Maternity Pay

Francesca01

Good Afternoon,
I am hoping to get some guidance. I have recently found out I'm pregnant & have been with my employer for almost 3 years. I am quite concerned about how HR handles things like maternity etc. I had a girl in my team who was advised that she would be paid fully, then right before she was going off they said 12 weeks but ended up paying her in full (she introduced a solicitor). My concern here is that they will do the same to me, I am in a relatively high up role and have had insight to a lot of the litigation issues that have taken place. the employee handbook is not available and has been in review since August last year, therefore i'm blind to what the entitlements are. this is my 4th pregnancy and I do not have the energy to be messed around. I have a new boss whom i'll be sharing the news with on friday but I know the company will not pay me lightly..Can an employer decide to pay me less than the other person and is this even legally allowed since there is no handbook available? what are my rights in this scenario? thank you

Francesca01

Good Afternoon,
I am hoping to get some guidance. I have recently found out I'm pregnant & have been with my employer for almost 3 years. I am quite concerned about how HR handles things like maternity etc. I had a girl in my team who was advised that she would be paid fully, then right before she was going off they said 12 weeks but ended up paying her in full (she introduced a solicitor). My concern here is that they will do the same to me, I am in a relatively high up role and have had insight to a lot of the litigation issues that have taken place. the employee handbook is not available and has been in review since August last year, therefore i'm blind to what the entitlements are. this is my 4th pregnancy and I do not have the energy to be messed around. I have a new boss whom i'll be sharing the news with on friday but I know the company will not pay me lightly..Can an employer decide to pay me less than the other person and is this even legally allowed since there is no handbook available? what are my rights in this scenario? thank you

Employers are not legally required to pay you while you are on maternity leave. You will need to check what it says about payment in your contract of employment. Not all employees have the same discretionary payments, these are often negotiated or offered at the time a new employee is taken on. You mentioned this is your 4th pregnancy, were you working for the same employer for any of the previous 3 and what was their payment policy while you were on previous maternity leave?

The legislation you are looking for is the Maternity Protection Acts 1994 and 2004.

Laura99

It depends on what is in your contract when you began. You're not entitled to maternity pay from a company unless your contract states so. Do you have a copy of this or can you request one, they should have it.

splinter65

Francesca01 wrote: »

Good Afternoon,
I am hoping to get some guidance. I have recently found out I'm pregnant & have been with my employer for almost 3 years. I am quite concerned about how HR handles things like maternity etc. I had a girl in my team who was advised that she would be paid fully, then right before she was going off they said 12 weeks but ended up paying her in full (she introduced a solicitor). My concern here is that they will do the same to me, I am in a relatively high up role and have had insight to a lot of the litigation issues that have taken place. the employee handbook is not available and has been in review since August last year, therefore i'm blind to what the entitlements are. this is my 4th pregnancy and I do not have the energy to be messed around. I have a new boss whom i'll be sharing the news with on friday but I know the company will not pay me lightly..Can an employer decide to pay me less than the other person and is this even legally allowed since there is no handbook available? what are my rights in this scenario? thank you

If there’s no mention of being paid while on maternity leave in your contract then you’ve no entitlement because there’s no legislation pointing to an obligation on an employer to pay an employee on maternity leave.
If your company have already tangled legally with another employee then they will certainly have their ducks in a row now.
Of course the first thing to do is to find out if you will be paid, how much and for how long.
Well and good if they are going to pay you but they may well have drawn up new contracts with no mention of maternity pay.
However, it might be worth having a chat with a solicitor who has good experience in employment law about taking the “custom and practice” route.

Francesca01

Thanks for your replies. I do have the handbook that I got when i joined and it does say you get 26 weeks of full pay. i had also confirmed for my employee what she would be paid and they confirmed the same i.e. 100% but then they decided to change it. but since she introduced a solicitor they had to honour it. so as it said in the handbook i am entitled to it but my fear is they'd do the same to me as they did to my employee

Diziet

I think you should work on the same assumption of 26 weeks unless the change was communicated, and challenge it if you are offered less.

ted1

Francesca01 wrote: »

Thanks for your replies. I do have the handbook that I got when i joined and it does say you get 26 weeks of full pay. i had also confirmed for my employee what she would be paid and they confirmed the same i.e. 100% but then they decided to change it. but since she introduced a solicitor they had to honour it. so as it said in the handbook i am entitled to it but my fear is they'd do the same to me as they did to my employee

If it’s in the handbook you should get it. However lots of companies will only pay the balance between what you get from the state and your standard tax home pay.

So say you normally take home 600, the state may give you 200 which you need to claim for and the company will pay you 400

Francesca01

yea thats fine, as long as I get paid. I was given some internal advice aswell from another source and they did say to challenge it if they didn't pay given that the handbook available to me is the old one & that they paid my employee the 100%. thanks everyone