Hey All

After many years of (trying) to help others out on this forum with Silverfish inspired queries I’m hoping to call in a few favours and get some advice back.

After giving birth to our son about 4 months ago Chloethesilverfish is currently about halfway through her maternity leave from the company in which she works.
She was working in a fairly senior position and has been there for two and half years.

Today she was called into a meeting and has been informed that due to restructures there are redundancies in the pipeline and as such the entire team will have to re-apply and re-interview for any remaining jobs.

The whole team has also been informed that the jobs they did before no longer exsist and so the options avaiable to them are to fight it out for similar positions or take a lower paid role.

My main questions are. . .

1) Due to being on maternity leave my wife feels that being forced to re-interview puts her at a disadvantage. Especially as the interview could be a ‘residential’ over a number of days which would make it almost impossible for her to attend. Is this fair? Can they do that?

2) Before all of this Chloethesilverfish always intended to return to work part time – what now seems to be the case is that the pay grade she was on is only available working 4 days a week minimum otherwise she has to take a lower pay grade. Ideally she wants to work three days a week, can they force her to take a lower paid job if she wants to work 3 days?

We’re a bit confused by the whole thing really and as the organisation so far has been terrible (she was only informed of todays meeting by a letter that arrived this morning, the date for voluntary redundancy passed before she was even informed, the HR department haven’t returned her calls, etc) we’re not especially confident of getting the right information from her managers.

Any help anyone out there has is gratefully received.

Cheers Guys.

Richie

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

She cannot be treated less favourably than others due to being on Mat leave so interviews etc that disadvantage her are wrong.

She does not have a right to part time working on the same grade I think

I would think its a fair bet she is going to get shafted

Spunds like they have already started an unfair process.

I’d be tempted to follow thru the process, let them make her redundant, tell them that the process was unfair and she will be going after then thru a tribunal and as its sex discrimination case she will be after bucketfulls of money. wait for the enhanced redundancy ” here have a pile of money to shut up and go away offer” and take it

sources of info ( assuming no trade union of course 🙂 )

Tuc site http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/rights_main.cfm
ACAS http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1365

Everyone – join a frikkin union – they are good at dealing with this sort of issue

i can’t really help other to suggest she keeps a diary of events, and if in a union speaks to them

I’d be tempted to follow thru the process, let them make her redundant, tell them that the process was unfair

Now the info I got from the union lawyer a few weeks ago regarding possible unfair redundancy processes was to object straight away to the specifics that you felt were unfair.

Did she declare before going on maternity her desire to go part time?
When my wife was pregnant she declared she intended to go part time after returning to work, they accepted but then made false allegations against her to sack her when they discovered they need to hire another person to cover for when the wife wasn’t there and they couldn’t afford to pay 2 people.
mind you they couldn’t really afford to pay the legal bill and compo the wife won either.

keep everything in writing where you can as well.

Time to go and speak to an employment lawyer.

Yes, redundancies can happen to you when on on mat leave, but the easiest way for an organisation to f— this up is to fail to treat all employees fairly.

Employment lawyer for advice. Now.

As OMITN says You need real advice.

A quick chat with Mrs TJ who know a fair bit about this stuff.
1) apply for the old job – ask for part time working after being offered it – company has to make reasonable adjustments, However it may be reasonable that it can’t be part time and the only part time to be offered is a lower grade

2) 2 day residential interview is almost certainly unfair and worth objecting to in writing, to interview for the restructured posts probably is not so long as she is not disadvantaged as a result of being on mat leave

Make notes on everything, do nothing by phone – all email or writing to ensure an audit trail. Phone calls – back up in email ” I understand from our telephone conversation this that and the other”

I still think letting the Eff up and then twisting them for a payoff is the best bet

Get real advice

Cheers Guys, your help is much appreciated.

I’ll get her to follow your advice regarding a diary and ensuring everything is done in writing.

Sounds like the next stop could be an employment lawyer though . . . .

as a union rep those on maternity leave have always been excluded from the redundancy procedure as they are technically not in work at the time and it is a minefield for suing. It is not hard to prove how someone not in work is adversely affected by a procedure affecting their employment as they will clearly miss some information as they are not at work. I would advise legal advice there tbh and I would for the company.

Re hours the law changed recently and the company needs to explain why they could not possible accommodate family friendly hours so it up to them to prove the change would impact on the business [ the larger the organisation the harder this is to prove] I would do this after returning and getting the job – the fact they have sais you cannot is interesting an I would like a legal view on that as to whether it discriminates – i would imagine this is change in T & C so a legal view is needed
Can they force her it really depends tbh but I would imagine they can if they wish to but they run the risk of a constructive dismissal claim – does anyone else at that grade work PT? have they reduced other hours due to children etc complicated one

re the first I would ask them what special arrangements they have put in place to ensure your wife is not unfairly disadvantaged by the procedure. i would do this by e-mail so yu have a record
After any meeting send an e-mail explaining what you think was said and see if they accept this etc

Good luck
Union rep not a lawyer FWIW

As I understand it, they have to offer her any post they have that she is able to do and that is not substantially less favourable, even if there are other applicants.

I’d be inclined to apply for the 4 day a week job and see what happens next. if she gets it, then consider applting for flexible/reduction in hours after she’s started, as I recall, theres a statutory 4 week trial period in the alternative employment clause.

yes the 4 week is just a trial and you can then decline and get redundancy so not that great [ may only apply to a redeployment and them seem to be making you choose to avoid this]
If everyone refuses to take a lower role then the company would have to redeploy at that role and maintain the salary….we did this once

you may be right re her entitlement i have never seen anyone on maternity loose their job

I’ve just been through a 3 month redundancy period, whilst having missed 6 months of work due to illness and I was still receiving a small amount of support as part of my return to work at the time. I was expecting to get shafted if I’m honest as I’d not managed to prove that I would return to my previous levels of health. I’m pleased to say I was treat more than fairly, so have faith.

Id imagine it would need to be a pretty robust procedure that makes someone who is unavailable for work, assessment or interview redundant.

There will be an appeal process at the end too, so keep cool and work hard at keeping the job.

Whilst this website might attract a couple of . . . how can I put this. . . Bell Ends, its threads like this that remind me what a minority they are and what a thoroughly decent bunch of citizens mountain bikers are in general!

Thanks for all the input and the effort guys, no one had to help with this boring subject so it really is appreciated and definetly helpful.