Maternity leave

[MauwvieMum]

Hi all

I’m new to this platform but I have a question I hope you guys might be able to help me with.

I’m 14 weeks pregnant and my employer who is a German based company and I are trying to figure out my maternity leave and my payment. They’ve offered me 26weeks leave with no pay from the company and suggested I sign up for the maternity benefits that are available her in Ireland.
They are a very big company so I’m really shocked by this “offer”. I’ve worked with them for 4 years also and I have always been a very good employee and always get very high marks in all of my reviews.
I’m just wondering is this the norm for Irish employees to not be given any percentage of their normal salary?

Can you guys help? I’ve a phone conference call with them tomorrow to go over the details.

Thanks

Northern Ireland or the Republic?

What is the company policy on Maternity Leave and Maternity Pay?

What does your contract of employment say?

And the company policy?

www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/leave_and_holidays/maternity_leave.html have a read through this from citizens advice in Ireland, it does seem that you are entitled to 26 weeks leave with statutory maternity pay and then an extra 16 weeks unpaid on top of that.

Hi & thanks for replying.

I have nothing in my contract about maternity leave and I have raised this with some of the other staff members and we’re all the same.
As far as I can understand legally my company doesn’t have to pay me any of my salary while on mat leave but most companies will pay some of the person’s salary as an incentive for them to return to their position.
as I also know the German mat leave they provide their staff there is a very good package I feel a little hard done by just because I’m not currently living there.

It’s a bit of grey area so all comments are really appreciated
M

Is that because Germany has better statutory leave policies, or are your company paying their German employees extra on top of their statutory requirements. If it's the first I'd say unfortunately you're SOL but if it's the second i reckon you've got grounds to query it.

Unfortunately, lots of companies think it's reasonable to do the bare minimum in terms of parental leave pay - its always important to check those policies before agreeing to work for people!

Workplaces usually have separate policies for things like Leave, Conduct etc. If these are not in a Handbook then they should be on some sort of shared drive for you to access.

Ask HR for a copy of the Leave Policy.

In the republic of Ireland, it's more common that you won't be paid any of your salary on maternity leave by your employer, you get 26 weeks leave paid by the state if you meet the qualifying conditions and can also take 16 weeks additional leave to which your entitled but it's unpaid leave. There was also two weeks parental leave introduced last November that you can tack onto this time I think. I work as public servant in the roi and this is norm in my sector and most others I can think of.

Most of the companies friends and family work for have at least partial pay for their employees there’s a good amount who get paid their full salary as it is an incentive for the employee to return to the work place. I’m just really surprised that it’s not the norm for a company to pay you something. A lot of other countries seem to have much better terms for their employees when they go on mat leave

But surely this is something you checked before getting pregnant?

To be honest my pregnancy has been a happy surprise and also when speaking to colleagues in Germany they had all said that the company gave very good maternity leave so I was under the assumption I would be treated the same as the other employees.

You likely should be, can you get a hold of the leave policy for German employees and ask why the same doesn't apply to you?

I’m based in NI so mat pay rules are slightly different to ROI. My company also has different policies for staff based in different locations.

Unfortunately what you are describing is not unheard of :(

I'm German and in Germany you'd usually get 67% of your salary for the year & due to the strong labour laws, you're not allowed to work after 34 weeks & maternity only starts the day baby is born, so their offer sounds awful!

@Firstimemam yes this is what I found out while doing my research.
I’ve spoken to my company and we’re going to hopefully come to a happy agreement.
Really appreciate all the feed back from everyone!