Employee Made Redundant Whilst On Maternity Leave

[Tim330]

Hi
A friend has been made redundant whilst on maternity leave. The company went through a consultation process due to the number involved. My question relates to the selection criteria used to select the at risk employees.
A number of categories were used to score employees including mobility, potential, leadership, specialist knowledge. However, one of the categories was based on whether the employee was currently working on project past the end of the year or put forward for a proposal. My friend scored zero in this area as she is on maternity leave. Could this be considered discrimination as it is out of her hands? She is seeking her own advice but thought it may be useful to consult the masses on here. Thanks

[apguy]

Mrs apguy is an HR-bod and making someone redundant whilst on maternity leave is
fraught with danger (from an employers perspective).

See the page below for a good guide:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail...

In essence, in the event of a role being identified at risk, then an employee on maternity leave *must* be offered an alternative role (where available). So if a dept consists of 5 people (doing the same/similar role) and 2 roles are made redundant then the person on maternity leave must be offered one of the 3 remaining roles.

Anything else is sex-discrimination and compensation at a employment tribunal is uncapped.
Get her to take professional advice - on the face of it, this could end up being very expensive for the company concerned.

[Jasper Gilder]

The law states that it is automatically unfair to dismiss a woman for being pregnant, or for any reason connected to her pregnancy

Now, redundancy is a dismissal and she was selected because she could not wholly met the criteria not to be selected because she was not at work because she was pregnant. Therefore she has been selected for redundancy and dismissed for a reason connected to her pregnancy

The employers had better send out for wooden legs because I'd expect theirs to be swept from beneath them at Tribunal

[W124Bob]

OH was told her contract would not be renewed a couple days before starting maternity leave,when local director of education was informed she got a personal visit and a lot of grovelling apologies.To save trouble she accepted the offer of double maternity I was all for getting solicitors(NUT) invovled but I suppose when your pregnant hassle is the last thing you want.
Is the person concerned in a union as they should help,but alot will depend how the employee wants to pursue this,theres enough stress anyway.

[Tim330]

apguy, where you say must be offered an alternative role, can the company simply say that no alternative role exists? I think this is what they have said.
Also if the employee has already had an exit interview & signed a letter accepting their redundancy pay off is there any cooling off period/limit on time to take legal action?

[Kermit power]

apguy said:

Mrs apguy is an HR-bod and making someone redundant whilst on maternity leave is
fraught with danger (from an employers perspective).

See the page below for a good guide:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail...

In essence, in the event of a role being identified at risk, then an employee on maternity leave *must* be offered an alternative role (where available). So if a dept consists of 5 people (doing the same/similar role) and 2 roles are made redundant then the person on maternity leave must be offered one of the 3 remaining roles.

Anything else is sex-discrimination and compensation at a employment tribunal is uncapped.
Get her to take professional advice - on the face of it, this could end up being very expensive for the company concerned.

Which, if you think about it, is a quite ludicrous position. No allowance is made for how good or bad the employee on maternity leave is. The only thing considered is the fact that she is on maternity leave.

Then people wonder why small employers try to avoid hiring women of childbearing age in the first place.

[apguy]

Tim330 said:

apguy, where you say must be offered an alternative role, can the company simply say that no alternative role exists? I think this is what they have said.
Also if the employee has already had an exit interview & signed a letter accepting their redundancy pay off is there any cooling off period/limit on time to take legal action?

It's up to the company to prove that no alternative role existed. As the company carried out a formal consultation, unless this was a very small company, you have to infer that a number of roles were identified as at risk with a number remaining, it would therefore be unlikely that an alternative role was not available.
How many roles were made redundant? (ie more or less than 20)

You can take legal action after the event. Time limit is 90 days from the last day at work. Even a Compromise Agreement (if signed by the employee) is not worth the paper it's written on in cases of discrimination. You can still take a case to an employment tribunal.

As suggested earlier. Get your friend to take legal advice from an employment law specialist.

[J5]

Playing devil's advocate....

Does she genuinely feel that she has been hard done by?

Is she now feeling hard done by as she feels a large wad of cash may be available?

I know how the responses would be if it had been the employer posting, instead of the employee...

[Tim330]

160 were identified as at risk in this round. 100 were notified 2 weeks ago with the balance possibly being notified in the new year if no new work arrives. Apparently it is acceptable after the 90 day consultation period ends to take up to 90 days to give staff their notice (not much fun the staff though!).
This is a large engineering firm with over 40,000 staff worldwide, over 1000 in the UK

J5, the person has always had good performance reviews with over 5 years service. If the law has been ignored its worth checking further. Thanks to all for the advice. I'll send a link to this thread.

[cymtriks]

Tim330 said:

A number of categories were used to score employees including mobility, potential, leadership, specialist knowledge. However, one of the categories was based on whether the employee was currently working on project past the end of the year or put forward for a proposal. My friend scored zero in this area as she is on maternity leave.

That last sentence is important. Was it really because she was on leave or was it that they had no plan to keep or on anyway. All the company need to do is show that the plan for next year does not inlude her.

Tim330 said:

Could this be considered discrimination as it is out of her hands? She is seeking her own advice but thought it may be useful to consult the masses on here. Thanks

Oh, absolutely.

It's obvious that a man should have been made redundant instead of a woman who is going to contribute less than nothing over the next year when the company is in crisis.

Instead of playing the "girl card" she could take the redundancy pay, write up her CV and look for another job like the men she wants to be equal to have to do.