Employees on parental leave are vulnerable. The law provides extra protection to mothers, fathers and partners while they are on parental leave. These types of employees are protected by the normal employment laws and also by the special protections found in the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. Delmaine illegally made a woman redundant while she was on maternity leave. The result was that the woman was awarded $32,000 by the Employment Relations Authority. 

Please ask us if you have any concerns about your parental leave rights.

If you are applying for parental leave there are certain processes that need to be followed. The Department of Labour has a good outline here. In most circumstances your job will be protected for you so that you can step back into it when you return from parental leave. If this is not possible the employer must follow the correct processes.

Becoming a parent is a stressful event, but it should also be a happy one. Quite often we find that the stress is increased, and the happiness overshadowed, by unfair or illegal practices by employers who don’t want a pregnant employee, or one with small children, on board. Examples of things that we have seen happen include employers trying to dismiss pregnant employees because they don’t want to keep the job open for them (often the employer will try to disguise the dismissal as a “redundancy”), employers denying an employee’s entitlement to parental leave, employers who discriminate against pregnant employees or ones with small children, and employers who try to force a pregnant employee to start their maternity leave early. We have seen these bad practices from all types of employers, including large law firms, large companies, recruitment companies, charities and small employers.

There are different sets of procedures that employers have to follow  with regard to parental leave and changes to an employee’s work, and if they get either procedure wrong they will be exposed to a claim. If you are a parent or someone who is on parental leave, and you are concerned about things at work, please contact us.