Maternity discrimination in the workplace: share your experience on the guest post by MP Dan Jarvis

[NicolaDMumsnet]

Hi everyone,

MNHQ here- we know that pregnancy and maternity discrimination is something that many of our users feel very strongly about and is something that unfortunately, some of you may have experienced firsthand.

That's why we wanted to signpost our latest guest post by MP Dan Jarvis all about maternity discrimination and why the government must do more to protect pregnant women and mothers in the workplace. Dan has introduced the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill to Parliament, which would change the law to extend redundancy protections for expectant mums and new parents. The Bill has its final reading in the House of Commons on February 3rd.

Dan is interested in hearing users’ input on the Bill, their experiences, and any questions, so he can make sure your voice is heard in Parliament. So, if you have been made redundant while pregnant or returning to work, please do share your story on the guest post.

Read the guest post here.

It’s happened to me and happened to many women I know. Always done under a “we are restructuring and your role is now redundant” but interestingly they manage to keep on the men who were recruited as maternity covers. Always paid off with decent settlements but clauses not to talk about it.

i think what’s most interesting about the whole thing is that it’s easy to excuse each case as an individual case that could be excused as happening for reasons not relating to maternity, but when you put the bigger picture together then it’s obvious there is a pattern. But as we aren’t allowed to talk about it, you rarely get to share experiences.

I think it’s also interesting that it happens across all industries, with no particular industry safer than others. I worked for a large multinational corporate and it happened there, it seems that employers with deep pockets can do whatever to get rid of women; as well as those on zero hours contracts etc etc

We also need to be having conversations around employment prospects after being made redundant. Maternity allowance is peanuts so being made redundant while pregnant > then applying for new jobs while pregnant is very very challenging; or receiving MA then applying for new roles basically unemployed and with a young baby is also challenging.

I was offered a job while pregnant and had a thread about it at the time, whether to tell the employer and the number of comments I had saying I was taking the piss by even applying for a job while pregnant was depressing. These comments were from women on a parenting site, let alone from the men in their 60s who still run many industries.

I’ll definitely name change and tell my story!

In a previous pregnancy, I was sacked for being off sick too long. I was in hospital with complications and didn’t know they shouldn’t have sacked me.

This pregnancy, nothing quite as overt. Except my team are being repurposed, it’s been a long time in the planning. We have all been up-skilled to allow for the transition.

I say “we” have been up-skilled. Every time I book annual leave, suddenly that is the same week the external training is arranged for. I cancelled leave on one of the weeks, suddenly the external training is also cancelled.

Our performance measures for this year have all been around attending this training and demonstrating application of new skills learnt in this training. Needless to say, having been “accidentally excluded” from the training sessions, I didn’t perform so well by those measures.

I am preparing myself for being managed out.

To add to this, with a newborn to care for, I doubt I will have the time to fight being managed out.

My “preparations” for being managed out include preparing my CV for job hunting.