Should work accept this and work around it or am I supposed to lose my job?

[lppt]

Wasn’t sure how to title this. Basically I am a single parent. I have no help. Dd is 22 months. My office is based in the north but our clients are based all over the place. Mostly meeting are remote which is fine as I can login anywhere. But now and then they will want a meeting in London. This is a 3.5 hour trip each way for me. Since having dd this has not come up. But I’ve now had something diarised for next month and I cannot attend as I won’t be back to collect dd from nursery. I know I could ask a someone to take her back to their home but I don’t actually know anyone well enough that I feel ok with that. I also don’t know if it would be possible. Dd is still very small and would be very confused and possibly scared to be somewhere different after nursery. I can’t do it and I don’t know if I am within my rights to say that? And ask that someone else attends in my place? I know when she’s bigger it will be different but at this age I simply don’t feel ok trying to find someone to take her. The nursery is also very remote and so shed have to travel with someone else too.

Can I object? Or do I have to accept I can’t continue my job? Ex won’t have her. Already tried that.

I'm referring to the assumption that only women may need to ask for flexibility due to caring commitments.

Google Childcare disparity.
There are cases.

But my assumption was not that it is only women who may wish for flexibility because of their childcare commitments, nor do I think women are solely responsible for childcare provision. Both parents bear equal responsibility, though I’m fully aware that in many cases one parent does more (and yes, more often then not, that is the woman)- often for financial reasons or due to the nature of one parents job.

What the poster I was reacting to was reporting was that the legislation has specific provision (or the legal interpretation of the legislation, at least) protecting mothers because women are viewed as carrying a greater responsibility/a greater responsibility generally falls to them (solely based on their gender, which is a protected characteristic ) when it comes to provision of childcare- to such an extent that (in the eyes of the law) holding women to the terms their contract of employment could be seen as indirect discrimination of the woman involved deems her hours or any part of her role to have a negative impact in her childcare commitments. Presumably because it has been decided that this implied additional responsibility for childcare is causally linked to their female gender (a protected characteristic).

I happen to think that this attitude is unhelpful to women, as a wider issue- individual women may indeed currently benefit from it. I think it is just another reason for employers to be wary about employing women in certain roles. I think if you take a job requiring shift work/ unsocial hours/nights or travel from home- and you are aware of that requirement when you take the job on- you should not later be able to decide you aren’t going to fulfil your duties or work the necessary hours which are required because they now don’t happen to suit you because you chose to have a child. I think most employers would consider flexibility, but it doesn’t follow that flexibility will always be possible.

@AllThePotatoesAreSinging

That’s your job though. That’s his job. That’s not OPs job.

There’s nothing to suggest the work can’t be done remotely. OP states most meetings are. Why is a face to face meeting needed in London when others can be done remotely. That’s what her employer needs to justify.

Most meetings - but you don't know why not this one. There could be a very good reason why this needs to be face to face! Her contract stipulated this would be expected. Who are you to decide she can dial in (which is what you have out and out said in another post). This meeting may only be affective and actually be necessary and is part of her job - that she agreed she would do

I expect it to be the child's other parent's problem 50% of the time. No excuses, & consequences for other parent if they abandon their responsibilities (practical, emotional & financial).

I also expect the bias that exists whereby having a family is regarded by employers as a positive trait in men, but negative in women, to fuck off at some point too. And I won't even start on how all of this feeds into the gender pay gap because neither of us has enough time for that.

The thing is, you can put anything you want into a contract. I can put that occasionally staff might be expected to work 60 hour weeks. And they can go ahead and sign it. But I can’t enforce it because there’s legislation that overrules it, and the legislation top trumps all. Obviously I’d expect our legal team to point out that there’s legislation that overrules this. Smaller companies might have no HR department and be using generic contracts they’ve used for years without updating them to account for new legislation, of which there’s been an absolute ton introduced by Labour in the last 6 months alone.

OP is going to ask if it’s possible to attend in a way that doesn’t involve travelling at a time when paid childcare isn’t available. This is not an unreasonable request despite what her contract may say. Employers need to balance what the contract says with whether a contract term may put someone with a protected characteristic, in this case sex, at a disadvantage.

If OPs employer doesn’t consider alternatives when she’s told them she can’t attend, this is where they may be discriminating. If they insist she attends and only she they need to examine exactly why, because tribunals have already ruled on what is an essential reason. Hopefully they’ve got a decent HR department so they don’t fuck if up. It’s all about what they do next and how they work to support OP with this. She can’t put her child in a box for 12 hours.

I’m going to sit back now and wait to see what OP says. Nothing I say is going to change because cases like this have already been tested at tribunals.

What's the specific legislation that says she can refuse to do part of her job because she's a parent?

Always one suggesting lying and fraud.

I do wonder what planet some of the people responding are on. They've clearly never done a corporate job.

Deliberately misunderstanding. Hope you aren’t an employer.

I address this on the thread and in my last post.

I'm a single parent and have to travel regularly - I was very clear to my employer - and luckily they have been supportive - that wherever I am in the country I have to be back by x time for nursery pick up.
On occasion I've asked my parents but they live 4 hours away so logistically not always possible without a lot of planning.
Contractually travel to and from your usual place of work is works time so by rights of you aren't "home" / back to office location by 530pm you are effectively working overtime

Also worth mentioning that over 70% of tribunals are settled out of court and so become confidential. We don’t get to know what the issue was, what the legal recommendation was, what case law and legislation would have been used to come to, and what the settlement was - this last bit would be useful as it’s often an indicator of whether it was a token ‘piss off payment’ to make a troublemaker go away, and avoid the bad publicity generated by tribunal, or a genuine restitution.

