New report on maternity discrimination: share your experiences

[RachelCMumsnet]

New research published today by the European Human Rights Commission reveals that 54,000 new mothers are being forced out of work every year owing to maternity discrimination. One in 10 of the 3,200 women surveyed had been dismissed, made compulsorily redundant or treated so poorly they had quit their job, and one in 20 said they received a cut in pay or bonus after returning to their job. You can read more about the report and what JustineMumsnet had to say about it here.

This may not come as a surprise to many of you - when we asked Mumsnetters about the impact of having children on their career, to coincide with the launch of Mumsnet Jobs, 91% felt there was a 'motherhood penalty', which sees women's careers take a nosedive post-children and contributes to the gap in workplace pay and seniority between men and women. And in our last Family Friendly programme survey, only 13% of workers said their employer was very family friendly and could not do more.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this report. Please share your experiences below - and if your employer did something particularly great in order to accommodate you before, during or after maternity leave, what was it?

I was docked pay when I had a miscarriage, as my employer at the time "didn't pay sick pay for illness that was self inflicted".

I was made redundant when I was pregnant. I was showing very early so no chance of covering it up. Before I got pregnant I was the best thing since slice bread, made the company thousands, and worked like a dog. I slowly got managed out of projects I started, my clients were poached. At first I thought it was all in my head, because I literally was the golden girl. Then a week before Christmas, I was told they are making cuts. Absolute nonsense, I was too sick and tired to fight. I just saw how disposable I was, I worked my entire life to be in my dream career. Now I'm a SAHM, which I love. Angry, I defiantly am at the injustice but by sacking me, I now have treasured times with my boys.

I had it relatively easy as I have always worked in the NHS - first time round I had a male boss who was fabulous and couldn't do enough for me. With DD2, I had a female childless boss and she was either clueless or evil - I suspect a mix of both. She tried to tell me I had no right to paid time off for antenatal appointments - so I showed her the relevant legislation to show that yes, I did. When I came back, she tried to tell me I had no right to express at work so I had to show her the relevant legislation to show that yes, I did. I ended up paving the way for several colleagues who also had to deal with her.

When years later she fell pregnant and didn't have a great pregnancy - nothing life threatening, just uncomfortable - I didn't have a lot of sympathy for her. Funny, that.

Some of the stories on here are worse than the ones in the Guardian!

Wow! I can totally sympathise! I told my boss Inwas pregnant, and it started from there! He made sky digs and made horrible comments throughout my pregnancy!

Anyway skip forward a few months and I was rushed into hospital with pre-eclampsia and my daughter was born 2 months prem!

3 months later I was forced back into the office, under the promise of flexitime and that my daughter could come in with me if my husband was on duty!
This carried on but I needed to work, so I stuck at it, but
My little one got sick and needed weekly hospital treatment, so I got fired!
The nasty emails texts etc were ridiculous but at least I'm out!

I was a senior professional in a large organisation. I'd been there 5 years when I told them I was pregnant with twins. About 4 months into my maternity leave I emailed my boss to arrange a catch up day, and to make a flexible working request (to do 4 days). I planned to take a full year's maternity leave as I had a really good contractual entitlement.
The reply I got was that they were restructuring the department and could I come in to discuss this. When I turned up, my boss met me with someone from HR that I'd never met before, they told me my role was "at risk" of redundancy, but handed me a document at the same time which told me what the financial settlement would be. I was beyond shocked, and got an employment lawyer straight away on the advice of a friend who had since left the company and, it turned out, knew this had happened before.
The next 6 months were really a nightmare. I had the two tiny babies to look after, I was exhausted, and at the same time I didn't know whether I had a job to go back to. I found out (through my lawyer) about Regulation 10 - there were lots of other roles I could have been offered and was competent to do (in one of the many group companies as well as in the one I worked for), not my preference but I would have done them. They interviewed me for one, never gave me any feedback. Looking back I was probably on the verge of a breakdown - I wasn't free to find a new job, but they hadn't told me if I had a role to go back to so I didn't know whether I needed to find childcare or not. About 2 weeks before I was due to return to work they invited me in for a meeting. To this day I have absolutely no idea why and they didn't tell me even then whether there was a role for me to return to or whether they were actually going to make me redundant.
Ultimately on my lawyer's advice we said fine, just pay me what I'm entitled to under statute, and release me from my contract. We will make you disclose as part of the sex discrimination case that we will bring how many other women have been in this situation. That ended things pretty quickly and I was compromised out with a good financial settlement and bound to silence.
6 years on and I still feel very, very bitter about the experience both professionally and personally. I feel even more outraged when I see this large corporation promote itself as supportive towards workers with children. I was completely frozen out and treated in the most appalling manner.

