Terminating employee who is pregnant

They decide to deliver the bad news to Jones on Monday. On Monday morning, before Moran can contact Jones, Jones informs Moran that she is pregnant, has pregnancy related medical conditions for which she will need accommodations, and expects to take family leave time when her child is born. Under federal law, an employer may not discriminate against an employee based on her pregnancy.

You must also follow the correct procedure and have carried it out in a fair way. This is especially true if you are looking to fire an employee who is pregnant, failing to do so will make the dismissal automatically unfair.

To ensure you stay on the right side of pregnancy employment law, ask yourself: Is the sole or main reason for dismissal:. If so, this will amount to pregnancy and maternity discrimination.

As such, it is unlawful for an employer to treat someone less favourably because she is pregnant, suffering from a pregnancy-related illness, on compulsory maternity leave, or exercising or seeking to exercise any of her statutory rights, such as ordinary and additional maternity leave. If the primary reason for dismissing an employee is that they are pregnant or on maternity leave, they will have grounds to bring a claim for unfair dismissal, irrespective of their length of service.

Given the legal risk involved in these scenarios, it is always safest to seek support from an Employment Law specialist to when dealing with a poor-performing employee who is pregnant, as this will help you to avoid costly mistakes.

It is possible to make a pregnant employee redundant, or to make someone redundant while they are on maternity leave; however, again, pregnant employees have rights and protections that you will need to be aware of.

You must warn all employees of a potential redundancy situation, including those who are on maternity leave or off work with a pregnancy-related sickness, and how it may impact them.

Failure to do so comes with a heavy price — it is likely that it would render the process unfair. When selecting people for redundancy , you should create a scoring criteria; employees in the redundancy pool will receive scores against this list and the employee s with the lowest score will be selected for redundancy.

It is important to make sure that all criteria are fair and non-discriminatory. This means you cannot select an employee based on the fact they are pregnant, on maternity leave or are exercising their statutory rights. Again, you should think about the impact that pregnancy may have had on their performance.

Finally, if you are making someone redundant whilst on maternity leave, the employee must be offered any suitable alternative job vacancy. Remember, if an employee has been continuously employed for two years, they will have the right to statutory redundancy pay. Pregnancy and maternity-related challenges are amongst the most difficult for employers to deal with, and the margin for error is high. Call to speak to one of our friendly team or use the button opposite to request your free consultation.

BLOG Written by Rachel Holding on 9 November When faced with employee issues, your employment contracts can either protect your interests or put you. In fact, most recently, the March. If you dismiss a disabled. BLOG Written by Alexandra Farmer on 1 November With normality returning, many organisations have made the decision to roll out remote and hybrid working on a.

BLOG When you think about workplace health and safety, your probably think about protecting your workers. However, under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at. Most notably, a precedent has been set for remote and hybrid. If you dismiss a pregnant employee or an employee on maternity leave, you must provide her with a written statement that clearly explains the reasons for the dismissal. Source: Section 34A. Bombay Shops and Establishments Act, It is unlawful for an employer to discharge or dismiss a pregnant worker during or on account of absence due to pregnancy, delivery or any post-natal illness, or to give notice of discharge or dismissal, or to vary to her disadvantage any of the conditions of her service.

When a woman is on leave in accordance with the provisions of this Act, the employer cannot give a notice of dismissal during such absence. When a woman absents herself from work due to pregnancy, it will be unlawful for the employer to dismiss her during or on account of such absence, or to give notice of dismissal on such a day that the notice will expire during such absence.

This page was last updated on: No Harmful Work In accordance with the Maternity Benefits Act, a pregnant woman cannot, on a request made by her in this behalf, be required by her employer to assign any work during 10 weeks before her expected delivery which is of an arduous nature or which involves long hours of standing, or which in any way is likely to interfere with her pregnancy or the normal development of the fetus, or is likely to cause her miscarriage or otherwise to adversely affect her health.

As the wave recedes, Abu Dhabi employers will still need to ensure they are compliant with Covid health and safety requirements. Consideration should also be given to employee concerns. Sign Up for our free News Alerts - All the latest articles on your chosen topics condensed into a free bi-weekly email. Register For News Alerts. Article Tags. GVZH Advocates. NOV Securitisation Outlook and Key Tax Updates for More Webinars. Artificial Intelligence.

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