Hi,
I've got a question to all of you in the know about employment law and maternity benefits.
I am a university lecturer and am getting SMP, which my employer tops up to full pay for three months and to half pay for another three.
Last year, I did some extra online tutoring for another university in addition to my normal full-time job. The tutoring was paid on a fee basis. There was a - fairly notional - number of hours attached to the course I was tutoring with an hourly fee. Pay was divided into three installments, with tax / NI deducted at source.
Now they want to change it all to contracts - this is what the coordinator e-mailed me:
"after much discussion over the summer, the University of xxxxxx has agreed to offer tutors contracts for the work that they do. This means that the University will be in touch with you very shortly to offer you the position of Part-Time Tutor on a fixed-term basis. The benefit of this is greater security and convenience; pay will be on a monthly basis direct into your bank account, so we can do away with termly fees and pay claim forms."
I am really worried that, if I accepted this, this would mean that I might loose SMP. If it all remained fee-based, I'd be less worried. It's a pity, because that bit of tutoring would really have helped with pay during my leave, and it is easy to do from home...
Any advice would be appreciated!