pregnancy discrimination?

an9i77

I am pregnant, and due to an underlying medical condition which has been made worse by my pregnancy, I am currently unable to drive. Prior to the pregnancy I could drive fine, and my job involved a lot of driving as it was a regional role covering a patch of the country. However it is now not safe for me to drive and will probably remain that way for the remainder of the pregnancy which is another five months or so.

I told my employer I couldn't drive and after submitting the necessary medical evidence was told that they would be moving me to another role that I could do from home, as they needed someone who could drive around for my job so would recruit an interim.

Well they have now recruited an interim, but they are going to base this person in head office, some 200 miles away from my patch, and they will be completely office based and not do any driving at all! They will be doing phone and letter based work as far as I know.

I fail to understand what the interim can do from head office that I can't do from home. Trying to get any communication or sense out of my boss is an exercise in futility.

I'm worried now that they are going to centralise my role to head office whilst I am pregnant/ on maternity leave. Either that, or they just didn't want me in my job and have used this as an excuse to sideline me to another team.

Anyway do you think this counts as pregnancy discrimination? They've kept me on the same money, but the work I am now doing is quite different to what I was employed to do and not really what I would have chosen. I just don't understand why someone else is now doing my job when they're not able to drive around either (in my area) and I was told that was the only reason I was being moved to the other role.

Maybe I should just be grateful that they are letting me work from home but the whole thing sounds a bit fishy to me and I don't know whether I'm being gently ousted.

Thanks

Dogger69

Before thinking about discrimination, you need to ask why they have done this, and why you could not have done the job from home.

an9i77

Well the reason they said is because the role needs someone who can drive around (as I was doing before I fell pregnant) but the fact that they've now got someone doing it 200 miles away in head office blows that one out of the water!

Dogger69

an9i77 wrote: »

Well the reason they said is because the role needs someone who can drive around (as I was doing before I fell pregnant) but the fact that they've now got someone doing it 200 miles away in head office blows that one out of the water!

You need to bring this to your attention. You can do this by submitting a grievance, or by asking for an informal discussion. I would start with the latter, no point in kicking up a fuss before you are sure you have grounds to.

an9i77

Update, my boss has just phoned and said I can have my old job back but do it from home - wonder if he's been reading MSE! Or maybe just realised that his logic was entirely flawed, and his actions potentially discriminatory.