‘You’ll bankrupt the business’: Pregnant workers made redundant
Discrimination against pregnant workers or those on parental leave is on the rise – complaints about that issue and redundancy have increased by 15 per cent in the past year.
Some employers directly told employees their pregnancy would “bankrupt the business”. Other employers were less explicit, excluding new mothers from meetings and handing their responsibilities to other staff members, making them redundant, then hiring the maternity cover into a permanent role.
Pregnancy and parental discrimination are illegal, but experts say confidentiality clauses make knowing how common the issue is difficult.Credit: Stock
On Friday, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he wanted Australians to have more babies and pledged to make it easier for people to have larger families to address the declining birth rate. Australia’s current fertility rate is 1.63 births per woman.
Employment rights community legal centre JobWatch, which operates in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania, recorded 95 parental and pregnancy discrimination complaints in 2022, 110 in 2023 and 42 in the first four months of this year. Most related to redundancy and parental leave.
“Taking maternity leave will bankrupt the business.”
Told to a pregnant Jobwatch caller
JobWatch CEO Zana Bytheway said the rise was concerning, yet the issue was longstanding.
“Often employers view pregnancy as a huge inconvenience, a disruption to work, a financial impost,” she said. “It is no great surprise that this sentiment creates enormous stress to women during what should be one of the happiest times in their lives.”
“My boss told me pregnancy was not an illness when I requested time off with severe nausea.”
Centre for Workplace Excellence survey respondent
Bytheway said the call data is just the tip of the iceberg. Under federal law, sexual harassment and discrimination claims must be lodged within 24 months; in all states, discrimination claims have a 12-month limit, which she regards as a short timeframe for new parents.
“Claims are also shut down by confidential clauses in their agreement or settlement … meaning employers and perpetrators face no real consequences, and we don’t learn about the breadth of the issue,” she said.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has also noted an increase in the number of complaints alleging pregnancy discrimination.
In the financial year to date, the commission recorded 83 indirect and direct pregnancy discrimination complaints, 10 of which resulted in the person being terminated from their role during or after maternity leave.
In 2022-23, there were 55 complaints, and 114 the year before.
“I was told I wouldn’t want to return to work as I would be ‘clucky’.”
Centre for Workplace Excellence survey respondent
Employment lawyer Andrew Jewell said the rise in complaints was partly driven by the cost of living crisis.
“Businesses often revert to these kinds of discriminatory decisions when there are more difficult economic conditions … They have to get rid of someone and often the pregnant person or the person on parental leave is the one chosen over the worker who sits next to them,” he said.
He said redundancy claims had increased in the past several months, but the current strong job market meant cases rarely appeared in employment figures or the courts.
“Some parents would rather just take another job than complain,” he said.
“I feel like I miss opportunities because I’m ‘just a Mum’, only work four days a week or might get pregnant again.”
Centre for Workplace Excellence survey respondent
For the first time, Jewell said, he had noted an increase in claims from secondary carers or fathers on paternity leave.
“In the last few months, I’ve had cases where it’s a male who said there was a redundancy floating around, and his job should be safe but got selected [ahead of] his parental leave,” he said.
Discrimination experienced by pregnant and parent workers in Australia
- 21.2% Did not receive training that they would have otherwise received
- 25.4% Felt as though they needed to hide their pregnant belly
- 23.3% Received hints or signals from others that they should quit their job
- 35.9% Experienced excessive monitoring of their work
- 34.0% Returned to a job with lower status or less responsibility
A review by the University of South Australia’s Centre for Workplace Excellence released this year found that nearly one-quarter of surveyed parent workers were made redundant, restructured out of a job, did not have their contract renewed, or had their employment terminated during parental leave.
“[After maternity leave] I was excluded from projects and conversations and things that I always have been a part of as part of my job.”
Mother interviewed by the Herald
Report author Dr Rachael Potter said her research showed pregnancy discrimination was very high among three categories: Pregnant workers, those on parental leave, and those who have returned to work after parental leave.
“Discrimination can be direct or indirect. It can be masked as a restructure, which makes it hard to get a definitive answer [on whether discrimination occurred],” she said.
“Australia has strong anti-discrimination laws, but people are slipping through the cracks.”