To think that this 'advice' column in today's Guardian is bang out of order?

[Aliama]

I'm fuming at this and wondering if I'm overreacting?

www.theguardian.com/money/2014/feb/01/dear-jeremy-work-issues-solved

Excuse me? Did I misread that? In what fucking world is it 'reprehensible' for a woman to fail to tell a prospective employer that she's planning on getting pregnant at an interview? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it fucking illegal for a company to allow something like that to sway their decision anyway, even if said woman is already pregnant?

Ugh.

waste of time, out of interest, what is the salary of somebody of the employee being replaced? (Not having a go, genuinely interested in the numbers).

Sorry, cross out the 'of somebody' in previous sentence.

merry 40k ish

Alot of people on this thread work, right? Hence being interested in this stuff. Got to say I am staggered how some have the time to post fairly long messages (clearly having read all the posts in response and then other people's on top), a number of times a day......for days on end. I know Mumsnet is addictive but still.

I wouldnt suggest anyone put off ttc for a job. Yes you could wait years after taking a new job but then you could struggle and take loads of time off for repeated ivfs and pregnancy anyway.
A lot of women are put into a different job when they go back despite having been in the job years.
If i were an employer i would rather a happy employee than a depressed one.
I think a bigger issue would be people having loads of kids as work would never have them there. And cant make plans around them in case they announce it again.
Of course you cant ask in an interview, its pretty rude at any time questioning that imagine if they were infertile or just dont want kids you cant win, if you say you hate them...

So you took an ex employer to court for sex discrimination? That's ironic given your comments here. You still made the choice to become an employer regardless of what the factors were in deciding to do so. If I lost my job tomorrow I would search for a new job but I wouldn't consider starting up a business for many reasons.

I obviously don't know what industry you're in but every industry I've worked in, a temporary position for whatever the post is you need cover for is advertised and the same wages are paid. I'm presuming you can't do this with your industry but I doubt for the majority that they would be paying twice as much to cover the post so it doesn't explain why gender discrimination is so wide spread.

You say all posters criticizing employers should start their own business. By that theory so should everyone who has a problem with gender discrimination. Wonder how many people that would be throughout the UK. Completely unrealistic.

I absolutely agree that EPL should be made more use of, it would help to stamp out the discrimination women face because the employers wouldn't know what sex would be more likely to take the majority time off. However I'm unsure how you think men taking part in sharing the care would help in your situation. If you employ predominantly men you would still have to cover their post while they were off, you say it would be for a shorter period of time but you could end up with more than one person off at the same time.

You also never answered my question with regards to employing a male over the age of 50 and yet answered every other point individually.

I was going to give you a cost benefit analysis of a member of staff going on maternity leave wait, but hmm, yes probably should do some proper work.

Anyway, I think we are all agreed that things would be better if many more men took advantage of APL. Should the opportunity arise, windy should really give it a go.

Im sure not all women get discriminated against, as long as they are young and attractive that seems to offset the chance they will get pregnant :)
I agree the biggest disruption and cost is most likely sickness never knowing when it will happen how long for.
It means the employer cant or wont replace them leaving other staff to cover.
I wouldnt want someone back from ML for at minimum 6 months due to probable lack of sleep and how much the baby will get ill at nursery and parent then being off.
But then maybe thats because mine didnt sleep through till 11m.

Meep - in what world do you live in where a temp costs the same as a permanent member of staff? Even assuming you can find someone wanting to do the work on a temp/contract basis (which gets a lot harder when you're after experienced, highly paid staff) they cost a whole lot more than a perm (because they don't get benefits, job security, holidays, sick pay, bonuses etc), plus you're having to pay the introductory agency another >10% on top.

You could be right that it's industry specific, and maybe easier with lower paid staff but if you hire a temp on £20 an hour to cover a perm on ML who was paid £20 an hour that's not what it costs you. As a supposed HR and Finance manager you should know that, but maybe as a secretary you didn't get to see the numbers.

You're very keen to criticise company owners for "choosing to own a business" or "choosing to offer more than SML" but you admit you haven't got the balls to do it yourself.

Maybe if more people took the risks to start a business, create jobs, drive exports and create real wealth for the country we could all be in a better place.

Windy

Where above did I say we would use a temp agency? We employ any ML cover staff on a temporary contract with the view of it being extended at the end if they have been good. It is a very good way to trial staff and they are all aware that if they do a good job there is a possibility of being offered a permanent post within the company at the end of the ML. It's quite simple actually. And we never have an issue with recruiting staff on temporary contracts.

Secretary if it makes you happy to call me that fair enough, my job description and contract say different but hey, what would I know? It's only my job, obviously you must know better.

It's not about balls. it's about preference. I don't want to start up a company plain and simple. If it was about not having "balls" that would surely imply I wanted to start up a business which I have never once claimed.

windy presumably some of those benefits you talk about (holiday pay, sick leave, bonus) cost the company money on top of regular salary for a perm member of staff, so can be offset against higher rate for a temp?

Windy I did have a funny feeling you weren't going to have a pat answer to my point about risk management.

putain we buy, sell and arbitrage risk for a living, that's what the company does. Maybe if I could pay women less than men because I've priced in the cost of ML legislation we wouldn't have these problems, but I'm guessing you wouldn't like that either

windy pls will you answer my question about whether you would or wouldn't take it personally if someone stole from you because it benefitted them economically?

blinky I'm guessing you've never employed anyone, because from what you've posted you're pretty stupid

If someone stole from me I'd definitely take it personally because it would mean I was too weak to control my staff or too stupid to stop them doing it.

That's not a problem though.

Windy so, as I suspected - no, you don't have a proper answer to that question.

putain maybe you're a bit slow, in which case I'm sorry. I'll try to keep this simple.

Legislation has made women more expensive to employ than men.

That wasn't the question, dear.

(In case YOU are a bit slow...).

Why putain Windy? Are you trying to be clever? I very much doubt you are using it in the way the French do in day to day language now and suspect you are actually using it with it's literal meaning in mind. It is vulgar, not to mention childish and yet another example of your disrespect to women on this forum.

It appears you sexism isn't just limited to potential employees but to the entire female population at all times.

You also have deliberately dodged questions and ignored comments from other posters which will shine you in poor light. It speaks for itself really.

Meep I wondered exactly that but it could also be a damnyouautocorrect, I thought.

Either way, not worth worrying about I reckon. If it is deliberate, as you say it reveals the exact standard of the poster's debate, and nothing more then needs to be said.

In fact, I quite like it...

I assume it has just been another poor attempt to cleverly mask the blatant sexism.

Or maybe you just want to be victims of "sexism" because then you can pretended it's not your fault

Do carry on.

Yes please do continue...

I wonder if windy is a father?