An employee who is pregnant has the right not to be treated unfavourably because of their pregnancy or because of an illness arising as a result of pregnancy during the “protected period” (NB the protected period runs from the beginning of the pregnancy to the end of the employee’s maternity leave).
An employee who is unwell during pregnancy should follow the employer’s normal sickness reporting procedures. A pregnancy-related illness includes any condition that is linked to the employee’s pregnancy or loss of pregnancy.
However, an employer must record any pregnancy-related sickness absence separately from other sick leave, so that pregnancy-related sickness absence is not counted when considering dismissal, redundancy or disciplinary action.
The employer will need to consider the employee’s absence record to see whether the absences are related to, or are a consequence of, their pregnancy before taking any disciplinary action. Dismissing an employee for the level of their sickness absence when all, or a majority, of the absences are pregnancy-related, would give rise to a potential claim for unfair dismissal and/or pregnancy & maternity discrimination. Whilst, generally speaking, an employee needs one year’s continuous service in the Isle of Man to claim unfair dismissal, an employee is protected against unlawful discrimination from day one of their employment, regardless of how many hours they work.
For the purposes of sick pay, the employee will be entitled to receive the same sick pay as other employees (i.e. an employer does not have to make a special case because the employee is pregnant). For example, if there is no entitlement to sick pay whilst on probation, an employee who is pregnant but within their probationary period will not be entitled to sick pay either.
