No it is not legal. Regardless of length of service your message sets out good grounds for a successful claim for automatically unfair dismissal and pregnancy and maternity discrimination. You only have 3 months from the date of termination to bring a claim and so act quickly if you have to. There follows some general advice on redundancy and maternity.
What follows deals with the all too common unexpected coincidental redundancy that occurs after an announcement of pregnancy. What I really want to get across to pregnant ladies is that such a case will never be easy because no company ever says we are sacking you because you are pregnant. It is all about inferences. My golden rules include the following
The greater the departure from a normal process the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related
The closer the dismissal is to the announcement of pregnancy the greater the inference that it is pregnancy related
The more unexpected the dismissal the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related
The more ‘singled out’ the woman is the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related
The less favourably she is treated as against non-pregnant employees and men the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related
The fewer the warnings that redundancy is possible the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related; and
The weaker the explanation for the treatment or the more misleading or evasive that explanation is the greater the inference that the dismissal is pregnancy related
Etc.
The way the law works is that the woman has a low hurdle to get over namely showing facts from which a tribunal could decide that discrimination had occurred. That isn't a precise explanation of the law but I think it suffices at this stage. If that happens the burden shifts to the company to show that in no way was discrimination involved in the dismissal or detriment. Those aren’t the precise words but they will do. Once the burden has shifted the company’s job is hard as ‘in no way’ is onerous. We have the EU to thank for that particular shifting burden mechanism. On that subject, there is a very useful appeal case just on misleading explanations. It decided that the mere fact of a misleading or evasive explanation for the treatment was enough to get the woman over her hurdle. Very useful case to have in your armoury. It's called Mitchell. Look up Appeal No. UKEAT/0497/12/MC
A Company will say that it was a genuine redundancy and any tribunal will amount to a ‘battle’ of facts and inferences. The Tribunal will firstly work out what the ‘primary facts’ are and then decide what inferences are appropriate to draw from those facts. An assessment of any case is not really possible without deep, dispassionate and objective consideration of the facts.
My message to ladies facing this issue to ensure that they keep relevant work emails, announcements, minutes etc. in the months leading up to the announcement of pregnancy. I appreciate that this may not be possible if the discrimination has already happened. The infomation may not appear to be relevant at all but, for example, the fact that they don’t say something may end up speaking volumes. Keep them at home or at least on a memory stick and don’t tell the Company you have them. I have direct and repeated experience of companies altering minutes.
To use the golden rule examples above: If she is going to show for example that
Her dismissal process departed from a normal process; or
Her dismissal was unexpected; or
She was ‘singled out’; or
She has been less favourably treated; or that
Others got lots of warnings that redundancies were coming but that she didn’t; or
that the company’s claims that it had been planning redundancies well before it knew she was pregnant is false
then, for example, minutes of department meetings or PowerPoint slides or whatever might show that there has been no hint of redundancies in the offing or that to the contrary the department is growing, or that the men who should have been put at risk of redundancy at the same time as her were already doing the ‘post restructure’ jobs before she was even warned (that is a real example I have used) etc. etc. So you can see that even ostensibly irrelevant company documentation in the run up to the announcement of pregnancy might turn out to be extremely useful. In one case the company ‘swore blind’ that the reorganisation was genuine but also showed that all the male colleagues had been pencilled in to new jobs before the first redundancy consultation.
What I am looking for usually is the answer to the question ‘why does your redundancy stink’: show me notes, minutes, emails, announcements etc.
That’s my usual rule of thumb by the way – if it stinks you may have a case.
returning to your specific case contrast 'mitchell' with 'this week, vacancies have been released and I have found my exact role being advertised'. In my view the fact that on maternity leave you have been told of possible redundancy AND found out that your exact role is being advertised DEFINITELY calls for an explanation. By 'calls for an explanation' I mean that that fact alone would cause the Employment Judge in a tribunal to turn to the Company to demand a explanation (get you over the hurdle).
Remember the time limits!
also I repeat what someone said about @flowery
good luck and best wishes