To Complain on Behalf of All Parents At Work

[RiteousIndignation]

Around ten years ago, I discovered that, due to an accounting error in the systems used, the company I work for wasn't paying people on maternity/parental leave the correct pension contributions. I fought tooth and nail to get this rectified and it took years of back and forth. I'm not on the board and I'm not a shareholder which made things difficult but I thought I'd had the problem fixed. I spoke to a colleague on maternity leave yesterday and found out that it's still happening.

I escalated my previous thread and have been told that it's none of my business because I haven't been affected this time and essentially to wind my neck in. I have female members of staff that are likely to be affected if they have children, so I disagree. And I was the person that reported it last time and so feel invested.

I really don't think I ABU but I feel hugely anxious about being told to stand down and not letting this go.

YANBU - in a management position, you have a moral obligation to wield what power you do have to make sure others aren't disadvantaged.

YABU - you've done your moral duty by reporting it and it'll do no one any favours by you continuing to push this/escalating it further.

Keep pushing it op. Its really important to be an advocate in situations like these.

YANBU @RiteousIndignation

Don't ever be the one that pulls the ladder up behind you.

YANBU think morally if the company are doing wrong then you need to take it further- first time a mistake, but the factor is still happening is intentional, esp if they’ve told you to back off.

do you have a union or Is there an ombudsman you can complain to or even HMRC if to do with financials?

I guess how vocal you are is up to you, or whether you can pass the baton onto people who have been effected by this.

is there a risk to your career?

if you did nothing and it carries on then how would you feel in a year or 10 years about it- would it bother you still??

You haven’t said whether you feel that pushing this is likely to affect your career. We can’t advise without knowing that.

As their objection is that you are not personally affected, can’t you join forces with the person who is currently affected? She complains, uses the information from you about issue and steps taken last time, tells them that she wants you to be involved due to your experience of the situation?

Yes, I am concerned that it would affect my career. It shouldn't of course but if I've been told to drop it and carry on, there's definitely that risk. I think this is a hill I'm prepared to die on, though.

I don't have a union (it's not a widely unionised industry) but I suspect involving outside bodies would be even more of a danger career-wise.

I could join forces with the colleague but my concern is that (like what appeared to happen last time), they'll put her right and make no long term changes to the process going forwards. I want the system changed, not patched.

Are any of the individuals in management whom you dealt with last time still involved? Do you have any general supporters anywhere higher up in the company who might be willing to advise you?

Have you asked Pregnant Then Screwed for advice? If this is a common issue, perhaps they can pass it to government.

I heard on Radio 4 last weekend govt pensions people doing major grovelling re pensions underpayments to women!

Maybe you need to frame the argument differently. Instead of presenting it as a crusade for workers' rights (which isn't wrong but obviously doesn't go down well in your company), perhaps try presenting it as concern about the extent to which the company is exposing itself to the risk of costly discrimination claims?

Have you looked at your whistleblowing policy? That might offer some guidance.

That's a really good point, thanks - I'll try that tack!

They aren't really, sadly. I do have good relationships with some other department heads - I'll see if I can get some of them interested, too.

Agree with an earlier poster - I would raise this with Legal or Risk and frame it as a potential legal and reputational risk. Make it seem as if you are doing them a favour by alerting them to it (again)

How material is this? Are we talking rounding to the pound or a hit of £000’s? It shouldn’t really matter of course, but would influence my course of action if I felt my career could be impacted!

If the latter then I would consider ‘whistle blowing’. My employer has a specific whistle blowing procedure which would then give you some protection from future repercussions.

Something similar happened at my place and I think they thought I was being some kind of martyr...until I was right and someone threatened legal action.

Obviously, parenthood isn't a protected characteristic, but I am guessing that the issue disproportionately affects women so there would be an argument for indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex.

Are you talking about contributions being calculated on pre maternity earnings? If so, it’s a really widespread error with very little guidance to help employers. Sky News reported on this recently

A lot of companies get this wrong. I remember having to call ACAS about something mine had processed wrong- think it was accruing bank holidays.

I think you can frame it as a ‘the process wasn’t right for me and I challenged but it doesn’t seem to have been fixed and the company will be open to legal risk.

In general, I do always check every payslip as you are often relying on someone relatively junior in HR to input things correctly for payroll to process. That’s often where things have gone wrong for me (eg buying a week of annual leave and it costing too much because someone in HR didn’t do the maths right.

Yep, exactly this. Oh that's interesting - I'll see if I can find this!

YANBU. In my company it would be expected that someone in a management position would advocate on this.

Exactly. However it sounds like they aren’t going to budge.

I would stop and then whistle now - it is illegal to have retribution against a whistleblower and this is anonymous anyway. Whistleblow to HMRC.

Pushing after their very clear response isn’t going to go well for you.

I think you've done your bit and risked your career enough, and it's time for others to do their bit.

I would bet, a lot, that quite simply Op - You are wrong!

Report them to pensions regulator. As long as you can do so anonymously and thus won’t blow back on you, let them get company to sort.

So ten years worth of employees going on maternity and paternity leave and not ONE has observed the error. Not one.

Just the Robin Hood crusader that is the OP

d. I spoke to a colleague on maternity leave yesterday and found out that it's still happening.

and what has said colleague done about it? Aside from being cornered by you and forced to admit that even though has no idea what the OP is talking about, just agreed she is correct in order to escape!