People are becoming more litigious (often rightly so!). In the last 12 years I’ve been involved in preparing for a few tribunals, probably 15 in total. All settled out of court. Some of these were piss off payments but even so I can say the rulings we see are a small fraction of the claims instigated.

i did say I was going to shut up - I really am now 😂

If I were your manager I would be annoyed that you know that there are meetings in London occasionally and your child is nearly two years old and you haven't at any point looked into making arrangements for being able to attend.

You need to look into a sitter, ask at the nursery or contact an agency.

You can't just say to your manager that you can't do it because you have a child, it's not a newborn, you've had ages to look into solutions.

If there genuinely isn't a viable agreeable affordable solution that's a different conversation, but at least look into your options first.

If it's simply that you don't want to leave your child with someone else (odd given they go to nursery) turn you'll have to look into getting a different job with no travel.

Think elderly parent or needy dog or other appointments outside of work. If going to the meeting means you will be working outside of your regular hours in a way that's impossible, I think they have to accept that. If your role said "occasional travel" or "occasional meetings in London" then this might take more negotiation.

I'd be going along the "due to commitments outside of work you are no longer able to work outside of your contractual hours" route. You don't have to specify what. It's also a ridiculously long way for anyone to travel in a day anyway! Seven hours travelling for one meeting?

I’m interested in the idea that women can say that because they have childcare commitments they can basically refuse to do parts of their jobs- even things essential to their job and in a contract of employment- if they so desire. What about shifts or weekends- e.g. in healthcare or social care- where these are part of usual work practices? If every woman with children is simply allowed to opt out of any hours outside of standard 9-5, that would be unworkable. The NHS would crumble overnight. I strongly suspect that it is not universally true, though as neither an employment lawyer nor an hr professional, I do understand I might be wrong.

I've never worked in healthcare or social care but everywhere I've worked that's involved weekends and evenings shifts, the mothers (I've always worked in female-dominated jobs) have always refused to work them and that's been an accepted practice. In the current job I'm in, they don't do any travel and it's very difficult to get them to work outside of 9-5, despite the fact that the contracts require both. Those without children or with adult children take all of that on.

In reality, employers are aware of the tribunal decisions mentioned on this thread and are in my experience incredibly reluctant to put pressure on when the reason is childcare.

I've found that it's a different story when it's an employee in a non-child caring role, though, which I find infuriating.

Ask the nursery staff if they do babysitting and could take your child home and look after her till you are there. Alternatively, go to London and duck out at a reasonably early time for your nursery pickup. Better to show your face in London than risk being overlooked in the future.

The biggest case with 'childcare disparity' is a community nurse who had a set working pattern that they wanted to change - totally different to the OP situation

You are talking about the Dobson ruling, which I’ve already mentioned. Far from being ‘totally different’ to OPs issue, it’s a landmark (this means it sets a precedent for all tribunals that follow) ruling that means courts must consider that women are more likely to have childcare responsibilities and therefore are more likely to experience indirect sex discrimination due to the childcare disparity.

Here sits the applied legislation (the legal ruling) you asked me for.

You could always reach out to your local FE college to the Early Years course. If they are following the Level 3 and in their second year, they are DBS checked, as they need to carry out placement, and will be competent at babysitting.

Obviously talk to work and see whether there’s another option as a one off, but given that you know this is a normal part of your job, I think you do need to work out an alternative arrangement. What do you do when she’s ill and can’t go to nursery? What do you do when you are ill and can’t look after her? You shouldn’t have to lose your job over this but it is up to you, not your employer, to ensure that is the case.

In the current job I'm in, they don't do any travel and it's very difficult to get them to work outside of 9-5, despite the fact that the contracts require both. Those without children or with adult children take all of that on.

Frankly, if I experienced that sort of discrimination in my workplace, I would be tempted to sue. Why should those people take on all the travel and out of hours work? Other people’s childcare is not my responsibility.

On what basis? It's not discrimination (in the legal sense of the word) because being childless isn't a protected characteristic, and nor is there an argument that it's indirect sex discrimination, as women aren't more likely to be childless than men.

Believe me, it drives me bananas, but there's pretty much naff all I can do legally. (I complain about it a lot but nothing changes and our union isn't interested.)

You haven't returned to give more information but most companies have procedures for flexible working for these situations. They tend to be for working hours, so something like you request to work 8am-5pm until child is older. You could argue that travel would involve going over those hours and that you could do meetings online but not in person for a while. Companies can refuse the request if it doesn't work with their operational needs but depending on how big this company is, maybe they can accommodate. If so, there might be some information in the intranet or HR pages.

Another option would be to find a local nanny or baysitter to pick up from nursery and take back to your house, staying there until you are back. This will be an increased cost and it depends on how much your salary is and whether retaining this particular job is better than finding a new one with no travel. You could do this before the actual travel day for shorter periods (2h one day, 3h the following fortnight) if you can afford it and there's availability.

See if there are any other mums in similar situation who you could start a network of support to help each other and pick up/collect. Start doing playdates so your child gets to know these other parents. Ask in your local FB group if there are any support groups for single mums, there might be something already there, or start one?

I forgot about this option! I did this when my child was in nursery and we had one of the key workers come to our house to babysit.