Internal Job Offer

[cardoc]

I am 24 weeks pregnant and I have just been offered a new role in another team. The usual notice period as per my contract is 1 month.
I start my maternity leave on 24th December and my holidays from November. I have suggested that I am willing to forego my holidays to give me as much time as possible in the new team. However the company is saying that I can only start my new role once I am back from maternity leave which is in 8 months . I have also received a salary increase which will take effect when I join. I am nervous that when I go back they wouldn’t give me the new role . Anyone been through something similar. What are my rights ?

I can think of a dozen answers. I suppose it boils down to "what are you going to do about it?". Technically, there is no reason in principle why an employer can't set any future start date that they want. On the other hand, it could be argued that the delay is down to your pregnancy, and they wouldn't do that too anyone not pregnant, so it could be discrimination. On the other hand I can see their point of view, that it may not be logistically the best thing for a team to have a manager stay, go off on maternity leave, get someone else, then have the manager back again....But it also lets the employer not have to pay maternity leave at a higher rate. There's arguments on both sides.

But if they say that this is what they want to happen, are you willing to tell them that this is discrimination and you want to start the role now? How will you force them to do that? Are you willing to go to law about this? Because that will certainly have an impact on relationships going forward, and it's maybe not the place you want to be going into a new job.

Things change, and I suppose you are right to wonder if the job will be there for you after maternity leave. But to be fair, that's a two way street, because they have no guarantee you will come back either.

Thanks for the response. What you say makes sense. I’m just going to hope for the best and hope I can join the job post maternity leave