Maternity Leave covered - now possible redundancy

C

Crescenter

Registered User
Messages
48
Hi,
A friend was explaining that a member of their team has been on maternity leave, coming back in the next few weeks and the worry now is redundancies may happen in the future.

The issue is that seemingly the girl coming back from maternity leave will be safe to ensure no discrimination etc however the 6 mths revealed very little change to everyone elses working life with noone to hired to cover the maternity leave therefore this would suggest a team that could work perfectly fine without this girl? Is this not a type of discrimination against those who were not on maternity leave??

Very interested because this may be something that will affect me in the next few months also..

Thanks!
 
No - they cannot make an employee redundant during maternity leave, but they can once an employee comes back. They can even issue notice of redundancy before or during mat leave but this only takes effect after the maternity leave is over.

However, the employer has to apply fair criteria. The fact that the team worked in the absence of one of the workers does not mean that that particular worker is redundant. They can apply criteria of performance, seniority and a whole load of other things to determine redundancies. Most teams manage while someone is on mat leave for a few months. Your scenario would mean that taking mat leave makes someone a more suitable target for redundancy, which is discriminatory too.
 
The fact that the team worked fine without this girl does not necessarily reflect on her - it reflects that the team is overstaffed for the available workload. This is true for many work situations in the current environment. It is likely the team would have worked fine without any one particular member so don't take it out on her.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top