1,000 signatures reached
To: Theresa May, Prime Minister and Justine Greening, Minister for Women and Equalities
Make maternity laws better in the UK
The Government need to stop the high rates of pregnancy discrimination at work. Women shouldn’t be made to resign from their jobs because they are pregnant.
The number of women who are unfairly made redundant is going up, not down. We need to make sure legal protection is there to protect against women during pregnancy, maternity leave and their return to work. The government needs to implement the recommendations from the Women and Equalities Committee immediately.
Why is this important?
Right now, one in ten women lose their job when they have a baby here in the UK. This isn't acceptable. Pregnant women and mothers now face more discrimination at work than they did a decade ago according to research from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Here's what the Women and Equalities Committee recommended should become law:
1.The Government should publish a strong, specific communications plan for the awareness-raising and attitude-changing work it has agreed to undertake
2.Employers should have to do an individual risk assessment when they are informed that a woman who works for them is pregnant, has given birth in the past six months or is breastfeeding.
3.The right to paid time off for antenatal appointments should be extended to temporary and people on zero-hours contracts. All maternity rights should be reviewed to make them more equal regardless of the type of working contract you have.
4.The Government should increase protection from redundancy so that new and expectant mothers can be made redundant only in specified circumstances. (Paragraph 70)
5.The Government should review the three-month time limit for bringing a tribunal claim in maternity and pregnancy discrimination cases and should substantially reduce tribunal fees.
6.The Government should monitor access to free, good-quality, one-to-one advice on pregnancy and maternity discrimination issues and assess whether additional resources are required.
Maternity rights should protect every woman in the UK. They should protect us from suffering discrimination in the workplace, due to pregnancy or maternity. They should make sure we aren’t passed over for promotion due to being on maternity leave, or that our employers block us from accruing any holiday whilst we’re off work. Let's make sure they our maternity laws are changed for the better, to protect all women.
