Maternity Leave under United Kingdom Law - Case Study Example

Maternity leave under United Kingdom law: A critical overview Student’s Name University Affiliation Introduction All female employees who fall pregnant in the course of their employment are entitled for a time off to take care of antenatal and prenatal needs. This entitlement is prescribed by law and employees are entitled to be paid (Forbes 2009) during the period they are on leave. Normally the period for such leaves is 52 weeks which in some cases depend on employee’s length of service. Both Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML) and Additional Maternity Leave (AML) have 26 weeks each. An employee may opt to take OML or both. When an employee falls pregnant, she should notify the employer in writing during the 15th week before the delivery date. This will give the employer time to carry out any adjustments in good time. The law is clear on protecting pregnant employees from the time they begin their leave up to the time they complete their leave. This is in order to avoid discrimination of women employees in their work places when they proceed on their maternity leave. There have been cases of employees on maternity leave being denied their pay or being dismissed altogether. In other instances, they are demoted or assigned different duties from the one they were performing before proceeding on maternity leave. Pregnant Women are discriminated at work places Discrimination in work place normally takes shape in many forms. This notion could be as a result of stereotypes by the society where class and status is regarded as a defining factor to an individual being. As workmates and colleagues, women who are expectant are sometimes looked down upon by the firm and colleagues who may find them as an expense to the organization. This is normally manifested even at the onset of recruitment where in some professions pregnant women are looked down upon. The human resource departments in organizations should be at the forefront of addressing such malpractices. Deven & Moss (2002) implies that when a new employee joins an institution and falls pregnant, it is assumed that he has not stayed for long in the organization and thus not qualified to get all the maternity leave benefits. During the pregnancy period, there might be pregnancy related diseases or conditions which require urgent intervention from time to time. This again may be viewed as a loss to the organization since many hours are lost to attend health care needs. At times, such permission may be denied at the work place. When an employee works under duress, she may not be productive to the organization in any way. Despite the fact that she is on duty, very minimal productivity may be achieved. The main question which may be asked is; why are such employees discriminated instead of being accepted? Due to the fact that many such employees are psychologically tuned to prioritize listening to what they feel, they tend to be difficult to manage. At some point, it is viewed that loss of man hours during the leave period is negative to the growth of the organization. The fact that pregnant women are grunted maternity leave. The theory that pregnant women are discriminated against at work place has its pros and cons to the employee and the employer. The basic and the most important advantage to this theory is that, pregnant women are guarded against such discrimination by law. The regulation has been put in place to safeguard the women from consequences of discriminatory tendencies in their places of work. The law spells out the responsibility of the employer and that of an employee. If the discrimination never existed in the first place, such safeguards could not have been spelt out to forestall incidences of abuse and discrimination of pregnant women in places of work. The law makes it mandatory for such employees to be granted maternity leave regardless of the nature of their jobs or positions in the work place. Wayward employers are put in control to avoid instances of redundancy during maternity leave. The employees are also supposed to observe the requirements spelt in the law in order for them to continue under employment. Breaching employment contract is therefore prevented. On the negative side, these believe or philosophy of discrimination could also be imagined. The perception of issues between the employees and the employers could be that of the hunter and the hunted. This could cause a lot of conflict to both parties and thus creating mistrust and lack of loyalty. The pregnant employee needs special attention and may view the employer in suspicion while the employer views the employee at a different negative angle. The whole scenario about the issue of discrimination may be perpetuated by the employer, the employees and the victim. A rational approach to this dilemma would be enhancing communication within the organization. This will eliminate fears and suspicion to employees and the employer in general. Discrimination in any form should be avoided. The UK labor laws are also very clear that there should be no form of discrimination in service. All workers must be treated in the same way regardless of their gender or any affiliations such as religion or race. Compensation during maternity leave is an unnecessary evil to organizations Salaries, wages or allowances, are paid in return for work done or services offered in return. Callister & Galtry (2006) insists that it is a requirement for employees on maternity leave to be paid allowances. The argument could be that this is unnecessary. This is when consideration is made on employer’s point of view. When an employee is on leave he/she is not I anyway resourceful to an organization. The basic reason for engagement as an employee to an organization is