Should I claim sex discrimination................

[Redtartanlass]

I?m severely p*** off with my employers, they have just had a BIG nationwide meeting regarding redundancies in our organisation and I was not informed, despite reminding my line manager of her legal obligations to keep me in the loop when I went on maternity leave.

This and several other major incidents have tempted me to claim sex discrimination due to being pregnant. I really belive I have a case, and have evidence to back up incidents. They are a government department and should know better.

Has anyone ever gone down this road?

Was it worth it?
Do you still work in the same place?
How long did it take?
Is it ever mentioned when you have applied for other jobs?
Who did you use solicitor/union?
Was it financially worth it?

I would be grateful for any advice or experiences.

[piccolamamma]

Just ideas:

• Is it something that can be resolved by you? Perhaps organising to have a debriefing every couple of days (not with unhelpful manager - go above them, i doubt if they'll make a fuss and you can just brush them off cooly if they do) or get someone you trust/your secretary/someone junior to you, to take notes at meetings and email you, talking with colleagues on instant messenger during the working week etc. basically make your prescence known.
  
• Is it possible that they didn't want to bother you? Considered the meeting to be less important than it was from your perspective?
  
• With regard to taking legal action they do say never do it unless all other avenues have been explored first and that it is a nightmare (sometimes a costly one - what if you loose?).
  
  H&S check was not carried out at my workplace either but everyone was kind and aware and in the event of there being heavy stuff to shift one day my boss (very senior guy)insisted on carrying everything.

[n1k199]

I am taking my current employers to tribunal due to the way I was treated whilst pregnant, there are a lot of H&S issues, and blatant discrimination in my case and its very complicated. I had to put in my initial grievance prior to returning. Return I did, I did their process through a specialist solicitor. I am still here and working (its hard cos they are trying every which way to get me to walk - and I wont give them the satisfaction).

Would like to say my situation was down to a mainly male dominated environment, but the most discriminative remark made came from a woman.

The process is hard, and I am now at the point of waiting for tribunal date. Trust me there is much to do prior to reaching this point. You need a good specialist solicitor, I am not doing this for the money, but to make them stand up and look more carefully how they treat women.

I am the first ft member of staff to have a baby, there are more women working here these days, I feel that if I sit back and don't deal with the way I was treated, then no-one else can complain after me.... (selfishly, I want another baby next year, so its likely to be me who's pregnant next too!!)...

This is not something I am doing lightly, it took a lot of total disbelief before I took action - but the constant threat to my unborn babies life and subsequent early labour pushed me over the edge.

Think carefully...its not fun...

[Redtartanlass]

annh & Cavie thanks for your input, this exactly why I posted, to listen to another side. Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees. I am/was just sooooo angry hearding about the redundancy meeting.

The thing is I had exacttly the same problems of no communication when I was on mat leave with ds2 (only 12 weeks), so made sure manager was aware of how to contact me, especially with the redundancy thing hanging over us. I even printed out the HR guidelines from our intranet and still she missed me out!!!

And to be truthful, it is just the tip of the iceberg of how bad the place is...but hey, that's the cival service for you!!!

I need to step back, calm down and the sue the ba**s, a make millions I tell you, millions...wild manic, hormonal laughter!!

[annh]

Redtartanlass, I think you are a long way from a tribunal or worrying about how much you might be awarded. Couple of things I couldn't figure out from your posts were - have you spoken to your boss or HR dept about how you feel about being excluded, not having had a Risk Assessment etc. Is there anything in writing - have you written to them, did they respond? I think many companies are still guilty of doing the kind of things (or not doing them) that you say your company has done. However, what could make a difference is whether these things were done maliciously or you were just e.g. overlooked when they were circulating the info about the redundancy meeting. You say that they have just had this meeting but also that your DD is 11 days old! Although incorrect, is it possible that they just thought you had better things to think about or that informing you about possible redundancies when you had JUST given birth was not quite the thing to do?

With regards to your travelling, did you inform the company that you wished to stop earlier and they ignored you or did they let you stop once you did inform them? Also despite having given you a leaflet about risk assessments, did you ever actually ask for one which was not then followed up? If not, why not? I'm not a lawyer but surely the fact that you continued travelling without asking for any exemptions could be taken as complicit acceptance on your part of the travelling?

Sorry to sound negative, I know you can only give examples of what has happened so there may be lots more stuff which they have done, but what you have said so far doesn't sound like a particularly strong case. If you do not intend to go back anyway, by the time you have exhausted your company's internal grievance procedure, your maternity leave will probably be over and you may be in a new job so unless you intend to claim that all these incidents caused you to look for work elsewhere, surely it would be difficult to claim sex discrim?

I'm sure someone much more knowledgable will be along in a while to comment. There are also a couple of people who post who have been through tribunals, maybe one of them will see this. I have a friend who did go to tribunal and part of her claim included sex discrimination. She won but said it look a long time, was a horrible experience and I think she wishes she hadn't done it. I was living abroad at the time so am hazy on the details but she didn't get anything like three years salary.

[Cavie]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I have some concerns about aspects of this.

The worst that seems to have happened here is that someone has been a bit incompetent at keeping you informed. You don't think it was malicious and given that you weren't around it perhaps slipped their mind. In any event though it's irrelevant isn't it since you've already said you haven't lost out and are planning to leave anyway (following a fairly generous mat package).

