MNHQ here: post your pregnancy & maternity work questions here for FREE legal advice from Maternity Action

[JuliaMumsnet]

Hello

A big welcome back to our November 2021 FREE legal clinic with a brilliant team of volunteer specialist employment solicitors and barristers, organised by Maternity Action.

Are you confused about your rights during maternity leave? Have you come back to find you're in a completely different role? Has your employer told you it's not possible to take parental leave? Are you a dad who's struggling to get your employer to understand Shared Parental Leave? Do you think you are being treated differently since becoming a parent? We've got you.

See below for the details - but if you have a worry, concern or question about anything to do with work and pregnancy, maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave, then please put it here and hopefully the wonderful barristers and solicitors will be able to help you find a way through.

You can also take a look here to see some common questions and answers from previous clinics.

Free online advice clinic – 15 - 19 November 2021
Mumsnet and Maternity Action are teaming up to provide an online legal clinic, offering free advice on pregnancy, maternity and parental rights at work from volunteer employment solicitors and barristers who are members of the Employment Law Association.
Maternity Action reports huge demand for its advice line, especially topics such as redundancy during maternity leave, return to work and maternity pay, and on Mumsnet's Talk forums, the topic of employment rights is a hardy perennial.

The clinic will respond to this demand in a hopefully innovative way, providing free, accurate, public advice online and raising awareness of parents' rights at work. It will also enable Maternity Action and Mumsnet to identify trends and produce permanent content to address areas in which employers and workers could benefit from clear, upfront guidance.

The clinic will take the form of a 'Q&A' session on Mumsnet, with members of the public posting questions about your questions on pregnancy, maternity and parental rights at work and benefits on a dedicated public discussion thread. Specialist solicitors and barristers will take necessary additional detail via private messaging before posting up answers and advice.

The clinic will run for a week from Monday 15th November to Friday 19th November. We will do our best to provide all answers during the week but, at the latest, by the Tuesday of the following week. You can find information on where to go for more help once the clinic has ended here.

What to do if you’d like to post a question

1. If you have a question about your rights at work during pregnancy, maternity or parental leave please post it online during the week of the clinic. Please give as much information as possible but remember that this is an online forum and can be viewed by the public – including your colleagues and employer. Please don’t name your employer publicly if you are likely to be taking action against them in future. You can use the private message facility to disclose any information you would prefer to keep off the public forums.

2. Please send your name and the name of your employer by private message to MaternityActionfreeadvice so that it can be passed on to the volunteers to do a conflict of interest check. We cannot post a reply until you have sent this information by private message.

3. Once your advice has been posted online, you will have an opportunity to provide feedback. This helps us to find out whether you found the advice helpful, whether it helped you to resolve your situation at work and some information about you. All survey responses are anonymous and confidential. Providing feedback will help us to see what improvements can be made in developing this type of online free legal advice clinic. You can fill out the survey here.

Ts and Cs – please read

The advice provided to an individual poster is based only on the information provided by that poster. Advice on this thread is also particular to the individual who has asked for it and is likely to be specific to that person’s situation. A poster may have provided further relevant information by private message which will not appear on this thread. So please take care if you choose to apply that advice to your own situation - it is recommended that you first take legal advice from one of the sources we have suggested here.

Mumsnet, Maternity Action and Maternity Action's volunteers accept no liability for any loss suffered as a result of an individual choosing to follow advice provided to another poster's question on the thread.
The lawyers, all of whom are specialists in employment law, will be working as volunteers for Maternity Action in respect of the clinic. Any personal information collected as a result of the clinic will be held by Maternity Action and will be deleted after 18 months. If you wish to make a complaint about the service you received, you can use Maternity Action’s complaints policy here.

@Whatelsecouldibecalled

Hi. I have just sent a pm with my details.

I have another question

We conceived our first child via ivf. We are currently considering another child and therefore further treatment. The clinic are currently requesting that we isolate the entire treatment and if we caught covid during treatment time the whole cycle would be cancelled but the full cost of the cycle would still be charged (around £5k!)

I work in education so cannot take leave. Can I request to work form home if viable during this time? I teach a practical based subject. What are my rights? Pregnant women currently at my workplace are permitted to work from home in the third trimester due to covid risk. Does this also apply to me? Thank you

Dear Whatelsecouldibecalled

Thank you for your queries which I'll answer together.

You have asked about your performance management cycle running from October to October. You had taken maternity leave for your first baby and returned to work in March this year. Your performance cycle targets were set March to October and you have queried whether this will count as a full or a half cycle.

Answer

I'm sorry I'm not able to answer this without seeing your contract and workplace policies, however, the principle is that you must not be placed at a detriment due to taking having a baby and taking maternity leave. My presumption would therefore be that your performance cycle should be counted as one full year.

You have said that in order for you to move pay band you need to have two years cycles before. As above, you cannot be placed at a detriment due to taking maternity leave. My advice would be to approach your employers directly and query this with them and if they indicate that the time taken in maternity leave cannot be counted then you are clearly being placed at a disadvantage for having a baby and taking maternity leave and therefore you potentially have a claim for maternity discrimination and/or sex discrimination and you should seek further advice.

You have said that you are considering having another baby via IVF and the Clinic are requesting that you isolate for the entire treatment as, if you caught covid during treatment, the whole cycle would be cancelled but you would still be charged for the full cycle. You have told me that you work in education, therefore you cannot take annual leave and you have asked if you can work at home during this time. You have said that pregnant women you currently work with at your workplace are permitted to work at home in the third trimester due to the risk of covid. You have asked if this would also apply to you.

Answer

I believe that as this is medical advice you should obtain medical evidence from your doctor/clinic to show that there is a necessity for you to isolate during the treatment. Clearly your employers have the ability to permit you to work at home as they are applying this to women in the third trimester of their pregnancy and the most effective course of action is likely to be to ask for an informal meeting to talk through how this could be accommodated.

I would therefore talk to your employer and provide as much evidence as you can about the risks and any medical evidence from your health professionals/clinic. If your employer does not accommodate your request you should get further advice about whether this is direct and/or indirect sex discrimination.

In practice, if your employer refuses to allow you to work from home, your only option may be to take sick leave if your health professionals consider that you are not well enough to work. However, long periods on sick leave can also lead to sickness management issues and direct sex discrimination claims in relation to detrimental treatment because of IVF-related sick leave are difficult claims to bring and until now have not been successful. If your employer refuses your request to work from home during your IVF treatment, you may have an indirect sex discrimination claim but these are also difficult claims and employers can justify such treatment on work-related grounds if they can show it's reasonable and proportionate for you to be in the workplace.