Redundancy after mat leave

[Conceptionzilla]

My managers have decided not to cover my maternity leave. I asked what that meant for my long term employment, if they can manage without me for a year. They said they would see how things go and might make my job redundant and look for alternative work for me if they decide they can cover the work without me.

I have a stand alone specist post which is very technically different from anyone else in the organisation, so I wouldn’t easily be redeploy-able.

Is this discrimination? I don’t believe they would be considering making my post redundant if they didn’t have my mat leave as a trial period.

You have greater rights in a redundancy situations when pregnant/on maternity leave. It basically means that if any suitable role (not necessarily the same) exists you have to be offered it. If there isn’t anything then you can indeed be made redundant.

It does sometimes happen that maternity leave is what prompts an organisation into realising they don’t need a post. That doesn’t mean it’s discrimination necessarily. As long as the redundancy is genuine, ie they are genuinely removing the post entirely, then they are allowed to do that. It’s when they do appoint maternity cover and then in a restructure try and keep the new person instead of the person on maternity leave that it can become a bit dodgy.

As Titty says, if your post is redundant while you are on maternity leave, if there is a suitable alternative vacancy you must be offered it.

Ok thank you.

It just feels unfair that we wouldn’t be having this conversation if I wasn’t pregnant.

I know they won’t be able to find me a suitable alternative role and I’ll get minimal redundancy pay.

That’s life though eh