MATERNITY BENEFITS/RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELP NEEDED

[vodkahater]

i work 16 hours a week (term-time) for a registered charity, my take home pay is £94 a week, i dont earn enough to pay tax and national insurance.

as far as i know i have no maternity rights with my work, as in they will wash there hands of me once i give up to have the baby.

does anyone know (and i really need it to be fact) if i am entitled to anything, i dont think i will get any maternity leave/pay from my work and as i dont earn a lot i dont think i will get maternity benefit which you usually get if you dont qualify for smp.

my work dont know yet that i am pregnant and i dont want to bring it up right now as they are in the middle of cutting some peoples hours, i think my 16 hours are safe but am worried incase they would cut mine if they knew about baby.

my main problem is the place i work (nursery) is a registered charity and the money that comes in from fees goes back out in wages then the rest is banked, im not sure if because of the set up i would not be entitled to anything.

sorry am waffling now, have to go out to shops will will be back soon.

remember because i only work term time i only earn about £3800 a year

vodkahater please don't panic. You do have rights see here for more information. You won't get any pay as you don't earn enough, there may well be other financial benefits you can claim.

In terms of employment rights, how much you earn is not relevant, if you are an employee you have rights, including maternity leave, the right to return to your job or a similar one if you take additional maternity leave and lots of other rights. I won't list them all here, look at the link, and there is also this which is an interactive tool where you put in information about your circumstances and it tells you exactly what your entitlements are.

Have a look, and if you have any questions do come back and ask.

OK,

Firstly, regardless of who you work for, if you are a paid employee you are entitled to maternity pay. Period.

It doesn't matter that you don't make any NI or tax contributions.

go to www.dwp.gov.uk and this will tell you all you need to know about your maternity rights.

Secondly, unless you are uable to agree to hours of work with said charity once your mat leave has finished, they can not get rid of you.

You are entitled to a statutory 6 months maternity leave.

If for whatever reason you don't qualify for maternity pay (which you do) you will still be able to apply for statutory maternity pay.

flowerybean? OMG is that right? Sorry I had wrong info re you would get paid then, but all rest is OK as I claimed SMP last time and I was only earning £70 a week in my job.

fbb have you any idea if i would be able to claim maternity allowence, im sure i read somewhere that you had to pay ni to get tat.

Oh good grief, there's me rushing, you must earn £87 a week to get SMP, so you may get it.

So you don't automatically get pay if you are an employee, but if you earn over £87 a week you do.

However must SMP is 90% of average earnings, which is based on a qualifying period, usually the 8 weeks before 15th week before due date.

So as vodkahater only works term time there is a likelihood she won't get it. VH have a look at your calendar, work out when the 15th week before your due date is (25 weeks pg) and then look at the 8 weeks before that - that is the qualifying period and you must earn an average of £87 (before tax) to qualify for pay.

Sorry for rushing earlier post and not checking properly..

here is stuff about Maternity Allowance, you may get it - if you have worked for 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks prior to your due date and earned an average of £30 a week in 13 of the weeks, you should get that, yes.

Please excuse my rushed and incomplete posts, most unlike me, trying to do 156 things at once at the moment!