On maternity leave and restructuring at work.

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

My lovely friend is having a nightmare.

She's about to go on maternity leave, and they're talking about going from about 20 people on her level to about 5 and she's convinced she won't have a job to go back to.

Aren't there rules about what they can do?

I'd like to find the actual legislation so she can wave it at her arse of a boss.

Help!!!

Well there are some rules, yes. It's perfectly legal to make someone redundant while they are on maternity leave, but she gets a little bit of extra protection in that if she is on maternity leave at the time this happens, and her post is made redundant, then if there is a suitable alternative vacancy she should be offered it without having to compete with others.

She should be involved in consultation and other communications while she is on maternity leave.

What stage are they at now, have they started consultation properly, or any kind of selection? When does she start her leave?

Thanks flowery. My lovely friend doesn't MN but I showed her this this afternoon.

She thinks the consultation period has been underway for some time- they seem to have been meeting to discuss what the proposed structure might look like. No confirmed timescales, yet, so does that mean consultation has started? Where I work the consultation starts when they formally announce their plans for how it goes forwards, rather than discussions.

When I say maternity, it's adoption, and she's hoping start leave in January, and the staffing assessment is expected to start around that time.

She's worried she'll have to compete for a job in that they're not getting rid of the job she does, but reducing the number of posts, so she had assumed that she would just be slotted into one of the jobs.

And we've also managed to track down some info about a Regulation Materntiy Section 10 thing, which is mentioned elsewhere on this board, but the bit we downloaded doesn't directly state anything about not having to apply/compete/be interviewed so it seems a bit wolly.

It's all so stressful, and it's awful that so many people are facing this.

Oh gawd and it's no different in Wales is it? I can't think that the legislation would be different here, not for this, but...

She may have to compete. The wording is that if the person is redundant, they must be offered any suitable available vacancy. It doesn't specifically say 'without competing' - it's the word 'offered' that is key, meaning that a competitive process isn't appropriate or necessary. It's fine to interview to establish whether a role is in fact suitable, but not as competition with other staff.

The problem here is going to be definition of a 'vacancy'. If it's literally 20 people doing the same job, and a headcount reduction to 5 people doing that same job, your friend may struggle to argue that those posts are available/vacant.

DS1 calling, will be back later with more!

Back!

In terms of consultation, it's not always just announce a proposal, sometimes it's more of a genuine extended consultation to get ideas. They may get together a proposal from these discussion, then put that forward at the beginning of a formal 'consultation' process which I imagine will be pretty short.

The 'slotting in' thing you mentioned is about alternative jobs. I think there is a very good argument that even in the event of reducing the number of the same posts, if there is a selection process for those jobs they are essentially 'vacancies' until they are filled through a selection process, meaning that even in those circumstances a woman on maternity leave (or adoption leave in these circumstances) should be offered one of the jobs.

However it's a contentious point, not everyone would agree with me, and even if that is correct in law, there's a reasonable likelihood her employer would reject that argument and put her through the same selection as everyone else, meaning she would then have to challenge it.

20 down to 5 is a lot of redundancies, so statistically your friend's chances aren't good, obviously. So in those circumstances making an argument that the 5 roles constitute vacancies might be a good option. The employer might either agree, which will be great, or disagree, but if they disagree, if your friend then does get made redundant, she will be able to consider appealing it/taking it further should she want to.

No different in Wales, no.

It's not actually Reg 10 of Maternity and Parental Leave Regs, it's different legislation with the same wording here

Many employers aren't aware of the extra protection for women on maternity leave and even less are aware that the same applies to employees on adoption leave, so I think her best bet is to write formally point out the legislation, saying that she considers the 5 jobs in question to be both suitable and available and that, should selection take effect during her leave, she should therefore be offered one of them, and asking for their confirmation in terms of how they would like to proceed.

Definitely worth a go anyway, then as I say, see what their response is and take it from there.

No problem at all, and welcome :)

Yes carefully worded letter excellent first step. You never know, they might be panicked into offering you a job straightaway, it's at least worth a go!

When you say if your job isn't secure there's no way you can continue, is that you not being able or willing yourself to continue if you are not secure in your job, or is security in your job some kind of condition placed on the adoption? Sorry, I'm very ignorant about adoption and how it all works. My point is that if it's someone else's concern rather than yours, you could always point them to the legislation and say you are protected, even if you are aware that it's not quite as clear cut as you would like.

Also you may not be aware but you will get SAP regardless of whether you are employed or not, as long as you have met the qualifying conditions in terms of amount you earn and being employed for the right length of time, you can then leave work for whatever reason and still get your SAP. I don't know how long you are planning to take off, but even if you were made redundant, if you were planning to take a year off anyway, your position won't really be worsened much at all until you were due back at work.