pregnancy related work issue

[ecobabe]

Hi, this is actually my friends daughters issue. I di deal with HR issues in my work but haven't dealt with pregnanacy ones for ages, also think I'm too close to this one to be objective. I'd be thankful for any advice. here goes

 

my friends 20 yr old daughter( she's a really nice girl and a hard worker ...just so you know she's not a shirker or trouble maker)6months ago left her job to start a new one, she had trainig for 3 months. Anyway she has unexpectedly gotten pregnant, family devestated etc. her and her partner live together both work but this wasn't planned. anyway she informed her work so that she could attnd clinic. Her boyfriend has just graduated so is currently working in fairly low paid work, so they hhave little money other than for necessities. her job has a sales element to it and she was struggling with this, and finding the targets quite hard to meet but she was doing so and quite stressed. anyway they sem to do a lot of fund raising and there was always a sheet going round to sponser something or other. Her manager had a meeting with them all and 'told' them that she was

putting a form round with an envelope for some charity and that they should all donate some part of their 'target' money to it, she said £5 should be put in. My friends daughter said at the time that she was struggling to just pay her bills so she couldn't do this. several additional comments were made to the team reminding them of this. Anyway when the time came she didn't put into the sheet, a meeting was called by her manager and she was very annoyed that the target hadn't been met forr the sheet...she singled this young woman out and said it had been agreed that they would all contribute but since she hadn't done it they didn't reach whatever target she needed, she kept on and eventually the girl said to her that she never agreed to it and had told her at the start that she couldn't afford it. the manager then said 'well thanks to ***** meaness we can't do this' the girl was so embaressed that she said,' I never agreed to this and i told you that my circumstances won't allow me to donate money, I can't even afford to pay all my bills so I certainly can't donate to this. Thanks for humiliating me in front of all my colleagues and making them all aware off my personal problems' she was so embarassed and upset (bearing in mind her family etc were all still in shock so she was dealing with that as well) that she was crying. She spent a couple of days feeling

very upset, she then started having cramps and bleeding and had o go home. she did go back but the manager brought this up several more times and the girl ended up going off sick and getting a GP line. She was called into ameeting at work and she told them about it this and that the stress this manager had caused her made her ill and jeopordised her pregnanacy, they said well she's not your manager anymore and we don't think she would have ddone this, you look fine to us so you can just start back at work today (bearing mind she had put a GP line in with pregnancy complications on it and it still had 2 weeks to run). They then said well you're not getting paid if you don't come back now. Now given that she hadn't worked there very long this may well be her entitlement but given the circumstances and that she was pregnant it seems very harsh. that was about a week ago. today she received no money from them even though she had money due from before she went off sick and her bonus for reaching targets. Now I know that she has only been there 6 months and technically couldn't go to a tribunal but my feelings are that they have treated her so badly, even tho vicarously, that I think she has grounds for constructive dismissal on grounds of her pregnancy.

 

does anyone have any suggestions, she can't even get anyone to answer her calls about her salary today, but they are open, as a result she has not a penny to her name.

[SarEl]

Let's go backwards, because that is the biggest flaw in your argument. There is no such thing as "constructive dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy" - so that would be a bit of a flaw! And even if there were, with less than a 3% chance of claiming and winning constructive dismissal, it wouldn't be very good odds. There is discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy, but I think you are a long way off proving such a case, and have a way to go to even begin to do so.

 

The incident(s) that started this off are entirely unrelated to the pregnancy, and whilst this is appalling behaviour on the part of the manager, her only option is to submit a grievance, which may be pointless since the person appears, I think from your post, to no longer be her manager. It would depend on the extent to which she is prepared to rock the boat (and whether anyone will back up her version of events) to make the point about this being bad behaviour, against the fact that if this person is not managing her any more, there is nothing that she could achieve other than, perhaps, an apology.

 

She should certainly not have had her medical condition commented on by HR - if they felt that they needed a medical opinion then they should have referred her to occupational health. However, I suspect that she will have some difficulty in proving what they said. She could certainly ask for a referral to OH if she wants.

 

Whether or not she is entitled to sick pay is a separate issue, and one which can only be answered by her contractual terms. No matter what the circumstances, nor the fact that she is pregnant, that is what rules whether she gets sick pay or not. Obviously she should get SSP, but anything above that is down to the contractual terms. Today may have been her pay day, but it is too early to say that she has not been paid. Her payment may be held up due to being recalculated for sick pay / SSP. The obvious starting point has to be for her to ask her employer where her salary is. If they are not answering her calls, perhaps a letter could be sent - it would make sense anyway to start getting things in writing so that if it does come to a claim she has some evidence of what has been happening. So right now the best thing she can do is query the faliure to pay her and check her contractual terms - if this doesn't get a result then come back and it can be taken from there.