To think this is employment discrimination (shared parental leave)

[Suckasponge]

DH applied for a job last week. Was pipped at the post by another candidate but they were really impressed by his application, interview and what they know of his work (it was an internal role.)

Manager of the team asked for a meeting, which happened today. They said they have pulled strings and want to offer him a slightly different role at the same level as the one he applied for. They have said that the first six months in post are important.

DH already has a shared parental leave application in, which was approved by the organisation for six months off work to care for our baby, due in August. DH would be having August - Feb 2020 off.

In the meeting, the bosses have said they will only offer him this role if he can start immediately. The role hasn't been advertised and seems to have been created just for him. DH declined the role as he is very committed to having the parental leave, even though he would really like to take the move forward and accept.

I have told DH I think he should have sat on the fence and said 'well its all negotiable' until he had a formal job offer, and then said 'actually no, I've changed my mind and want the leave' as I'm pretty sure maternity/paternity leave carries equal(ish?) rights and I thought it was illegal to rescind a job offer due to pregnancy or related leave. DH wanted to be upfront from the beginning, which I respect, but I think it has enabled them to be quite underhand.

I could be completely wrong, do we have any grounds here?

It is not double standards. Pregnant women are discriminated against all the time. A pregnant woman would not even have been offered this.

Spoke to a solicitor who said DH has the makings of a claim. Waiting to speak to Union Rep tomorrow.

This isn't a personal grievance about the recruiting bosses or the organisation as such, its a grievance about protocol, procedure and what we feel is unlawful discrimination. We'll make that clear. It shouldn't cause too much problems for DH, as he current line manager and the one higher up support DH and feel the organisation has acted illegally. It is the two bosses of the other team (where new job would have been based) that we feel have acted in an underhand manner.

Our view is that the organisation acted unlawfully in denying DH the opportunity for promotion, when he clearly has the skills to do the job, due to his planned period of six months off (which would start two months into post) which they already KNEW was his prior agreed SPL.

The SPL was a decision we both made. As I'd stated, DH is a trained foster carer and I've got adult DC already, so it made sense for DH to take the SPL as he wanted to provide care to the DC once born, and wanted to share these duties with me to give me more rest. It is what worked for us as a family.

The second basis of the grievance is sex discrimination. DH was treated unfairly on the basis of being male, and basically that the organisation clearly feels raising children is a solely female role.

Imagine you are visibly pregnant, you are brought to a 'meeting' where you are told, 'we want you to have this job' but you have to agree to not having any lengthy period of leave in the next six months. They know you plan of taking SPL. This 'meeting' will only progress to an interview (tailored to you, short questions, tick box exercise and job is yours basically, as we haven't been able to fill it when it was advertised a few months ago) if you agree to not taking your LEGAL and previously agreed SPL. It would be a clear case of disadvantage.

Had they acted in a non discriminatory fashion they would have applied the same 'rules' to all candidates.

1. The fact that no substantial leave could be taken in the first six months would have been stated in the original job advert/job description.
2. All the previous unsuccessful candidates would have also have been told they will only be interviewed if they don't take any time off in the first six months.

Very unlikely to be the case ... but we have asked HR to confirm whether or not these conditions were applied to all candidates.

The 'business need' to have somebody start quickly and hit the ground running does NOT trump the law.

It’s great that you’ve taken advice and I really think that things will work out for you- ideally the company will just cave
However I do know a few people who have been through the process and “won” but in terms of career and stress they actually lost so if you do need to go down the legal route really think about whether it’s worth it at a time you should all be enjoying your new baby
Yes it’s wrong and it shouldn’t happen but whoever claims to agree with your husbands position will surely protect their own careers first
If you feel able to make this stand then great but be aware that a short term win can be a long term loss

I absolutely think you are doing the right thing. This kind of bollocks need to stop and people need to stand up to it. People saying it's not double standards as it happens to women too really need to set the bar higher FFS.

Discrimination is discrimination and unacceptable whether it is sexism, racism, disablism etc. We should all challenge it, for our own sakes. Don't we support parental rights in the workplace? Are parents less deserving of opportunities and progression? As PP said, this is Mumsnet FFS, if we can't support you here it's actuslly really depressing and sad.

I hope you get a good outcome.

As SPL gets more popular we're going to see more of this I suspect, as it's no longer going to be a case of don't employ women of child bearing age. Employers who chose men specifically to avoid long absences are going to start getting more creative with their 'offers'.

Good for you OP, I wish you all the very best.

That lucky little baby clearly will be able to depend on great parents who will do their very best and do the right thing even where it might not be the easy route. Good luck with the baby as well x

Have just rtft and I wanted to wish you good luck too OP.

I think they have been unfair and I hope you can raise this issue.