The Bar Council has backed extending redundancy protection for pregnant women and new parents to help bridge the gender pay gap.
It also said existing protections on pregnancy and maternity are not well understood by employers. To boost understanding, it suggested easily accessible information about employment rights be made available in clinics, hospitals and surgeries.
It also suggested employers could be given a responsibility to provide information to workers, and called for ACAS and the EHRC to update their guidance.
The Bar Council was responding to a government consultation on ‘Pregnancy and maternity discrimination’.
In its response, the Bar Council’s law reform committee stated the benefits were ‘likely to be increasing the diversity of the workplace, boosting the economic productivity of maternity returners, ensuring a better return on the investment in women at work who have children, reducing the attrition of skills and talent and overall reducing the gender pay gap in many instances. It would also ensure a greater understanding of rights and obligations, which would avoid misunderstandings, grievances and possibly also litigation, which would save time and costs for individuals and businesses alike’.
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