They should perhaps have done more (as a matter of law) on the H&S side, but it sounds again as though you weren't prejudiced by this-when you felt the travelling was too much for you, you told them and they allowed you to stop. Pretty reasonable behaviour IMO.

So you haven't really been discriminated against at all, and you haven't really lost out but you sense a chance for some cash since organisations don't like being accused of discrimination.

But what about the consequences? Your former colleagues will be in trouble since they are the reason for your organisation receiving the claim which will cause them stress and harm their careers. And what of the consequences on you and your young child? Let's say they disagree that they have discriminated and defend your claim. You'll then be spending time and emotional effort which could be best spent elsewhere.

There's plenty of real discrimination around, and I just feel uneasy when it seems as though people are pursuing it for the wrong reasons. Sorry if that's not the case here, but it's worth thinking about in this context I think.

[QueenVictoria]

I do believe you have to go grievance before you can actually go to arbitrators/tribunal anyway dont you?

[albosmum]

like sickandtired i had to sign a compromise agreement - VR a bit of extra money

[ToshyTinker]

Agree with fis. Did you tell them what you were prepared to do and what you wouldn't do? I travelled until 38 weeks but my choice, there would have been no problem if I'd said I didn't want to - also govt dept.

[foxinsocks]

In my last job, I travelled extensively (including overseas). They asked me what I wanted to do re the travel when I got pregnant - I requested that I didn't do overseas stuff from 12 weeks pregnant onwards and that was accepted (I could have done it if they had really wanted me too but I hate flying anyway so was relieved to be excused from it!). I still travelled nationally (all over UK) till I went on maternity leave. I don't think being pregnant would be reason enough not to do UK travel (unless you had other additional health reasons).

I understand you are saying that they didn't do the check but it doesn't sound like you were put in danger because of it.

In your shoes, I would make a meeting with your manager and tell them what you think and see what their response is.

[QueenVictoria]

Ooh that would be nice rTL!

[Redtartanlass]

bloody hell s&t can't beleive that would happen in the 21st century. At least my complaint is through their ignorance/laziness not through maliciousness.

i heard somewhere that if you win at trbunal for this, you get 3 X times annual wage. o you know if this is right?

[sickandtired]

similar thing happened to me, in that I actualy saw my job advertised at a recruitment agency (and I was in HR, the manager of the dept!) I spoke to my director and high tailed it back to work when ds was 8 weeks old to try and secure my posistion. It was horrible, really horrible, they had basically decided that as I had had a baby I had lost my "killer" instint (we were going through a huge rationalisation), eventually I requested VR, and they wanted to give me a compromise agreement, to stop me taking them to tribunal, which I did for some extra money

Stick to your guns, if you need any advice cat me

[Redtartanlass]

Brillaind advice Edam, thanks

WhizzzBangWhizzz - no they did NO assessmnet, despite giving me a handout telling me they were legally obliged to

Also, on their intranet their HR have an advice leaflet on how Managers can keep their mat women "in the loop", i printed a copy off and gave to my line manager. As when I was on mat leave with ds2, they left me out of everything.

They just haven't learnt and think they can get away with it!!

[edam]

And if they do offer you redundancy, then that's a perfectly respectable solution to 'what do I tell future employers' - you were made redundant.

[edam]

You need to talk to a solicitor. If you are a member of a union they may be able to provide legal advice so that's a good place to start. You may be able to come up with an agreed reference that will be used if you ever cite this employer as a referee for future employment - ie they keep a reference that you have agreed between you on file and that is the only one that is ever sent out. So when you apply for other jobs you can be certain what is being said. As you are on maternity leave it should be fairly easy to finesse the reasons for leaving - I would imagine 'oh, I sued my employers for sex discrimination' not being something you want to mention at first interview.

[WhizzzBangWhizzz]

What they should have done is a Risk Assessment - looking at all the aspects of your job and how your pregnancy affected what you could & couldn't do safely. This should have included travel. Did they do any sort of assessent ?

[Redtartanlass]

It's legally necessary and yes, I was driving many miles a day visting employers right up to 8 1/2 months pregnant, when i told them i was not doing it anymore.

Worked from office from then on and discovered Mumsnet...so not much work got done

But the point is, they should have done H&S check

[QueenVictoria]

Was it necessary to do a H & S check though?

[Redtartanlass]

why is everything posting twcie?

[Redtartanlass]

I haven't lost out but...

1. Was set the same annual targets as my collegues, even though they will be impossible to meet, due to mat leave.
   
2. They have broke the law re:health & safety. Did not do a safety check.
   
   I understand the only route available is sex discrim.

[Redtartanlass]

I haven't lost out but...

1. Was set the same annual targets as my collegues, even though they will be impossible to meet, due to mat leave.
   
2. They have broke the law re:health & safety. Did not do a safety check.
   
   I understand the only route available is sex discrim.

[albosmum]

I was advised this route was open to mee but decided it was not worth the stress or harassment - morally i should have pursued my employers for future employees

[albosmum]

I was advised this route was open to mee but decided it was not worth the stress or harassment - morally i should have pursued my employers for future employees

[aloha]

Have you actually lost out due to being pregnant though, or are you just annoyed? Ie have you been demoted or lost your job?

[Redtartanlass]

bump