Nothing like the horror stories already shared here, just a ngawing frustration that I was kept as 'trainee' for longer than other colleagues (male) who started after me, because I was due to go on maternity leave within the year.

I did receive a pay rise and promotion out of traineeship shortly (well, three months is better than never) after I returned from maternity leave but only because I kept my mouth shut about being pregnant with my second at the time. Once I told my boss of my second pregnancy her face dropped and I knew I'd see no pay rise.

Sure enough, my pay has stalled since then (as I head for a third maternity leave) and I remain at the bottom of the pay scale, despite several years' experience in the role and receiving only excellent feedback on my work. I'm pretty sure no one else with my level of experience is on as low a pay as I am, but of course, with all the secrecy around pay I have no way of finding out or proving it.

I don't know to what extent this is malice and to what extent just an assumption that my time at work while pregnant doesn't count (as I'll be on maternity leave soon, so why bother to look at her pay and promotion prospects). I also feel in a weak bargaining position because I'll be taking leave soon.

I would very much welcome legislation to force companies to conduct regular pay and promotion audits to cover not only people with protected characteristics (ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, etc) but also to show pay and promotion differences for those who have taken maternity leave and shared parental leave, mothers, fathers etc. I think such an audit would probably show in a LOT of companies that there is scant paternity-penalty and a hefty maternity-penalty. Whether intentional or not, whether company policy or not, women are still subject to the whims of managers, some of whom hide their prejudices better than others.

I worked tirelessly in a small business for three years before announcing my pregnancy. I was already having issues with a bullying colleague and had lodged a grievance but things went from bad to worse during the pregnancy.

My hideous boss was quite vile even to the point of cornering me and asking me who the father of my child was. We weren't friends and he didn't know my boyfriend so quite why he wanted to know is anyone's guess.

I took my full maternity leave and applied for flexible working which was turned down with no reason given. I wrote a cheery email to my boss' business partner asking if we could just sort this out amicably and it turns out vile boss had told his business partner to 'give her a week's pay and tell her to f*ck off'. Nice business partner helped me stand my ground and we came to a compromise agreement. I took the money and ran, setting up my own business and have never been happier. Vile boss has cancer.

I teach in a pupil referral unit. When I was 7 months pregnant, I was still teaching, despite my employer promising to take me out of class at 6 months. One day, a pupil I had a rocky relationship with, beat his dad up at the front of school and was then sent to my English class. Luckily he just sulked in a corner but I was so annoyed to be put in that situation as he had previously threatened me and my unborn child with violence!!

I worked in a senior position in the Leadership Team in a secondary school & my bosses had discussed a promotion to recognise my hard work & impact.

I told them of my pregnancy at 14 weeks & within weeks another person, who would be my maternity cover, was attending meetings. I was very uncomfortable as she was given my job description, but I was still there. My baby died so I never went on maternity leave, but she continued to do my job alongside me. I said this was unacceptable, so there were repeated efforts to carve up my job between us. I had to tell senior people from other schools repeatedly why she was also doing my job, so had to tell them all about my loss.