to offer labor. This labor is what the employer is supposed to reward as per the terms of the agreement. In a critical view, leave days paid to employees are impediment to growth of organizations. Organizations are obliged at times to engage temporary professionals to seal the gaps left by employees on leave especially when the work load is huge. Thus, organizations spend more on wages than what had been projected. Another downside to organizations is when some operational processes cannot continue optimally due to the absence of the staff on leave. The shortcoming of this type of thinking is that employers will always place a high premium to their organizations without consideration to the human capital which is the most important aspect in an organization. If such theory is backed by law, employers could never pay for leave allowances or better still payments of such would always result to unnecessary tussles with employees. This is a big advantage to employees on leave since during leave season; an employee is not engaged in any way. Earnshaw (1999) concurs that the maternity leave is meant to provide a mother and the child uninterrupted period for boding. During such period, the mother is in dire need of health care as well as the well being of the child. This, therefore, means that it’s impossible for her to engage in any gainful occupation at that particular period. The two sets of arguments are debatable and may evoke controversy. This is because the labor laws clearly spell out the fundamentals of both. By breaching any terms spelt out, it may lead to legal consequences. Both arguments compare due to the fact that every party involved is a stakeholder. They affect the parties in either ways both negative and positive ways. The employer has an obligation to observe the requirements spelt out while the employee has a duty to be loyal to the laid down agreements. The contrast between the two theories is that, one touch on financial gain which is physical in nature while the other touches on the psychological human well being. The two propositions support each other and are inseparable. Psychological well being enhances productivity in work place. Again, financial capability also enhances employee’s productivity due to the motivational factor achieved by financial rewards. Both arguments may disapprove each other since discrimination could be an issue to do with perception of the ‘victim’ which could be ingrained in the mind from the onset of engagement. This could perpetuate to a manifestation of discrimination which in reality is not existent. On the theory of compensation, the truth is that the law has defined that compensation should be paid to employees on leave. Failure to observe that contravenes the law. In that case, discrimination appears more of an ‘intangible’ matter while compensation issue is more ‘tangible.’ Both sides of arguments can be partly agreed on to be true based on various assumptions and facts which come out after critical analysis. The assertions are more of logical than emotional based on the realism of the facts at hand. Conclusion As a matter of fact, both arguments are highly debatable. Staff members play a crucial role in any given establishment; no meaningful objective can be realized in any organization without the support of its staff. Therefore, there is a need to cater and fulfill the expectations of employees at all times. Failure to this, there will be disgruntled workers who will be bent to frustrate the organizational goals (Duncan 2002). Disgruntlements and resentments arise from employees whose expectations are not fulfilled. This is manifested by poor performance and lack of loyalty to the organization. The issue of staff welfare especially the psychological needs far outweighs financial returns. Employees who feel discriminated in an organization are poor performers and are an impediment to the organization. The most convincing proposition is that pregnant women are discriminated in work places. Discrimination includes wrongful dismissal, withholding of promotion, unequal leave compensation plans and other forms of discrimination. It may, however, be argued that maternity leave should be eliminated, but the key issue is that organizations depend on a healthy workforce. If such leaves are not granted, it may cause danger to the health of the newborn and the mother. This means at the long run it may have spiral effects to families and future generations. Findings by (George & Jones 1999) assert that unhealthy workers and society cannot achieve any meaningful endeavor either in personal life or work life. Therefore, from a critical point of view, the argument on discrimination holds more water. The vice is real in organizations and should be addressed by human resource practitioners. There could be different theories on the subject which may be conflicting and thus not offer any solution. There should be a scientific study on the same to establish the real impact of the subject. References Callister, P. and J. Galtry, 2006, ‘Paid parental leave in New Zealand: a short history and future policy options’, Policy Quarterly, 2 (1), pp.38-46 Deven, F. and P. Moss 2002, “Leave arrangements for parents: Overview and future outlook” Community, Work and Family, 5(3):237--255. Duncan, S. 2002, “Policy discourses on ‘reconciling work and life’ in the EU” Social Policy & Society, 1(4):305--314. Earnshaw, J. 1999, “Maternity rights in the UK: Light at the end of the tunnel?” Economic and Labor Relations Review, 10(2):169--187. Forbes, K. 2009, ‘Paid parental leave under (New) Labor’, Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, 34, pp.12-24 George, J, M. & Jones, G.R. 1999, Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior, Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA. Read More