AAPD Plan of Action 2015.pdf

Alliance Against Pregnancy
AAPD Plan of Action
Discrimination in in the workplace
A plan of action to tackle pregnancy &
maternity discrimination now
Seven years on from the global financial crisis of 2008 and the
onset of recession, pregnancy and maternity discrimination is more
common in UK workplaces than ever before: new research by the
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and Equality & Human
Rights Commission indicates that as many as 54,000 pregnant
women and new mothers are forced out of their jobs each year. i
It is also harder than ever to challenge such discrimination: the
supply of free legal advice has been severely reduced by funding
cuts and the abolition of almost all civil legal aid. And, since July
2013, upfront fees of up to £1,200 to pursue an employment tribunal
claim for pregnancy, maternity or sex discrimination have had a
devastating impact on women’s access to justice.
With pregnant women, new mothers and their families also facing
the biggest living standards crisis in a generation, the Alliance
Against Pregnancy Discrimination believes the government must
take urgent and robust action to tackle the evident proliferation of
pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace. The scale
and depth of the problem – and the detrimental impact on women,
their families, and on gender equality – demands a collective
response by ministers across government.
Here, we set out a plan of action for ministers to ensure job security
for all working women during pregnancy and maternity leave.

AAPD Plan of Action
¢
Senior ministers across government should send a strong
message to employers that there is simply no excuse to
break the law on pregnancy and maternity discrimination. This
ministerial lead should be supplemented by a high-profile
government information campaign aimed at improving the
awareness of both workers and employers of the law, and of
best practice.
¢
The minister for women and equalities should, in collaboration
with relevant stakeholders such as the members of this
Alliance, lead on drawing up a cross-departmental plan for
rapidly implementing the Equality & Human Rights
Commission’s policy recommendations - due to published in
October 2015 alongside the research study’s final reports.
¢
The Ministry of Justice should abolish the upfront fees for
discrimination and other employment tribunal claims
introduced in July 2013. There is now broad consensus that
the Ministry got it badly wrong on fees, which - in the words of
the CBI - “should never be a barrier to justice”. With the overall
number of employment tribunal cases down by 65%, and sex
and pregnancy discrimination claims having fallen by 80% and
40% respectively, it is now clear that the fees are little more
than a charter for dinosaur and rogue employers. ii
¢
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and the
Ministry of Justice should, in collaboration with relevant
stakeholders, identify and swiftly implement further measures
to improve compliance with employment tribunal awards,
to ensure that women awarded financial compensation for
pregnancy or maternity discrimination by a tribunal actually
receive the money due to them. It is simply unacceptable that
50% of all awards go unpaid by the employer. iii

AAPD Plan of Action
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The Ministry of Justice should work to deliver a significant
injection of funding into the specialist information and
advice services that pregnant women and new mothers need
to help protect their rights and entitlements.
¢
To ensure that all new parents receive the minimum income for
healthy living (as recommended by the Marmot Review),
encourage more shared parenting, and so reduce the scope for
discrimination, the Department for Work & Pensions should
immediately restore the real value of statutory maternity,
paternity, adoption and shared parental leave pay, and of
maternity allowance, lost as a result of below-inflation annual
up-rating since April 2013. It should then plan a programme of
annual increases to bring parity with the National Minimum
Wage by 2020, and with the Living Wage in the longer term. It
is unfair and unrealistic to expect new parents to get by on just
60% of the National Minimum Wage at a time when their
outgoings have increased enormously. And – in the words of
one small employer – it is “immoral and damaging to society to
force new mothers back into work before they [are] ready”. iv
¢
To incentivise small employers to ‘do the right thing’ by
pregnant women and assist with the associated costs (including
accrual of holiday pay during maternity leave), the Department
for Work & Pensions and HM Treasury should raise the rate at
which small businesses can recover statutory maternity,
paternity, adoption and shared parental leave pay, from the
current 103% to 110%, and should act to raise awareness
among small employers of the provisions for advance funding.
¢
The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills should use
the first available legislative opportunity to create a statutory
right to time-off and facilities for breastfeeding at work, and
clear legal protection against harassment or discrimination for
exercising this right. v

AAPD AAPD Manifesto Plan of for Action May 2015
Notes
i
Pregnancy and Maternity-Related Discrimination and Disadvantage, First Findings:
Surveys of Employers and Mothers, BIS Research Paper 235, Department for
ii
iii
iv
v
In the nine-month period October 2013 to June 2014, there were just 15,750 new ET
cases (single claims/cases & multiple claimant cases), down from 43,994 in the same
period 12 months earlier. On average, each of the UK’s 1.2 million employers now
faces an employment tribunal case just once every 58 years.
See: Payment of employment tribunal awards, Department for Business, Innovation &
Skills, November 2013. The Small Business, Enterprise & Employment Bill, currently
before Parliament, includes a provision to impose a financial penalty on employers who
fail to pay a tribunal award. However, the Alliance believes that further measures are
necessary to tackle this systemic and long-standing problem.
Taken from: Maternity and paternity leave and flexible working arrangements: employer
perceptions, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, March 2014.
Maternity Action regularly advises breastfeeding mothers who have been told by their
employer that their request for breaks or changes in their hours of work cannot be
accommodated. While new Acas guidance (issued in 2013) on accommodating
breastfeeding in the workplace is useful in communicating how simple it is for
employers to do so, there is no legal requirement on employers to follow the guidance.
A statutory right to breastfeed or express milk at work is long overdue, and would bring
the UK into line with the 92 countries which do have such law in place.
Published by Maternity Action, 52-54 Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8RT
Company No: 6478568 Charity No: 1128776
Tel: 020 7253 2288
www.maternityaction.org.uk