My grief was compounded to such an extent I had to leave. I got another job and left part way through the year for a part-time post much reduced in seniority. I think I took a 40% pay cut to get out of the situation. Looking back, I think it was constructive dismissal, but I have never pursued a complaint. At the time my health was more important.

I'm a secondary school teacher. I informed my head that I was pg when I was 14 weeks, on the first day back after last summer's break. I still had to teach a full timetable when I left at 35 weeks pg. I was in 3 different classrooms and had to trek around our site frequently. I ended up going early as was very stressed and I felt awful.
I was diagnosed with GD at 28 weeks and has to test my bloods frequently. My school did not allow cover for these times (even though it took 2 minutes but I needed to wash my hands etc) so I had to leave my classes unsupervised or test in the class.

I'm still on mat leave but when my dd was 5 weeks old, the head tried to bully me into coming back in September with the threat that I will not be teaching my first subject if I don't. Fine. I am entitled till the end of January.
incidentally, I have 6 hours of a subject that I do not teach (but have an a level in) on my timetable when I return in November.

Namechanged for this for fear it will out me. I got made redundant while on maternity leave, by a firm that was, admittedly in a sector notorious for treating employees appallingly, billed as a right-on friend-of-the-workers organisation. There is no question to my mind that I was being punished for taking maternity leave.

Where I work now, things couldn't be more different - flexible working is standard for everyone, there is a generous maternity package, they pay a contribution towards childcare costs, loads of people work condensed hours or part-time and no-one bats an eyelid if you have a child-related emergency to deal with, as long as the work gets done and you don't take the piss. And actually, no-one does take the piss - we all appreciate that we have a really good working environment, and we don't want to sabotage that. We are expected to get results, and we do, and to work hard, which we do, and our performance is properly monitored. But within that, there is an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, which I think actually gets better results from people than if you treat them like shit and sack them for being pregnant. The entire culture is different - none of this 'watch your back' or bitching about other people nonsense, which was a feature of every other job I've had. It just doesn't exist. And that is beneficial not only to working parents but to all employees.

That sounds amazing, it's a shame that your new company is regarded as the exception when it should be the norm. I've never worked harder or been more focused than when I've been able to work part-time/flexibly but company culture doesn't recognise this

Sad that there are so many posts.

I was honest in telling my boss I needed time off for IVF overseas (3 days only)

On day 13 of the 2week wait she took me from 72hr p/w contract to zero hours with immediate effect.

She had therefore made me unemployable - no-one wants a preg nanny!

Couldnt sue on grounds of preg discrimination as it wasnt a confirmed pregnancy.....yet another 12 hours later & it would have been totally different.

And that was from a mum of 2

My work routinely made women redundant a few months after returning from mat leave. They offered a small payout in return for signing away our right to sue them. Obviously when you've just had 9 months SMP you're not in a position to turn it down.

Very sad reading this thread that there are so many bad experiences.

Similar tale of woe here. During mat leave from my 90k role in a big multi-national, there was a restructure. I was placed in a different function with the same job title. On return to work it was clear that no-one knew why I was there or how to integrate me into the team. After a confused, unhappy 12 months I was made redundant.

Had been identified previously as a high achiever, star performance ratings, talent programs etc. They are also an employer who promotes themself as a premier company for women to work.

I took my redundancy money, started my own company and haven't looked back but it still smarts when I think about it. Apart from anything, what a collosal waste of money/opportunity for them. A highly trained employee out the door due to a poorly handled maternity leave.

I like to think that I'm quite informed in terms of rights etc. although I was quite timid when I went back to work (new baby, huge mortgage etc). I guess what worries me is that if it can happen to me, with a bunch of resources at my disposal, it can happen to anyone. Sigh.

Yep. Worked for a large well known retail bank. Was being prepped for promotion before going on Mat leave. Came back, and was still in the same entry level role 6 years on. Most mothers there were either forced to leave, or forced to take demotions. A truly shitty place.

