Self employed - maternity advice please

alwayspuzzled

Hi, I'm self employed as a decorator with a building firm. I am currently 16 weeks pregnant.

I am aware that I do not legally need to tell an employer until 25 wks, is this still the relevant date under self employment?

Don't want to cause firm any problems with their risk assessments etc (some of the contracts they have are very strict on H&S) but nor can I afford to finish any earlier that I absolutely have to and I suspect that as soon as they know they will no longer require my services.

Nicki

Not an employment answer, but its quite likely to be obvious well before your 25th week that you are pregnant anyway. Even if you are not showing now at 16 weeks, you may well find that your bump appears virtually overnight over the course of the next few weeks. So IMO you'd be better off working out a strategy now to convince your employers that it is safe for you to continue to work rather than stressing about whether you can continue to hide things for another 9 weeks. As you are a self employed contractor I'd imagine that your protection against pregnancy-related discrimination would be non existent, so better to be proactive here rather than wait for a problem to arise.

Hammyman

alwayspuzzled wrote: »

Hi, I'm self employed as a decorator with a building firm. I am currently 16 weeks pregnant.

I am aware that I do not legally need to tell an employer until 25 wks, is this still the relevant date under self employment?

No. Employment laws do not apply. This is purely a business decision on your half and you need to work out which would be preferable to your customer.

heretolearn_2

When you are self-employed it's entirely up to you. Employment law isn't relevant. Of course, there are no restrictions on their reaction either, it's up to them how long they want to keep using you.