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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

anyone else been screwed over by their employer while on mat leave?

43 replies

sweetuphoria · 26/04/2011 11:04

All through my mat leave I have been open and honest with my boss telling her I would like to return part time due to childcare issues. She's said on numerous occasions that I shouldn't worry about it and that she wants me back in any shape or form and can work round me. Now 1 month before I am due back I get a very formal letter in the post saying there are no part time jobs in the company and job share is not possible. She didn't even have the guts to call me and explain. Nice.

OP posts:

SardineQueen · 26/04/2011 13:43

Bloody hell chunky.

It's all a bit david brent isn't it. Making promises you can't keep, to keep in with your staff, seem like a nice person. Pathetic.

chunkythighs · 26/04/2011 13:43

Oh God that may have sounded like I was more upset by leaving my job than my husband dying......I meant that losing my job was a kick in the face that I didn't need....

GiddyPickle · 26/04/2011 13:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SardineQueen · 26/04/2011 13:48

We got you chunky

controlpantsandgladrags · 26/04/2011 13:50

Sweetuphoria I had the same happen to me. I'm certain my employers didn't consider my flexible working application at all, and just wrote back to me a fortnight later to tell me my post could not be made part time "due to the demands of the business". Unfortunately that's all they have to do. It's shit, but unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about it.

chunky I'm and that an employer could do that to you.

Original poster

sweetuphoria · 26/04/2011 13:50

OMG inmyprime and chunkythighs I really don't have any thing to complain about after what you'be been through. It just goes to show that this is all too common and there's really not a whole lot any of us can do about it

OP posts:

porcamiseria · 26/04/2011 14:03

sorry chunky thats awful

I think I got very burnt when my team meber returned, demanded her day off and was very bullish, and in fact her maternity replacement was better than her. so the more she demanded, the more they thought "sod her" and she eventually got made redundant

and I have just returned to a more senior role, but same salary! but as I am so scared of being asked to do loads of travel, I am just keeping my head down

I think I am not the best to advise, too fucking scared of losing my job!!!!

hairylights · 26/04/2011 18:17

there are some very strange opinions on this thread

There is a very clear set of statutory rights set out

The right of an employee to request flexible working

The right of an employer to turn down that request because they cannot accommodate the request and meet their needs as a busines.

and there is a timeframe in which it must be considered and either agreed to, rejected or a counter-offer made.

It really does get very emotional - I think mainly because people, for some reason think things like having a good employment record, having worked hard or having been 'loyal' have any bearing on the decision. They don't!

OkeeDoeKee · 26/04/2011 18:37

How long have you been on ML??? With austerity measures things have changed a lot in the work place over the past twelve months.

In my place of work we just cannot consider part time working as the work load has increased but we cannot employ more staff (public sector) but have to meet the same targets. We do however agree to job share and have some flexibility for start/ finish times.

Also it may be that your boss may have been a bit rash in agreeing if she didn't have the final say. It happened to me once when a part time request was put in. Several other people had a similar working arrangement and I said (in retrospect foolishly!!) that I couldn't see a problem with it although did point out I didn't have the final say.

Anyway my immediate boss wanted to refuse it but thankfully her boss who was head of the unit agreed so it maybe your boss was a bit rash saying what she did and has been over ruled.

hairfullofsnakes · 26/04/2011 19:19

How are things for you now chunkythighs? x

KatieMiddleton · 26/04/2011 19:23

Yup. And I will be doing my masters research on this very subject.

But sadly there is no right to part time working. Just the right to request.

wotnochocs · 26/04/2011 19:33

Yes .there were 3 women off on ML in the department of the NHS organisation i worked for.There was a 'restructuring' while we were off and us three all got the push!

MintyMoo · 26/04/2011 19:35

Not mat leave discrimination for me but when I acquired a third (thought it was my second at the time though) disability and had to call in sick I was told on my 5th day off I would probably be fired for having an unreasonable amount of sick leave. I was fired several months later, eventually I had gone back to work part time but was fired the day before my disability was officially diagnosed. Nice.

Was even told I was a hypochondriac, that I should ignore my Drs advice and that I had a strange attitude in that I listened to the medical advice of my Dr and various specialist over the medical advice of my manager/random members of my team. They even made disablist jokes in front of me, mocked my medication, excluded me from social events by re scheduling them with my hospital visits/telling me I wasn't welcome and management produced a 'hilarious' impression of people with a particular disability and why they don't have brains like non disabled people (and no, I'm not joking, they actually said that people with that disability don't have brains)

Unfortunately discrimination is rife in employment. I once read an posting on a HR site by a HR manager looking how to get around not hiring someone in a wheelchair because they didn't want to make adjustments 'oh but we're positive about hiring disabled people as long as they don't use a wheelchair'.

These are the same twats who prioritise pregnant women for redundancy. I know someone who was made redundant from a very large, well known firm when on mat leave. As was every other woman on mat leave that she knew of. I think it's going to get worse before it gets better as well.

SardineQueen · 26/04/2011 19:39

I am rhesus negative (I think that's the thing) and have to have the anti-D injections. My manager didn't want to let me have the time to go for the jabs because she hadn't had to have them. She implied that I was either making them up, or they were unnecessary. She was really shitty about it actually, I nearly didn't have them she made such a fuss.

I'd forgotten about that until just now.

InMyPrime · 26/04/2011 19:39

It's true hairylights that the law on part-time working only allows employees the right to request flexible hours but I think in sweetuphoria's case it's more the issue that the employer is not being honest in their dealings with their employee. It's mainly the line manager's fault for not being upfront and honest from the start and raising false hope as a result but either way it's normal to expect your employer to deal fairly with you, as an employee. We are expected, as employees, to deal fairly with our employers e.g. give them fair notice of maternity leave, not mess them about by saying we'll be back by x date and instead come back later, not take sickies etc.

Fair dealing is all most employees are looking for. Promising one thing and then doing the other is not fair dealing. If the OP had known that flexible working was out of the question ahead of time she could have prepared for that and planned accordingly. There will of course always be employees and employers who will take the p1ss on either side of the relationship but I think people should be held to a higher standard of behaviour than that and organisations that seek to retain good staff should see it the same way.

chunkythighs · 28/04/2011 00:25

Hairfullofsnakes,
We are ok, I still haven't worked since he died. Being told that I could always resign felt like a physical punch. As it stands my unit is severely short staffed and there is always a need for people with my training.

Still looking for work though. I hate not working and doubly hate the 'so what do you do?' question......I'm lucky in the sense that I'm not in mad debt and can pay my bills but it's hard not working when I worked since I was 13.

For the life of me I will never understand why he pulled that stunt......

Thanks for asking

duchesse · 28/04/2011 00:33

One old boss called me at 2 weeks postpartum (the earliest she was legally entitled to do so) to ask me when I was coming back to work. When I answered "not yet" she took that to mean "never" and employed someone else to do my job. Bitch. Of course I did not have a written contract.

x2boys · 28/04/2011 09:53

i work for the nhs shift work so should be reasnably flexible my dh also works shifts in a warehouse my line manager agreed before i returned from mat leave in october i could work opposite my husbands shifts he doesa week of earlies followed by a week of lates we both work weekends have days off during the weeek so it really should nt be a problem but i have had no end of problems where my manager has done the duty rota without looking at my husbands shifts [ and he has a copy six months in advance]so we were bothing working same shift etc i,m not the only one half the staff have young children and have problems with the rota if it gets worse i will go to hr and request fixed shifts flexible working is all very nice in theory but does ent seem to work in reality and does ent encourage mums to go back to work

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