Helish, I agree that it should be the norm. So many things have clicked into place since I've been working there - when I first started, I couldn't tell you the number of times that I thought 'Well, that's a bit different' shortly followed by 'Oh, ok, of course that's how to approach it; that makes perfect sense'. I feel sad, reading this thread and thinking of my own experience, that the accepted model of corporate culture is so out of whack in terms of how to really get the best out of employees - the organisation I work for now is living breathing proof that there is an alternative way, and it doesn't involve babying or letting people swing the lead - it's just about having faith in employees to be able to conduct their duties properly whether they are pregnant or parents or have a disability or have caring responsibilities, and providing an environment that enables them to do so without stress or threat or bullying.

I agreed with my employer to return to work from my first maternity leave working 4 days a week instead of 5. I worked part time without problem for around a year before going back up to a full time contract.

After my second maternity leave, I applied for the same and it was rejected on 2 grounds.

1. essentially that there was too much work to accommodate part time working.
2. The job could not be done on a part time basis.

Having now been back at work for a month and spending most of the week twiddling my thumbs because there isn't enough work to go round I feel very aggrieved. The team were running with a big backlog most of the time I was off but this was cleared within 2 days of my return.

They are also bringing an additional person into the team, which must have been in the pipeline when they made the decision to decline my flexible working application.

The job clearly can be done on a part time basis because I have done so in the past and there was never any question raised at the time that I was underperforming.

I very much feel that my line manager has been shortsighted at best, and deliberately awkward at worst.

During my first pregnancy I was working on site for a large banking client my discrimination was two fold as I got in the neck from the client and my employer.
The client demanded a recruitment fee they had paid for me to be refunded. I knew about this as my employer told me verbatim what was being said about me. The client made me do a premises walk for three hours when I was 7mths pregnant and made me run to chase a member of staff - it was quite a distance.
In a meeting which I attended my employer and client discussed the fact I wouldn't be coming back. Whereas previously I was liked and respected. I started getting feed back that the client thought I wasn't very good, when I asked for the reasons, it had stemmed from the fact that I had defended a member of my staff. Subsequently I was proved correct and no further action was taken against the staff member. It was an awful working environment and I felt constantly under pressure to perform better than others and work longer hours.
I ended up two days into maternity leave with severe pre-eclampsia and an emergency c-section.

No one kept in touch while I was on mat leave, despite my line manager changing. When they did contact it was to tell me my position was under review and it was likely Id be made redundant. Then they said I was no longer redundant as they found another job for me, which involved me running between three client sites one of which was the other side of London, when I would have to get back across London in rush hour for a nursery pick up. I resigned, the experience blighted my pregnancy and my mat leave as I was so stressed about going back.

A collegue of mine at the company later told me that a meeting had taken place between HR and my line manager to discuss how they could manoeuvre to manage me out of the business and bank the redundancy money I would have been paid and show it on the books as a budget saving. Hence the reason I was offered something so unsuitable. You may be wondering whether I was a bad employee, I really wasn't, I hit review targets and more, yet was denied a bonus. My department worked well, I had no staff complaints got on well with collegues, I'm still in touch with them 10yrs on.
I was in a fairly senior position with a large department. My client was a large global investment bank and my employer ran areas of their business.

My second pregnancy in a different company, was wonderful. They were supportive and I felt so much more relaxed.

I was also put forward for a job on a team that I had been wanting to work on for some time, and was not chosen because I was considered a maternity risk. A good friend of mine on the team was privy to the conversation so I can be certain that was the case. Annoying they got someone else in who then left the company before I ever went on my next maternity leave so they would have been better off with me anyway.

I had never planned to stop working because of having children. I was earning more than my husband and work was interesting.

Fact is after having my second child, I am now not working anymore (paid work that is).

