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

[JuliaMumsnet]

Welcome to the second clinic of the year running from 13th to 17th June! We hope you’re managing to catch some well-deserved rest in the sunshine!

Mumsnet and Maternity Action are once again teaming up to provide an online legal clinic, offering free advice on pregnancy, maternity and parental rights at work from volunteer employment lawyers who are members of the Employment Law Association.

Whether you have a question about maternity leave, your request for flex work, your rights as a pregnant worker, or think you may be discriminated against by your employer because of being a parent, this is the place for you.

The clinic takes the form of a Q&A on this thread and will run for a week from Monday 13th to Friday 17th June. The Maternity Action team will do their best to provide all answers during that week and at the latest by the Tuesday of the following week. More information on where to go for more help once the clinic has ended is here. All past clinics are here.

How it works:

1. If you have a question about your rights at work during pregnancy, maternity or parental leave, post it here below before the 17th June. 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 private message to disclose information to the volunteers that you’d rather not make public.


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. 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

Thank you to all posters for your contributions to the thread. We do hope that you found this useful.

We will be back later this year to conduct another clinic and do hope we will be able to help many more posters.

If you have not yet received a reply to your query, this will be sent via PM so please do keep an eye out for the message.

Many thanks, Maternity Action

Thanks very much, very helpful! 😀

Dear Cartermair

Unfortunately the right to request flexible work is very weak and is only a 'right to ask'. Your employer can turn down your request if they have a good business reason. They are expected to look at your request seriously though and to consider whether it can be done in a way that fits with your childcare arrangements. This could include where you don't have overnight childcare for periods in which you work abroad. There are 8 legal business reasons that an employer can give for refusing a request. There is more information on flexible work on the Maternity Action website here: maternityaction.org.uk/advice/child-friendly-working-hours/

If you think that your employer is not able to objectively justify refusing your request, you can appeal their refusal and try to explore alternative options and any compromises. For example, whether you can travel when your partner is in the UK or whether your travel restrictions would just be for a limited period. If your employer refuses the appeal you should seek further legal advice about whether this may be indirect sex discrimination.

Please note there is a time limit of 3 months (less one day) from the date of refusal of your request and you must contact ACAS within the time limit on 0300 123 1100 to start early conciliation if you are thinking of bringing a claim
If you think that your employer can justify refusing your request, you may have no option but to resign if you are not able to continue in your existing role. Any occupational maternity pay would be repayable as specified in your contract. The SMP part, including the first 6 weeks of SMP at 90% of your average earnings is not repayable. Your employer should agree a reasonable repayment plan even if you need to repay it in small instalments over a long period.
Your legal right on return from maternity leave is to return to the same job on the same terms and conditions. If you are unable to return to your normal role and your employer can justify refusing your request not to have overseas travel, you could explore any other roles that they might have available. You could also try to explore whether your employer would be willing to agree to an exit settlement that waives the requirement to repay your occupational maternity pay as they were unable to accommodate your flexible work request. Although you don't have a legal right to ask your employer to provide a different role this could be negotiated and I would suggest approaching your employer and seeing if they would be willing to offer anything else that fits with your childcare responsibilities or to reach an amicable settlement agreement.

I hope you are able to resolve this.