Job Offer withdrawn after informing employer that I am pregnant.

[Char1997]

Hi all,

I originally posted this on as a pregnancy thread. As the situation has evolved I have been advised to post on here. I was offered a job yesterday afternoon and although I know I was under no obligation to inform them, I told the employer that I was expecting in December. Since then I have had the job offer withdrawn as they felt that I “misled them” and wasn’t honest. Is anyone able to give me some advice if I were to take this further.

That response email from them is laughable. It is flat out admitting they discriminated against you. By law you don't have to disclose your pregnancy, which they admit, yet won't give you the job because you weren't "honest" about it from the start? RIGHT.

Go after them like a rabid dog, op. Shit like this needs to stop.

morally I don't think you have done the right thing in not declaring a pregnancy which is half way through. You must have waited for them to make offer before letting on which does seem quite cheeky.

If OP had not declared her pregnancy then this issue would not have come up. Starting interviews with 'Hello, I'm Char and I'm pregnant' would seem a bit batshit to me. You are bloody weird to find not sharing intimate details before interview cheeky.

Now you're threatening legal action - I can't see it working now even if they do offer job

OP would be mad to take a job with them. If a black person were rejected for 'being a n' and then the company relented, would you expect them to be grateful?

OP should pursue legal action because everyone should challenge unlawful discrimination to try to make such behaviour uneconomical- it's not just in her interest, it's her duty.

Didn’t the OP say she was introduced to the team and given a start date?

I've never seen such unprofessional emails, it is a small company without a HR dept?

Hilarious how she discusses other people's business like an addiction and an illness!!

The only thing I'm wondering is if they'll get off on a technicality that they've not formally offered you the job? Not an expert though.

Yes they are on dodgy ground for sure but as an employer we would be completely screwed if we hired and within a few weeks our new employee went on maternity for a year because we only have 4 staff and as a non profit, employing a temp isn't an option. It used to be the case that you were only legally entitled to maternity leave if you have been employed a certain amount of time prior to your pregnancy which I think is a good balance.

She has specifically written you received no formal job offer

She's written that the OP received no formal written offer. That implies that there was a verbal offer. The stuff about having to speak to X whose brother is seriously ill seems like after-the-fact arse-covering to me.

Again, irrelevant what you think.

That's unfair. Terrible people are just as welcome on MN as the rest of us :-)

I know it's bullshit, but that's one hellava big get out of jail card. Unless you've very deep pockets and willing to lose big

IANAL. I have some relevant experience and suspect this is not true. A lawyer upthread agrees. At the very least OP needs to get advice. If (as suggested) your home insurance does not cover it then many employment lawyers may work on a 'no win, no fee' basis for something like this.

But @Bluntness100 even if they hadn't already offered the job, the email makes it clear that the reason she won't get an offer is due to the pregnancy. Which is discrimination.

And those saying the OP should have disclosed the pregnancy at interview, this just gives interviewers the opportunity to screen out pregnant women by not offering them roles in the first place. Which is discrimination. So the OP was well within her rights to say nothing and to be interviewed based on her own merits.

I know it's the law they aren't allowed to discriminate and ask if you are planning to get pregnant. But morally I don't think you have done the right thing in not declaring a pregnancy which is half way through.

What you think is totally irrelevant. The op has legally done nothing wrong. That’s the standard she should be held to.

That implies that there was a verbal offer

No it doesn't, especially because she says she stil, had to consult her brother,

It doesn't take a half wit to say I called to discuss the role with her further, as I did with other candidates, and she informed me she was pregnant. We didn't proceed to offer her thr role as we felt her comments during the interview were misleading and the other candidate was better. She's just pissed off and lying.

The issue is it can be interpreted either way. The op has a difficult one. Yes of course it's discrimination. Based on what the op has said.

But if that employer says what I just said, and presents those emails, then no it's not. Not even slightly. It is her word against theirs.

@stucknoue You do realise that the company won't be paying for her mat leave? She will get statutory or maternity allowance that they either claim back 90% of (or whatever) from the government or have nothing to do with. You can't just say people aren't entitled to maternity leave - do you expect someone to push out a baby and be back at work at 9 the next morning because they started a job when they were pregnant? Maternity leave is a statutory entitlement, not something a company grants.

Yes they are on dodgy ground for sure but as an employer we would be completely screwed if we hired and within a few weeks our new employee went on maternity for a year because we only have 4 staff and as a non profit, employing a temp isn't an option.

This is just not true. The government pays the employer more than the SMP paid to the employee.

That's unfair. Terrible people are just as welcome on MN as the rest of us :-)

Sorry, what I meant was what someone thinks is irrelevant to the OP because this is about her position legally.

