Please Help 😫 7 months pregnant and having a terrible time with employer!

Based in the UK.

Long story short - I’m a teacher, I’m pregnant, I think my employer is lying to me about money and I’m stressed! 😫

If you read this, thank you. I’m so stressed, I just want your opinions and advice.

* Due 03.10.2018 with my first! 👶🏻

* Told employer I was pregnant in January.

* Employer told me company does not do PAID maternity leave (Statutory Maternity Pay - ‘SMP’)

* Advised by employer I will go on benefits (welfare) and government’s Maternity Allowance.

* 4 weeks ago, got given MATB1 form from midwife and told to give it to employer regardless of the fact they don’t do SMP.

* Employer said give it to accountant.

* Accountant said ‘oh thanks is this to claim your SMP?’

* Turns out, they do do SMP, I am entitled, accountant was waiting for me to ask, wondered why I hadn’t already.

* Employer gets annoyed when I tell her ‘accountant’s just said I’m entitled to SMP.’

* Employer says: ‘I told you I’d sort it out’. Sort what out, you’d told me I don’t get it?!

* Employer says she needs to contact her Human Resources team which she pays for for advice (it’s a really small business).

* Employer says to me she needs to have HR work out how much I’m entitled.

* Now, SMP isn’t a scale... it is 90% for first 6 weeks and then a fixed rate for 33 weeks which is determined by the government. So, how can she be contacting HR to talk about how much?!

* So there’s me absolutely confused after thinking for months I’m not getting SMP, everything has changed in a day.

* Next minute, the employer is saying she can’t afford it but she’ll ask HR what she can do for me?

SO

* I find out from researching that businesses claim back 92% of SMP.

* Next day, I tell employer and she gets annoyed: ‘I can’t afford it, I told you HR are going to work out how much we can pay you’. 😫

THEN

* Following day, employer makes me a side offer saying ‘this is what I can afford, you didn’t know you were getting SMP, so anything is better than nothing, isn’t it?’

* I work out that this side offer loses me £2500, obviously SAVING her that amount.

* I feel annoyed because I’m made to feel I should be grateful for something that is not as good as what I’m literally entitled to AND that I only thought I wasn’t getting because she had told me.

* I say no thanks. It’s SMP or nothing?

* She tells me she doesn’t think she can afford it and to wait until she contacts HR.

* She never updates me...

AFTER THAT

* I speak to the accountant alone 2 weeks ago and ask what is going on.

* Accountant confirms all is fine with SMP, I’m getting it and not to worry.

* I’m thinking: if she says it’s fine, it’s fine! I’ll ignore employer and listen to accountant. (And also that this place is mad!)

* Accountant puts it all in writing, signs and dates. Happy! 😄

BUT

* Last week, I asked my employer about what needed doing over the summer before I left (on 31st August).

* She said: ‘you won’t be here anyway’ 🤨

* I said I will because my last day is 31.08.18? She said no it’s not.

* Confused I say: ‘accountant has confirmed that my last day is 31st August and showed me it on paper’

* Employer says: ‘no. That won’t be for you, that’ll be for HR. We are still waiting for them to get back to us’

* 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’m thinking OMG you’re lying right to my face?!

* I re-ask the accountant if I get SMP and she’s angry WITH ME?! ‘What don’t you understand, you get SMP!’

* I feel confused and upset and spend the night in bed crying 😢

FAST FORWARD TO YESTERDAY:

* Employer comes up to me and says exactly this: ‘I need to speak to you tomorrow’ ‘why not just speak to me now?’ ‘Fine but we’ll speak tomorrow properly... when you take a year’s maternity leave, you work for 11 days during that time’.

* Now, this is 100% not true.

* What is true is that you can take a option of 10 paid Keeping In Touch days that help the employee not feel out of the loop whilst they’re on leave BUT you both have to agree to this. You cannot be forced.

* So I tell her that. She says: ‘no it’s 11. My Human Resources team told me and they said you have to do them but I don’t want to keep in touch over that year so what I think is that you teach for the 11 days in the summer holidays to use them then’.

* Problems with that - 1. You can’t be forced to take KIT days. 2. She must be lying about being advised that by HR. 3. It’s not 11 days, it’s 10! 4. You can’t take KIT days until you are on maternity leave - my maternity leave starts after summer holidays? 5. I’d asked the week before what needed doing over summer, so why phrase it in this strange incorrect way?

TODAY

* Today, I learnt a fun fact: Teachers get paid over summer but don’t need to work. I don’t need to step foot in school in summer even though I’m getting paid in August. Any work would be voluntary. I’ve never thought about this and for the last 2 year, I’ve done bits of work in summer for them...

* I tell accountant all that is going on. I say that I feel employer is lying to me as I know accountant is not waiting on HR, that I know I cannot be forced to do KIT days, that I cannot to KIT days in the summer because my leave starts end of August and that I AM STRESSED.

* Accountant looks shocked, says she feels conflicted but that I am right in everything that I am saying and that all the paperwork she’s given me proves that and just to give a photocopy of that to employer.

NOW

* I’m so scared and stressed about the conversation that’ll happen with my employer when she comes round to saying about these 11 days of teaching in the summer.

* I know I’m entitled to not work in August. I know I’m entitled to SMP. I know I’m entitled to literally just walk away at the end of this month BUT I just don’t want this conversation to happen because I feel like she’s doing to bully me and turn on me.

I need a confidence boost, ladies! Help!