on a secondment and found out i am pregnant!!!

[yummyjas]

Hello

I urgently need somenbody's help. I have been given my notice on 6th August due to redundancy. I am allowed to find a job within company before last day which is October 23rd. i have successfully found a secondment which lasts for nine months and i start in September.

I have just found out I am five weeks pregnant. can they fire me and not give me any maternity pay.

Help

What do you mean can they fire you?

You have found a secondment position from September to May, yes? That's just like any normal employment (i.e. they can't fire you for being pregnant or on maternity leave!).

From May onwards, the right to redeployment would trigger again and they'd have to look at other jobs for you internally. In fact, employees on maternity leave have priority for those vacancies over other people.

No they can't fire you.

If you've been accepted for the post it doesn't change anything - presumably you still have all the employment rights you had as well as protected 'length of service' and 'terms and conditions'.

At five weeks dont' tell anyone yet - wait til 12 (or 16 weeks if you can get away with it) - and it looks less like you knew when you took the post (just for brownie points).

And at five weeks pregnant it's best not to tell anyone anyway. If your employer queries further down the line when your pregnancy is officially out then I would say that at 5 weeks you did not want to say you were pregnant until the safe date of 12 weeks (though I left it to after a 16 week scan before I said anything to my employers to be extra safe)!

Congratulations on your pregnancy and your secondment, by the way :-)

Thanks for all the reassurances. I just need to find out legally where I stand. Am i protected because I am pregnant.

What if I go on maternity leave before secondment finishes?

HR have told me that if I am unsuccesful in finding another post before the last day of my secondment they will make me redundant. (they don't know I am pregnant by the way).

I have do have the option of looking for a permanent position whilst on my secondment>

If you go on maternity leave before your secondment finishes then it makes no difference to your employment conditions. I would just take up the secondment and then tell your employer at the time you would do normally ( I waited til 15 weeks.) Congratulations by the way!

Thanks for all the good wishes.