Real Life MMD: Should I tell other workers they didn't get full maternity pay?

EccentricRavenJewellery

This seems to be a really polarised debate!
Milvusvetal, as previous posters have said, employers would be compensated for the maternity pay they paid out to their employees- and you can backdate claims (how do we get our overpayments back, and our underpayments demanded?)
In terms of small businesses keeping ahead of rights, they have three ways of doing it. Either they have a payroll/HR/accounts department with Sage or Sagelike software which keeps track of holidays, refuses to pay less than minimum wage, and so on, and so on, or they contract out to someone who does this for them.
Or, if it's a really small business, they do as one of the previous lady posters did: sit down with a calculator and Google.
There's also a guy a bit like MSE Martin, who sends out a monthly e-mail with updates on employment law- Daniel Somethingorother- well worth reading if you're a small employer.

It ALWAYS pays to do it right, as usually employees filing a claim for incorrect payment of wages (don't know what the legal definition is) will receive legal aid, whilst the employer, WHATEVER their financial situation, will not. (I used to support disabled employers and one of my main roles was to keep them on the right side of the law, since none of them could have afforded court costs for getting it wrong).
Regardless of the situation under the Discrimination Act, the law has a VERY dim view of employers witholding wages or making unauthorised deductions (dates back to the bad old days in the factories).

Best thing for the OP to do is to see whoever you took your her issue with originally (or e-mail, that way you have a record) and say she's been wondering whether others might have been affected. If they shrug at you- say (or e-mail) 'Hadn't you better check? I heard about this one company who landed themselves in terrible trouble when one employee took them to a tribunal'. That way it's apparent you have the best interests of the company at heart (which is true). And I'm sure they'll know where to claim it back from. If they still refuse to check, then let it slip. Maybe go to see a solicitor first, just to get some proper help. Your e-mails would provide valuable evidence for a tribunal.
Best of luck

Verylime

Yes, definitely!

I work in a reasonable small company without a HR dept, and I found I really needed to work out myself what I was entitled to regarding maternity leave and pay, and holidays. Other people assumed the company knew what was going on and relied on their info; for example, one woman's holidays were calculated wrongly and she might have lost out if a few of us hadn't discussed it. (Helped being union members, just because we were more likely to be in a forum discussing these things.)

It's not unreasonable to expect your company is telling you the right thing (tho personally I would always check) so those people should not lose out because the company got it wrong.

Info doesn't need to be passed on in a formal whistleblowing meeting!! Things like this often come out as a result of a casual chat - "I got this - how come you got that?" etc.

Talent

Keep shtum.

KME91

This is a really interesting MMD, and I should make it clear that I am a trade union rep so I'm coming at it from that angle. I would go back to the employer first off and ask them directly if they intend to rectify the underpayment for other members of staff, give them a fair opportunity to sort it out (they may well be doing this already without having let you know, to keep individual confidences). I'd be expecting them to respond to me as a rep saying that they can't discuss individual's wage arrangements with me but that they will be ensuring everyone who is entitled to a top up payment will be getting one and over what timescale.

If you don't feel comfortable going to management directly and you have a union rep I'd advise you to talk to them. I'd say telling your colleagues directly would be a last resort, just because that will label you a trouble maker. If you don't get any progress with your employer then discretely chatting to one or two people you know were affected and getting them to check what they were paid might be a good way to do it.

Personally I wouldn't worry about the company going under, SMP is reclaimable for employers so there should be minimal cost to them in the long run, and it's perhaps a healthy reminder to them to stay on top of employee rights.

jamespir

im not sure because if you told them you could cause workbased rivalry and your employers could lose out (get sued etc)

plus they probably would not tell you

psdie

In answer to the poll question - No.

Assuming you mean a genuinely small firm (not the EU's stupid definition of "small") with a dozen or so employees, such firms are already squeezed far too much by the state and it's no wonder they think twice before taking on new staff.

It's crazy that a tiny firm is expected to pay out the same nanny state privileges as a multi-billion dollar multinational. IMO, employment red tape and costs such as pregnancy leave pay, statutory sick pay, unfair dismissal rules etc should be reviewed for very small companies, with a view to reducing the cost of providing jobs.

I run a small company and presently cannot consider hiring someone as an employee due to the costs and obligations involved. Instead I'm forced to outsource to freelancers - and once you're outsourcing to someone off-site, outsourcing abroad also becomes attractive (regrettably).

Did you know that the government now helps itself to **over 45%** of the money that a company pays out for every basic rate employee? 20% income tax + 12% NI + 13.8% employer's NI = 45.8% (20% higher for earnings over £35k). Unbelievable and a recipe for unemployment.

fannyadams

Hmmm.... I think that you would have to be absolutely certain that others had been 'diddled' before approaching whomever it is has the authority/inclination to rectify it. As others have said the legislation has changed so frequently (I believe there were two changes in one year) that it is easy to miss something. My line manager has been on maternity leave three times in 6 years and each time she gets a better package! (WAY better than the 18 weeks I got when my DS's were born in 2000 & 2004).

Interestingly (for some), even large multinational companies don't always have their finger on the pulse. I applied for part-time hours with the large multi national i work for and they had the wrong legislation quoted in their application pack... but like others I had already googled and got the most up to date info from direct.gov, and that legislation had been passed over 2 years ago! I asked HR why it was different and then had to wait 2 months whilst they updated everything so I could apply (successfully).

Charlie-Otter

I was in this situation last year, but with the definite advantage I was working for a massive company with money to burn, so there was no moral dilemma for me!

They had a large enough HR Dept to know they were deliberately cheating people out of elements of their enhanced maternity package, but were just chancing their luck and only paying those who queried it, and blaming an admin error! ...and that wasn't just bitterness or conspiracy..someone in payroll tipped me off to the practice when they saw my query come through, and warned me what else to double check!!

I spoke with a colleague who had missed out, and she went back to them over a year later, despite having left the company in the meantime, saying that she had been "sorting out her tax paperwork and had noticed a discrepancy in the figures", and they held their hands up straight away and paid up with no queries, and she was very grateful of the £6k! We were on good terms outside work though, and it was during a playdate conversation at the park, rather than huddled around the coffee machine in the office.

With a small company a bit trickier and potentially very political though...would suggest if you know someone affected outside of work very well, and could bring it up in a roundabout way, then suggest they double-check their figures and tell them what to watch for, but otherwise leave well alone. Many companies have clauses in their contracts that forbid the discussing of salary packages etc, so you could fall foul of this otherwise.

Worked for a small company in the past and an elderly employee was being cheated out of pro-rata holiday pay simply because she didn't understand what she was entitled to...they got it backdated with a bit of help, but my meddling wasn't appreciated by management and I left soon after (didn't like the job or their ethics!!).

Lady_Aga

I am basically of the opinion that you should keep your mouth shut. If you have to tell someone, then it should be your union rep, and then leave it at that.

sjfdata-mail

How do you know they were underpaid? How long ago where they pregnant? Maternity pay has changed so much over the last few years - the payments made at the time could well have been correct. If it was recent that is different, but surely it is up to the employee to fnd out what she is entitled to at the time. You cannot compare entitlement of what somebody had say 5 years ago to today.