Yahoo Movies ‘I was told my job wasn’t suitable for a mum’
Rachel Edwards was on maternity leave when she got an unexpected phone call from her employer.
She was told that she would be losing her permanent job as a campaign manager at the World Wildlife Fund and was offered a six-month contract that she could take instead.
Ms Edwards, 36, from Wigton in Cumbria, refused the new contract and was made redundant.
“I didn't think they could strip you of a permanent contract when on maternity leave but apparently they can,” she said. “I received redundancy pay but I don’t think that compensated me for the stress.”
“I’m so angry about it, but what can I do?” said Ms Edwards, who lost her job in 2021.
She is among an estimated 54,000 new mothers who lose their jobs each year. Around one in nine new mothers are dismissed, made compulsorily redundant, or treated so poorly they feel they have to leave their jobs, according to a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Pregnant Then Screwed, a campaign group that runs a legal advice helpline for mothers and pregnant women, said it has experienced a 68pc increase in calls about redundancy in the last six months.
Joeli Brearley, the group’s founder, said: “We’ve seen a big uptick, particularly recently, in the number of pregnant women and new mums who are being made redundant or pushed out of their jobs.
“We saw a big rise during the pandemic and we’re seeing another one now again because of the cost of living crisis and potentially a recession. It tends to be pregnant women and new mums who are the first to be pushed out of their jobs when a business is making cuts or bracing for a difficult working environment.”
Like many women, Ms Edwards thought she was protected from losing her job because she was on maternity leave. But in truth, it is only illegal if the reason for the dismissal is because of the pregnancy or maternity leave and therefore constitutes discrimination.
Women whose roles are made redundant during maternity leave are entitled to be offered a “suitable alternative” if one is available. The definition of a suitable alternative is open to interpretation. In Edwards’ case, this was the six-month contract she was offered.
A new bill is expected to extend the same protection to pregnancy and the six-month period after maternity leave, but campaigners say this will not address the key issues.
Some other countries have much tougher rules on making people redundant during parental leave. In the Canadian province of Alberta, employees who go on maternity leave must be given the same or an equivalent job back when they return to work, unless the business is suspended or discontinued.
In France, an employee cannot be dismissed during maternity leave. In Germany, an employer who wants to do so has to apply to an official body citing exceptional circumstances, like serious contractual breaches or the closure of the business, and the threshold for approval is very high.
‘I was told my job was not suitable for a mum’
For women in Britain who believe discrimination played a role in their job loss, it can be difficult to take legal action.
While Samantha Cavendish was on maternity leave in 2020, she got in touch with her employer, a law firm, to talk about coming back to her job as a personal assistant.
She was invited to an “off-the-record” conversation with a woman from the HR department who told her the role was “not suitable for someone with a child”.
Ms Cavendish, who spoke using a pseudonym, was told her job would change significantly and she would now be expected to work much longer hours and during weekends. She received an email detailing her new terms and conditions.
She refused them and was made redundant a month later. Ms Cavendish, 31, said she was also offered “suitable alternatives” in far-flung parts of the country that her employer knew she would turn down.
She later looked into whether she could make a claim, only to find that the three-month window to do so had passed.
Pregnant Then Screwed said the time frame is too short, especially for women dealing with the challenges of being a new mum. The group wants to see it extended to six months. In America, similar cases are given a window of at least 180 days, which rises to 300 days in some areas, according to the OECD.
The expense of taking legal action against an employer is another barrier, according to Pregnant Then Screwed, with costs that can amount to thousands of pounds. Lawyers who offer no-win, no-fee arrangements tend to settle too early to minimise the amount of work they have to do, Ms Brearley said.
Wait times for cases to be heard have increased to nearly a year on average, but some women are waiting as long as two years. Ms Brearley said non-disclosure agreements are a condition imposed by employers in 90pc of settlements they help with, which means many women are unable to speak out about the discrimination they experienced and the issue remains under-reported.
Ms Cavendish wishes she had taken legal action. “I feel terrible about it,” she said. “I don’t have a career anymore.”
She added: “I’ve been really lucky, in a bad set of circumstances, to find myself a part-time job now to fit around childcare, but it’s not the career I once had.”
The World Wildlife Fund said it has “robust HR policies and procedures in place to support people in our organisation who take parental leave, including when they return”. It said: “We offer comprehensive support to those affected by organisational restructures.”
