Redundancy and Maternity Leave

[Grimbles]

Is anyone able to help me clarify my understanding of the law when it comes to possible redundancy whilst on Maternity Leave? I work for a large company (100+ employees) that has to cut x amount from the budget which means between 2 and 5 people from my team are at risk.

I am currently on maternity leave and from what I've read it says that although I can be made redundant, my employer has to offer me a suitable alternative job if one comes up, and also i have a right to be notified of all vacancies. My questions are:

Who decides what a 'suitable alternative' is? E.g. if there was a job but my employer didn't think it was suitable or that i was qualified to do it, but I believe I would be, what would happen there?

With regard to be notified of all vacancies, are there any rules about how you should be notified? Apparently monthly emails are being sent to work emails but I was not told of this and cant log into my work email anyway. Do I have any rights to complain about this?

Thanks

I've just noticed the sticky at the top about the maternity legal clinic so will copy to there as well

our work asked us how much we wanted to be communicated with while on ML and sent info to personal email if requested.

don't know about disputing suitable alternative, would depend on grade and JD I suppose.

It depends on the employer, mine was too keen not to break the law! I wanted to be made redundant when my maternity leave finished (excellent voluntary redundancy package was on offer) and they refused and made someone else redundant (I then quit)

A suitable alternative is a job which is no worse in terms of location, pay, status, etc. and which you are capable of carrying out. You cannot force your employer to offer you a job if they don't think it is a suitable alternative. However, you can take them to tribunal for discrimination in that situation. If the tribunal agrees that the job was a suitable alternative you will receive compensation.

There is no right to be notified of all vacancies. However, if they are advertising vacancies to all staff internally via email and have not made arrangements for you to access your email or be notified in some other way that is likely to be discrimination.