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Maternity leave and pay – a call to action

The NEU is calling for higher maternity pay and stronger employment protections for pregnant women and new mothers working in schools and colleges. Find out what teachers and support staff told us about their experiences of taking maternity leave in the education sector, and how reps and members can work together to improve conditions at work.

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Introduction

Three-quarters of NEU members are women, many of them of childbearing age. This is why our survey of teacher and support staff members’ experiences of being pregnant, while working in the education sector, is so important.

It is discrimination to treat a woman unfavourably on the grounds of her pregnancy or her period of maternity leave - Equality Act 2010 s18. A woman must show that the unfavourable treatment or dismissal was because of her pregnancy or maternity leave. Examples of unfavourable treatment can include: failing to consult the woman during her maternity leave about a reorganisation, changing or deleting her job during maternity leave, or reducing her pay or hours without her agreement following maternity leave.

Our survey of women’s experience of pregnancy, maternity and returning to work exposes the pervasive discrimination of teachers and support staff taking maternity leave in the education sector. We have identified widespread misinformation about basic maternity leave and pay entitlements and our members have revealed regular breaches of women’s rights to choose when they would prefer to start maternity leave, rights to information during their absence and rights to pay awards.

Disappointingly, we found fewer examples of better practice, particularly in relation to pay, and suggestions that the education sector is falling behind when it comes to championing, supporting and retaining new mothers. Women are voting with their feet – moving school or college for better working conditions if they are lucky but often leaving the sector altogether.

To highlight the experiences of women in the education sector who take a period of maternity leave, the NEU is proud to be working with Maternity Action. The UK’s maternity rights charity, Maternity Action is dedicated to promoting, protecting and enhancing the rights of all pregnant women, new mothers and their families to employment, social security and health care.

Our recommendations

Government – changes needed

❱ Increase the flat rate of statutory maternity pay (SMP), statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay and other statutory parental payments to at least the equivalent of 35 hours on the national living wage.

❱ Increase the length of paid maternity leave.

❱ Extend the current eight-week qualifying period for SMP to cover 12 weeks’ earnings so that women with variable hours or on casual contracts are not disadvantaged.

❱ Uprate Healthy Start in line with inflation, supporting healthy diets for pregnant women, new mothers and children.

❱ Uprate Sure Start maternity grant (SSMG) in line with inflation and eligibility expanded to second and subsequent children.

❱ Enact the socio-economic duty under section 1 of the Equality Act 2010.

❱ Replace the current shared parental leave scheme with the 6+6+6 model of six months’ maternity leave, followed by a further six months of non- transferrable parental leave for each parent. Parents should have an individual right, rather than ‘shared’ leave entitlements whereby the mother has to give up some of her maternity leave.

❱ Enact the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 now.

Employers – changes needed

❱ Adopt the NEU model policy: Maternity leave and pay

❱ Increase length of paid maternity leave to at least six months on full pay and six months on half pay.

❱ Within 28 days of a woman giving notice of her maternity leave, provide her with a breakdown of her maternity pay for each week of absence, including when it will come to an end.

❱ Remove all links to performance-related pay from pay and appraisal policies, ensuring women on maternity leave progress automatically on the pay range. Abandon the unfair performance-related pay regime. Until all links to performance-related pay are removed, reduce objectives to remove barriers to pay progression. Inform women of their rights to pay progression while on maternity leave and implement this in a timely manner.

❱ Recalculate average weekly earnings to take account of pay rises that have been or will be awarded during maternity leave.

❱ Discuss and agree reasonable contact arrangements with the mother before maternity leave begins.

❱ Discuss and agree a reasonable return-to-work induction before a new mother returns to work.

❱ Offer and encourage take-up of keeping in touch (KIT) days to help ease women back to work. Ensure that women received their usual pay for any days taken.

❱ Make sure that women are informed about opportunities for promotion and job vacancies while on maternity leave.

❱ Ensure, if any re-organisation which may affect a woman on maternity leave is taking place, that she is fully informed and involved in those discussions.

❱ Take steps to prevent detrimental treatment of women who are taking, or have taken, maternity leave.

Mother and baby

Maternity leave and pay

Maternity leave and pay for teachers and support staff– your rights, how to exercise them and how members and reps can work together to improve pay and working conditions for pregnant women and new mothers in schools and colleges.

Mother with sleeping baby

Maternity rights

Maternity rights and entitlements available to teachers and support staff in schools and colleges.

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