urgent advice needed: on maternity leave - restructure and relocations of jobs......

[Emmz0]

Hi

Really need some advice. I'm on maternity leave and have been informed that our department is going to be restructuring and all jobs will be relocated unless they can be justified.

there will be a consultation period where all staff are invited to set criteria for justification. Do i have to attend as my baby is ill and cant go.

What are my rights on this whole situation?

Does the rule about not discriminating in the 1st 6 months apply?

Do redundancy package and rules apply for cases where jobs are relocated?

Also how does this affect my maternity pay as I'm on company maternity pay which is more enhanced then government one. It requires me to fulfil some conditions but I can only fulfil those conditions if i'm at work!!!

Thanks

Your employer is entitled to relocate jobs. If you don't want to move you can be made redundant if the job at the current location ceases to exist and there is no suitable job at the current location. Your employer cannot use the fact that you are on maternity leave to select you for redundancy or relocation. They are, however, allowed to make you redundant for other reasons such as relocating the entire department.

You need to talk to your employer about your maternity pay. However, at first glance it may be difficult for them to justify stopping the enhanced payments on the grounds that you could not fulfil the conditions when they have prevented you from doing so.

You also need to talk to your employer about the consultation. They may want to come up with an alternative arrangement for you.

It's in your interests to participate in consultation so you should try and attend meetings if at all possible. It shouldn't require a whole day, can your partner or a family member look after baby for a couple of hours for those? If not you could ask about teleconferencing in, arranging at another time or other suitable alternatives.

Not sure what you mean about not discriminating in the first 6 months - they are not allowed to discriminate at all, whatever stage of mat leave you are at.

If your job is redundant while you are on maternity leave and there is a suitable alternative vacancy available, you get first priority over other candidates who are not on maternity leave, so bear that in mind if that might apply.