contract law and pregnancy

hellosailor

hi there i have an employee who has worked for me for about 8 months. i have just put her on a new 6 week contract as i also did with several other employees... She has just told me that she is pregnant. I am just would like some advice on where I stand with this as I was not going to renew her contract after the 6 weeks... will it be dificult for me to do this now? I know from experiance that "firing or letting go" pregnant employees has always been an issue. Id just like to make clear that I am not renewing her contract because her rates and work quality are bad and not because she is pregnant. I have just had another employee come back from maternity leave so its not an issue that she's pregnant just that her ability to achieve rates etc is poor. Any advice on this matter would be much appreciated contracts are all new to me as i never used to give contracts... Thanks

FreudianSlippers

You should be ok simply not renewing her contract - terminating her contract early, on the other hand may be different. You should probably still contact your solicitor to ensure that they can look over your employment contract with the employee and ensure that everything is in order so that you are not surprised with a case in a few months.

detective

hellosailor wrote: »

i have just put her on a new 6 week contract as i also did with several other employees... Thanks

A 6 week contract... can't believe you found people to work in this environment... if she's mid contract she's entitled to 6 month paid maternity and 4 month unpaid maternity. after that its up to the employer/employee as per normal.

GerardKeating

detective wrote: »

A 6 week contract... can't believe you found people to work in this environment... if she's mid contract she's entitled to 6 month paid maternity and 4 month unpaid maternity. after that its up to the employer/employee as per normal.

Not if the contract ends before she was due to go on maternity leave...

And Maternity leave benefit is paid by the state, the employer is not required to top-up this to the employees normal wage.

someday2010

In future just dont ever employee women of child bearing age that way you cant get screwed over plus you will have much less crap in general to put up with! Its so unfair that the employers get lumbered with all this hassle and liability and dare I say it that its a well known fact that some unscrupulous women manipulate the crap out of this legislation.

detective

GerardKeating wrote: »

Not if the contract ends before she was due to go on maternity leave....

thats why i said if she's mid-contract.

as for the last post before this one, i'm fair glad i don't work for you - maybe we should change the law to say that women should get sacked if they become pregnant and maybe that way women will stop having children ever again!!!

FreudianSlippers

someday2010 wrote: »

In future just dont ever employee women of child bearing age that way you cant get screwed over plus you will have much less crap in general to put up with! Its so unfair that the employers get lumbered with all this hassle and liability and dare I say it that its a well known fact that some unscrupulous women manipulate the crap out of this legislation.

I find employment legislation to be very pro-employee (maybe too much so) but that statement is just ludicrous.

angelfire9

someday2010 wrote: »

In future just dont ever employee women of child bearing age that way you cant get screwed over plus you will have much less crap in general to put up with! Its so unfair that the employers get lumbered with all this hassle and liability and dare I say it that its a well known fact that some unscrupulous women manipulate the crap out of this legislation.

EXCUSE ME?????????
:eek:


I thought this type of attitude and gone the way of the horse and cart!