Returning to work from Maternity leave and major issues advice needed!!

KiKi

Britneys_Firefly wrote: »

Under no circumstances can I return to work full time. I'm a single parent, with little to none family support
In my little dream world I would love to return to work on an 8 hour ow contract for the next 12 months, to hopefully increase to 15 hours pw once my little boy can get funded nursery placement
In stark reality a payout is looking the only option for me

Well, assuming you don't want to ask about a full time job to determine whether or not he's broken the law, and assuming that he has but you don't want to go to an ET to get compensation for discrimination...

Then this:
"All accrued holiday
PILON
ex gratia payment , statutory redundancy would be 1 week per year capped at £400."

means:

All paid holiday that you have accrued whilst on Mat leave (ie, all the annual leave days and any bank holidays, or days in lieu of bank holidays that you should have had, had you been at work)

PILON = pay in lieu of notice. Ie, if your notice period is one month but you don't work it because there's no job or you've been told to leave, you should get one month's pay

Ex Gratia payment - the pay off that you're referring to. The legal minimum from a redundancy perspective would be 1 week's pay for every year worked, at a maximum of £400 per week. Your contract / company policy may allow for more, but that's the legal (statutory) minimum required.



Of course, if I were you, I'd be negotiating the highest amount possible. Actually, if I were you, I'd be asking about the full time role to determine whether or not he's breaking the law, then going to tribunal for sex discrimination. But you may not want / nor be in a position to do that.

HTH
KiKi

ohreally

Assuming you didn't have the foresight to join a trade union, my advice would be to seek qualified legal opinion on your chance of success if you wish to maximise any payout.

If you're going to take the employer to task, be prepared and go in well informed.

Britneys_Firefly

ohreally wrote: »

Assuming you didn't have the foresight to join a trade union, my advice would be to seek qualified legal opinion on your chance of success if you wish to maximise any payout.

If you're going to take the employer to task, be prepared and go in well informed.

There was/is no union I can join in the line of work I was in, trust me I did ask as I know just what an important job these guys can do in situations like this!

They're now closed for the rest of the weekend, I'm half tempted to email (as boss had tried to email me today to get me to call after leaving several voicemails yesterday)

Wow that could be a fair chunk of money, I earnt roughly £220 a week, and as far as I'm aware I get paid hoilday for 4 weeks.

Googlewhacker

You should also negotiate an agreed reference as well which if you go to a tribunal is not guaranteed as they cannot force an employer to do this (also a tribunal could take 1 year plus to go through).

Start with a high figure and have a figure you'd be happy with and go from there

ohreally

Britneys_Firefly wrote: »

There was/is no union I can join in the line of work I was in, trust me

For future reference BECTU organise within cinemas... http://www.joinbectu.org.uk/index.html

The few BECTU guys i've bumped into have all impressed.

Britneys_Firefly

Thanks for that with the union, but I worked with theatre box office, would they have covered me? If so then I was lied to
When I was told buy other staff members that there was no union I could join

getmore4less

Britneys_Firefly wrote: »

Wow that could be a fair chunk of money, I earnt roughly £220 a week, and as far as I'm aware I get paid hoilday for 4 weeks.

£400pw iis a cap on redundancy not a minimum.

Holiday will be 5.6 weeks minimum and can include the BH.

SarEl

Britneys_Firefly wrote: »

Thanks for that with the union, but I worked with theatre box office, would they have covered me? If so then I was lied to
When I was told buy other staff members that there was no union I could join

You were not lied to. It isn't the responsibility of other staff to know what union you could join, it is yours to find out. If there is no specialist union, then there are plenty of general workers unions you could have joined.

Britneys_Firefly

SarEl wrote: »

You were not lied to. It isn't the responsibility of other staff to know what union you could join, it is yours to find out. If there is no specialist union, then there are plenty of general workers unions you could have joined.

I asked my then manager at the time just after I was given the job if I could join a union, and was told that the theatre had no unions for its admin/office staff, being young at the time and not savvy on unions (my only experience with one was when I was auto enlisted to one!) I assumed that was that in the end of the conversation