years and fallen foul of the training grades = short-term contracts myself. It sucks.

You seem to have quite alot of insight onto why you are feeling like this in your most recent post. I think you need to speak to HR and your union. Have you had any counselling about your miscarriage?

Personally, I think raising it with your friend would be the wrong thing to do. Money causes all sorts of problems. You cannot assume anything about her reasons for returning or her financial situation. I think you need to think of it as two completely separate relationships - maternity cover and friendship.

Start by asking her if she's excited/ looking forward to coming back. If she says things along the lines of 'have to' 'need the money' etc. Then end the conversation there and don't mention delaying return.
But if she sounds undecided or torn & looking for a reason to stay on mat leave - you could ask but make sure you say, you'd understand if she says no

agree but fighting would very possibly have negative consequences for the fighter

(see my post about being told I would have no prospects of future employment why would I fight?-still unemployed though)

sorry that was to audi

I think you are greiving for the baby you lost, and that can make things very complicated in your head. It would perhaps be a good idea to talk to a counsellor, and have a chance to get some support, especially as you are pregnant now. It might help to talk all those feelings through with someone before the birth of your baby. Best of luck.

"My friend is not yet aware I am pregnant again and what I will do is to have another chat to her about her plans and say if she is enjoying mat leave then I would be more than happy to cover for a few more months and leave it at that."

I think this sounds like a good plan. I presume you'd also tell her you were pregnant (at some point anyway, don't know how far along you are). She might put two and two together, you never know.