surely this is positive discrimation taken too far

[downthedustpipe]

All our department has to apply for jobs at their level. We all know that jobs are going.
I am a level 4 worker and there are 9 people at that level. There is 6 jobs going.
So I would have thought we all have a good go at applying for it by application form and interview and the best 6 win and 3 lose.

However 2 women are currently on mat leave. We have been told by HR and the Union that these women's jobs are guarnteed. They don't have to go through any process and they remain a level 4 worker without having to fight it out with the rest of us. They are doing the same job, same pay, same terms and conditions as the rest of us.

So what we really have is 9 people going for 4 jobs. One has started mat leave and has said she is going to be off for at least a year. There won't be Mat cover.

The team is a mixed sex team with differing ages from 28 to 58.
(not that it makes a difference - just giving the whole picture)
We are a large local authority BTW

What are your thoughts?

I may post this in a different section to see if opinions differ.

Its one of those situations which is designed to protect women on maternity leave, but which in reality will backfire long term. It does result in those workers who are not pregnant/on ML being treated less favourably. I think in your position, especially given that you're talking small numbers, so those pregnant women represent a large proportion of the people affected, I would band together and speak to HR. They need to realise that trying to protect themselves from a potential discrimination claim could actually result in more problems for the company. Maybe they will re schedule the restructure ?

It's crap - and yes you're getting fucked over royally on the grounds of not having a currently occupied uterus. I'd be livid. It's also misinterpreting the legislation in terms of utter terror if they dared even consider the pregnant women on equal grounds for redundancy because one of them would invariably cry discrimination.

I would also have let rip if they rolled into the office to show off bubs and started making drippy comments like you described because that's almost gloating.

Tbh I do know people better qualified who have lost out under pro-active policies. It does happen.

But Gooseberry, who decided they were better qualified? YOU may have felt that they were better qualified, but I bet the employer didn't, and if they were challenged on it, it would have been hard to make a case that they were wrong. This is my point. It's all very subjective.

As others have said there has recently being an employment appeal tribunal on this very topic.

Article

Also note that according to the article that in 2005 7% of pg women lost their jobs and that position is not improving.

p.s. the male colleague won

It was obvious. And admitted on the QT.

23balloons this: "Public sector employers have to now maintain statistics and present them to the government and can face penalties if the workforce does not represent the local population." is not true. Public sector employers had to report on these measures for years, but there has never been a penalty attached. The requirement to report has actually recently been abolished in many sectors. Encouraging people to apply is not the same as discriminating in favour of them - everywhere I have worked the monitoring information has been removed from the forms by HR before the applications are considered, making it impossible to be biased for or against certain groups. It is currently a tough job market and you are coming up against better applicants. Accept that.

People commenting on the bias in favour of those with an 'occupied uterus', interestingly the legislation offers better protection to those on maternity leave but not those who are pregnant (except from against unfair discrimination obviously). Earlier in my pregnancy we all had to compete against others for our jobs - my department was merged with another and I had to compete against the other department head. Pregnancy didn't give me any protection, but those on maternity leave in other ringfences did get protected. Not that I object to it, the process was fair and being pregnant didn't place me at any disadvantage so I didn't need additional protection.

There is one important difference between the de Belin v. Eversheds case and what we're talking about here.

Eversheds included the woman on ML in the redundancy pool and evaluated her against the same criteria as everyone else. EXCEPT they gave her a notional score on something they couldn't assess her against because she was on ML and this notional score was over inflated. In effect, this is positive discrimination.

In the case we are talking about here, the two women on ML are simply not being included in the redundancy pool at all. They aren't even going to be assessed. So I don't think this particular case would be as clear of an example of precedent as some are suggesting.

Perhaps those who feel strongly that the women should be included in the redundancy pool this can clarify this for me: how do you propose this firm to include the women on ML in the pool AND assess them fairly according to the same criteria as everyone else? This is the sticking point for me.

I think if you're going to go to HR to make a case it would help if you were clear on that first.

You apply the same criteria to their work before they went on ML as you do to that of others who are not on ML.

In all honesty, why should the coincidence of being on ML give you a better right than somebody, regardless of gender, who has been there longer and does better work?

I can't see how you can fairly evaluate a woman on maternity leave if she is not physically available for interview.

GB but the opposite case happens a lot more

Andrewofgg, then you would have to scrap the interview process for the non-MLs and only take into consideration their work from their last performance evaluation as well. You can't give the non-MLs the chance to interview for their jobs as additional evidence otherwise they're getting a leg up.

The problem has been that loads of women are getting pregnant deliberately in order to protect their jobs. I have seen and heard it first hand!.

We recently made two pregnant women redundant at office. The procedure was followed properly and the decision was fair.

TheTruth... while I'm sure that sometimes that is the case, it's not often enough to become a real actual problem that justifies changing the law.

There are also plenty of PEOPLE doing crazy things in order to protect their jobs every single day! A man, for example, can easily get signed off work long term due to "stress", and if he's not in the office during the selection period, there's very little the firm can do about it. He won't get touched in that particular redundancy round.

Do you take away every workers right just to ensure that absolutely no one gets away with messing with the system?

ML is a minefield and many small companies just don't want to go there for redundancies, so I'd suspect that is more the issue here than positive discrimination per se.