No it doesn't, especially because she says she stil, had to consult her brother

I think it does, otherwise she'd simply have said 'you have received no offer'.

She's also used the phrase 'reconsidering whether we would want to make a formal offer to you'. The word 'reconsider' means they are considering a decision that has already been made, with a view to changing it. If the decision to offer hadn't yet been made, the correct verb would have been 'consider' not 'reconsider'.

AHHHH!! I’m so pleased you used my wording in your email back to them (posted on original thread) and honestly I was having a little dance around the living room when I saw that!!

You tweaked it perfectly and it read so well! Honestly think somebody is going to open that tomorrow and be like 😦 ‘oh shit’.

I’m still posting in OT too and so hope you get this sorted OP but place marking on here too to follow how it goes.

They’ve completely broken the law and they’ll know they are wrong.

OP do not engage further. Seek advice.
Judging by those emails I take it they have no HR department and they are not very professional!!

Comparing pregnancy with an addiction, how irrelevant is that? And her casual tone? She is a feminist?
WTAF

You don't have to disclose certain things at interviews.

Shocking

This is direct sex discrimination!! I really hope you pursue this but please also think about what you want the outcome to be. I expect you don't want them to reinstate the offer now that you know what they are like?

*just saw their response

They are quite clearly crapping themselves - what she said in that email was the equivalent of ‘I’m not a racist because I’ve got a black friend’ 😒😡

They have reconsidered your verbal offer of employment because you didn’t tell them you were pregnant (not legally obliged to do) however they ‘feel’ about it. However they would have ‘preferred’ for you to go about it... IT DOESNT MATTER

They are annoyed you didn’t tell them about your pregnancy and as a protected characteristic (which the law says you don’t have to tell them about) - that in itself IS discrimination!

I would NOT hire a pregnant woman. That is insane.

Maybe you wouldn't, but the law is the law.

@cathf

In this country a pregnant woman is seen as being legally able to work. That is how dwp see it so you will not be entitled to certain benefits until the baby is actually born.

They assume we will not be discriminated against so we shouldn't be. These laws are there to protect us.

I finished uni and happened to be pregnant. I was entitled to nothing as I had not been paying NI. I was lucky I found someone to employ me as a temp despite being visibly pregnant. Otherwise I would have been entitled to no maternity allowance either once the baby was born.

Pregnant women are vulnerable and not everyone has rich husbands there to support them.

This is sexual discrimination and I think the laws are perfectly logical.

I would NOT hire a pregnant woman. That is insane.

You should put this in your job adverts.

@Char1997 why are they comparing it to someone was open about previous addiction? she is trying to make you think you are being unreasonable, for her using the phrase 'ardent feminist' definitely take it further to show her why the law is there to protect people like you from companies like hers. Not sure of the relevance of the brother being poorly either.

"This is a common occurrence. Whilst I agree with your sentiment (that discrimination is not acceptable), your example is disappointingly ignorant"

And your reading comprehension skills are disappointingly poor.

I've been working in HR for 20 years, so steady on before you call me ignorant about employment issues, thanks very much.

I disagree completely that it's a 'common occurrence' for employers to withdraw offers because of a lack of honesty about a completely irrelevant disability. I've never come across that. Plenty of employers withdraw offers unlawfully because of the disability, absolutely. But not because of the lack of honesty.

This employer is (now) saying they have no problem with the pregnancy, only with the 'lack of honesty' about it. If you actually think that's the genuine reason you're incredibly naïve.

'Lack of honesty' is never the issue, with pregnancy, disability or anything else. It's the protected characteristic itself which is the concern. This employer is citing the 'honesty' and saying that if the OP had told them at the start of the process rather than just after the interview, it would have been fine. There's no credibility to that argument at all in my view.

Pregnancy is in my experience the only protected characteristic where both employers and often employees, feel there is some kind of moral obligation for women to be 'upfront' about it. You see it on these boards time and time again, people agonising about whether to tell, people being outraged (as some on this thread are) at someone even considering not being 'honest' about something which a prospective employer is not allowed to take into account anyway!

If they are not allowed to take it into account, what is the benefit in telling them? No one who argues in favour of honesty is able to explain this on these threads. All the OP would have been doing would have been burdening them with a 'big' piece of information they would not be allowed to do anything with. It's better for both the employer and the employee for the recruiting manager to be given the opportunity to make a decision about candidates without that information looming over them. That way everyone knows there was no discrimination.

I'd bet most of the people on this thread saying the OP should have been 'honest' about her pregnancy would not give the same advice to someone who didn't happen to mention a completely irrelevant disability at an interview.

Please pursue this OP - don't let the arse-covering second email or the naysayers here put you off speaking up against discrimination.