Companies have never been legally at fault in how they treated me. I have had generous maternity leave arrangements, flexible working and part-time working when I asked. But I guess in the end, when companies struggle financially to survive, they prefer to keep the employees they perceive to be most reliable.

Oh my goodness some of these stories are just awful!! Why is this not spoken about more?!?!

I got a new job (for a baby scanning clinic can you believe) found out a month later I was pregnant (company owned & ran by one lady also a mother of four) I had been doing well even in a short space of time was mentioned to me about getting a bonus & being moved up within the company already. Me & the boss also got on very well.

Once I had told her my news where during the conversation I hadalso explained I loved my job & wanted to carry on as I had been doing. The first thing she said was 'well you won't get any maternity from me you'll have to go down the alternative route' which was correct but a hostile response. She seemed miffed but ok at the time but literally almost the next day she began commenting on my quality of work & lack of concentration, even though I had been doing more hours & working harder than previously. Kept saying 'it must be due to you being pregnant', obviously wanting me to leave. I was shocked.

I was actually working over time most evenings but she insisted I wasn't doing enough so she gave me a formal warning for my quality of work but the reasons were so petty like printing the cashing up on two pages instead of one & so wasting her money.

About a week after that she took my full time hours down to barely part time and said 'not because your pregnant your just not up to the job. I was so worried about money as I was being paid by the hour but she wouldn't budge it was just awful and stressful especially whilst being pregnant. I would make a point of commenting that a patient had written in our guest book about my hard work & good service but she would never respond - it was a very odd and awkward situation. Made worse by the fact she owned a business dedicated to all things pregnancy & ethics, so many times I wanted to pass comment to our customers about how I was being treated but didn't.

It shouldn't be allowed.

Feeling as raw as I do about my recent maternity discrimination and departure from work as a result, it is sad to read these experiences however makes me feel that I am not alone.
At this stage I am not sure how to move on and get rid of the anger I feel towards those who made my life hell and singled me out for such treatment. I suppose it comes down to the fact that I feel my career will be affected by this long term due to the knock my confidence has taken.

I was made redundant on maternity leave with my second child, I put in a request while i was on Maternity leave to work part time and didn't hear from them for weeks and weeks and weeks, finally they called me in for a meeting and advised they would be making me redundant. Very borderline the reasons they gave I had worked there for 9 years and worked hard all those years. I was so grateful and touched to my colleagues that they took the time to do a collection for me..as I hadn't been there for 10 months…so it's easy to get forgotten about. The employer certainly didn't tell my colleagues that I had been made redundant. Also not long after they granted 2 other people the part time working I had requested….after maternity leave. I decided not to take it further as I was struggling with the aftermath of a tricky pregnancy and was pretty stressed as it was and wanted to spend time with my family not having the stress of a tribunal hanging over me. At the time my husband was not working and retraining which was very tough…it was in 2009 at the peak of the recession and it took me 5 months before I found another job - which was part time and evening on minimum wage, previously I had been working in IT earning a good salary. Long story short after a second redundancy and 120 job applications over another 5 months I managed to get a contract job back in my field with a salary comparable to what it was before and have been there ever since. My current employee is good and has been great with home working and flexible working… It has been hard and I am annoyed about what happened. but I try not to dwell on the past and my message is never give up……it may just be harder than you imagine, I certainly had no idea that things would be made so tricky with my initial employer.

I returned from my maternity leave to find that they'd recruited somebody else into my role permanently while I was off. She was considerably junior and less experienced than me, but they expected me to report into her, even though there wasn't enough work for one, never mind two (I'd been PT before mat leave).

They constructed another role for me but with significantly less responsibility and scope, and not within my realm of expertise. I stuck it out for four months and then scarpered to a much better role elsewhere.

Still feel quite bitter about it, but it was thoughtlessness and poor decision making rather than maliciousness so I've tried not to take it personally. My career has thrived since then, so I can afford to be philosophical about it. Which is not everybody's experience, I know.