Maternity leave and holiday - discrimination?

[Maternityleavehol]

Hello, I'm hoping someone can help me with this...

My firm has a holiday year that runs from Jan - Dec. We are allowed to carry forward 25% of our entitlement to the next year.

I am currently on maternity leave and am accruing holiday for the whole year (I'm assuming this is a normal benefit to all on maternity leave?).

However, because my baby was born very early in jan, I have to use all my holiday up (bar the 25% of basic hol I can carry forward (eg not 25% of the bank holidays)) before the end of december, or i lose anything over the 25%.

I am entitled to 12 months maternity leave. If I take the 12 months I will lose most of my accrued holiday. They will not pay me for it or let me carry forward more than the 25%.

They have said that I can come back from maternity leave early but just book it as holiday. This would be good in one way as it means I will get paid, but it means I cant take my full 12 month maternity leave. So I could come back say November but actually not physically return until January 2nd. However, I really wanted to add the holiday to end of my maternity leave so that I dont go back till end Feb.

Is this normal? It feels unfair because if my baby had been born in May (or any month other than Jan/Feb), I could have had 12 months maternity leave then added my holiday on the end, ie not returning to work till 14 months had passed. I dont really want to fight with work but my baby needs an operation in january which is why i was hoping to not go back till feb and im feeling a bit peeved that everyone else can get their full maternity leave but i cant.

if this isnt discrimination and is normal please tell me and i'll stop moaning, thank you

I went on maternity leave just after the start of my new leave year and consequently came back to work with 20 days accrued from mat leave plus all my holidays for the new year. We're normally only allowed to cf 10 days but HR said it was on discussion with line manager. I was one of the first it applied to as it came in the month before my mat leave.

It does seem unreasonable not to allow you to take your leave but I'm not sure of the legalities. Does work know your baby needs an op?

Hopefully someone else can advise but I think you're right to moan

This does not sound right at all. I would speak to the CAB.

It is discriminatory and if it literally is the case you cannot take the holiday due to your leave year the company should let you carry forward the statutory holiday element. If you could have taken it this is not the same. So in theory you should be able to carry some of the holiday forward

You can also get 4 weeks parental leave for each year of your childs life, that's unpaid but for example you could "return to work" take 75% of this years holiday this year, then take January as parental leave (unpaid) but still return after the 12 months is up.

Finally if you believe that your situation is worse because of your childs operation depending on what that's for, you may also be covered under the disability discrimination act as you are being treated less favourably than someone else due to the need to care for your LO.