Maternity Cover has been made permanent and now I have no job to go to - but I am freelance. Do I have any rights?

[hackneybird]

I worked for a privately owned company for just over 14 months. I was there full time, but on a freelance consultancy basis, so I invoiced them monthly. I am self employed and organise my own tax.

In May last year I informed them that I was pregnant and would be having the baby in October. I expressed my keen interest in returning after the baby was born.

I was assured by the MD of my department that they would be keen to have me back, and that they would find someone to replace me for the duration of my maternity leave. I sourced the person to provide this cover.

Whilst I have been on maternity leave the MD has since been made redundant, and the departmnent is being run by the two owners of the company.

When I got in touch with them to discuss returning, I was told by them that they weren't sure if any jobs would be available as they didn't know if there would be enough work to go round.

I have since discovered that the man who was taken on as my 'maternity cover' has been asked to stay on. This seems grossly unfair to me.

As I was freelance, and regrettably everything was done verbally (oh how I wish I had insisted on a contract), I am assuming that I don't have any rights under employment law.

Does anyone have any thoughts or advice?

TIA

If you were genuinely self employed then no, you have no right to return unfortunately. Only employees get maternity leave, and therefore the right to come back.

Are you sure that your self employment was genuine though?

What Ribena said. Just because you invoice your employer rather than receiving a payslip and pay your own tax rather than have it deducted by your employer doesn't mean you are automatically self-employed. Your work status is basically determined by the nature of your relationship with your employer.

Have a read here about employment status. If you have been working full time for the same company for 14 months, no other clients or customers, can't send someone else instead of you, use your employers resources and facilities and are subject to a high degree of control over your work by your employer, it may well be that you are employed rather than self-employed. Even if HMRC found that for tax purposes you are self-employed, an Employment Tribunal might still find that you are employed for employment rights purposes.

If you are employed rather than self-employed, obviously you have the right to return to your job.

Sounds to me as though there's a possibility the company took you on on a 'self-employed' basis to try and avoid all the obligations and potential hassles that come with employing someone, rather than because it was a genuine self-employment situation. Do you think that might be the case?

Yes flowery, I was 'self employed' for administrative reasons, but was working for 'no other clients or customers, can't send someone else instead of you, use your employers resources and facilities and are subject to a high degree of control over your work by your employer'.

I am feeling very badly about all this - regardless of my employment/self employment we had an agreement that I would return, so I helped them find a suitable cover for me. I feel like I have been treated very badly, and I can't really do much about it as I can't afford to fall out with them.

Oh well.