New hire discloses pregnancy. An employer seeks advice
Dear e-COACH,
I have two questions. (1) Is there a web sight where the rights of employer and/or employees are published? (2) If an employee does not reveal that she is pregnant before she is hired and discloses this fact within 1 month of being hired that she will be taking a maternity leave within 7 months, what are my rights as far as this employee is concerned? Thanks, - HD
Dear HD,
According to Human Rights, employers are not permitted to ask a prospective employee if she is pregnant or planning to become pregnant. I think you can infer from this that she also does not have to tell you that she is pregnant. There is no provision in the Employment Standards Act that obligates an employee to tell you this either. Furthermore, be aware that, according to Sec 44 of the Employment Standards Act, an employer may not "intimidate, discipline, suspend, lay off, dismiss or impose a penalty because an employee is or will become eligible ... " for maternity leave.
An employee has to have been employed a minimum of 13 weeks before her official due date (you may ask for a doctor's note to confirm this) to be eligible for maternity leave.
So, where does this leave you? I'm afraid that as far as your "rights" go (as you put it), you don't have a lot in this case. Given the facts you have provided, it sounds possible that she may not have known she was pregnant -- if it's 7 mos away and she worked there for a month before telling you, she was only about 4 weeks along. Many women do not even know they are pregnant at this point.
Nevertheless, you have yourself a maternity leave coming up (and possibly a parental leave too) so you are right to want to check out the legislation. Be aware that for children born after Dec 31 the legislation is changing.
There is a copy of the Employment Standards Act on the Ministry of Labour's website: www.gov.on.ca/LAB/es/chap3e.htm#pregnancy, or you can email them at weblab@gov.on.ca.
You can also phone them at 416.326.7160. Human Rights is 416.314.4500.
Good luck! Let me know how it turns out.
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