Can I legally do this?

winegums

A member of staff - Mr S is contracted to work 30 hours per week, Monday evenings (6hrs) and Tuesday to Friday daytimes (6hrs). Miss L works Wednesday daytime (6hrs) and Thursday evenings (6hrs).

Last week, Mr S had an appointment on Monday evening and asked Miss L to swap with him so she worked Monday evening and he worked Thursday evening. It was agreed by all.

Just before the Monday evening shift started, Miss L phoned in sick - she's just found out she's pregnant and was vomiting. Mr S worked the Thursday evening shift as agreed.

Miss L has now stated that she should still be paid as normal for the Monday evening shift or take it as annual leave as she felt fine on Thursday evening when she would normally be working. She has used the 'You can't discriminate against me for being pregnant and being ill' line.

We don't normally pay sick pay for the first three days so am I able to count it as annual leave instead?

Thanks guys

Jarndyce

The swapped shift is irrelevant. Your employee was contracted to work on the Monday and was off sick. You can treat it as annual leave if you are feeling benevolent, mindful of the precedent that would set, otherwise you can, and probably should, treat it as sick leave. Employees are not entitled to unlimited paid pregnancy related sick leave. You are not discriminating as you would treat someone who was not pregnant and absent sick in exactly the same way.

an9i77

You don't have to pay sick leave to pregnant employees - you just have to treat them the same as anyone else, so if you don't pay the first three days for anyone else then you don't have to for her.

heretolearn_2

The shifts were changed so she was absent on the day she was supposed to work, so she was off sick.

Pregnancy doesn't make you exempt from normal SSP procedures.

What she could have done was contact Mr L and arranged to work her normal shift Thursday, as she didn't cover for him on Monday there was no need for him to cover her shift, I would have thought. That way Mr L would be the one with a shift absent, not her.

danielley

At my company, sick leave and pay is treated the same way during a pregnancy, but pregnancy related absences are not used in any absence disciplinary.