Pregnant and looking for work or been discriminated against due to pregnancy?

[mistyamica]

Hello ladies,

I have been looking for work and have had no joy..ontop of things i found out i was pregnant and my chances of finding work are even slimmer.

Discrimination against pregnant women is still happening and there isn't anything we can do about it...is there?

I have been doing loads of research and would like to help pregnant women find work should they need to or want to but first i need to know if there is enough demand out there?

I have been writing to Tom Watson a labour MP to tell him of this problem and im not stopping there with your help i can gather more facts and share experiences and try to get this problem highlighted to the government to show that the law they instated about discrimination to pregnant women means nothing as employers are still doing it. Mainly because there is no method of monitoring the problem. When you fill out equal opportunities forms....where is the bit asking "are you pregnant?"

so if you are pregnant and looking for work or have been discriminated against due to a pregnancy then reply to this thread i want to know exactly how serious this problem is.

notice to mumsnet.com....i am not an employment agency i am a single mother who is also pregnant and finding it hard to find work. I just want to fight for all us women who are pregnant and cannot get work. please do not delete this thread like you did my last

Hi Mistyamica

Great post. All women who have been affected by discrimination either whilst pregnant or on maternity leave need to post here and support this otherwise this will keep happening in the future.

I have been discriminated during pregnancy and whilst on maternity leave. My company's aim was to clearly get rid of me.

Similar case with my friends.

The maternity law I feel from my experience is open to interpretation particularly on redundancy and restructures.

Also here is another problem I have experienced. The law on maternity from my understanding is that you can't discriminate a woman because she is pregnant, can't sack her because she is pregnant, i mean for that particular reason. However, from my experience and what I have read from other womens experiences,most companies are aware of this and deliberately discriminate in indirect away to get away with it legally.
Companies cover this up by using other excuses (restructure, redundancies), fire a women directly after coming back from full maternity etc. There is no support on this anywhere.

The problem is that being pregnant DOES affect your work output - just a fact of life!

Companies aren't allowed to discriminate against you for being pregnant, but given the financial and organisational factors involved in managing both a pregnant employee and also one on maternity leave, they just end up discriminating against ALL women of childbearing age.

One way round this would be to simply get rid of any special treatment whilst pregnant - if you're signed off sick by doc it gets treated as per other illnesses; if you want time off for maternity then you arrange it as you would any other long term sabatical on an individual basis.

Now, before everyone gets up in arms: We still managed to have kids before statuatory maternity leave, how did our grandparents cope? I know my grandmother's salary was needed to pay the rent, so don't argue that only the well-off would have kids - it's simply not true.

And good employees would have nothing to worry about - in fact, given that companies weren't having to keep jobs open in ambiguous circumstances and pay for extra benefits, there would be more jobs available and a more flexible workforce.

Just an idea...