Further written submission from Pregnant Then Screwed (NDA0098)
Pregnant Then Screwed has undertaken research exploring the impact of Non Disclosure Agreements on women who encounter pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
These results are derived from 260 responses to their survey:
Q 1) Did you feel that signing a Non Disclosure Agreement was your only option?
91.3% said YES 8.7% said NO
Q2) If you did feel this was your only option, can you explain why? (these are some of the highlights)
● My baby was stillborn and I had only returned to work three weeks before this happened. I had absolutely no strength whatsoever to fight it.
● I was in the second trimester of my first pregnancy and the whole ordeal was causing me unbearable anxiety and stress. So much of me wanted to take them to tribunal but I had to put my baby's health first
● If I didn't sign I was afraid that my employers would tell prospective employers that it was all my fault
● I had previously had 2 miscarriages and I thought the stress of going through a tribunal would cause me to have another so I had to sign to make it all stop
● I had a mortgage to pay and a baby to provide for. Although I was advised that I had a very strong case, I could not take the gamble and I could not wait to see how things played out in court as I had bills to pay.
● I had no financial means to take my employer to court and stand a chance to win against them. They knew what they were doing as they did it many times before, so I would have lost money and energy for nothing and I needed to be there for my newborn. They are many and have a whole department dealing with cases like that. I was by myself writing letters and checking all my wording between night feeds. It was too much, so I gave in a agreed.
● Agreeing to sign the NDA was the only way I could progress with a compromise agreement. Biased & unhelpful HR forced me into the situation, 7 months pregnant & tired of crying every single day, after returning to work from 1st maternity leave to be actively and unashamedly pushed out of my role.
Q3) Do you feel that signing the NDA has had a negative impact on your mental health?
69.6% said YES 30.4% said NO
Q4) If you do feel that signing an NDA has had a negative impact on your mental health, can you explain why? (these are some of the highlights)
● Signing that NDA has meant I've lost all my confidence. I couldn't defend myself, what message does that send to my daughter? I feel utterly worthless
● I'm putting on a front and focussing my energies on my toddler. But behind the scenes I'm depressed and riddled with anxiety. Was I bad at my job? Will I get another good job again? How long is too long out of work?
● It embitters you and causes you to mistrust future employers.
● The injustice and keeping of a secret caused me emotional distress and anxiety
● Completely knocked my confidence & friendships I’d had for years just stopped straight
away leaving me feeling very alone.
● I'm normally the sort of person to stand up for what I think is right. I have a family to
support, a small baby & didn't have the energy to fight this or feel that I could afford to lose the money. I feel so let down by the so called law that's supposed to protect me, there's no come back or consequence for these companies. I can't afford the legal fees & even if I could it would be career suicide to take it further. I now feel really vulnerable & have lost a bit of my faith in people.
● Loss of confidence, loss of faith , extreme paranoia
● I feel like justice wasn’t done, and regret it everyday. I want to tell people what
happened to me rather than it being a dirty secret and I have lost all my confidence and
self esteem 7 years on it’s no better.
● The whole process had a significant negative effect on me. I contemplated suicide and it completely destroyed my first year with my son
Q5) Do you feel you were forced to sign the NDA, or was it your choice?
52.2% said they were forced to sign
32.6% said it was their choice
15.2% said they don’t know
Q6) Did you sign the Non Disclosure Agreement as you felt this would be better for your career in the long-term?
60.7% said YES
39.3% said NO
ENDS
Stories collected by Pregnant Then Screwed
These are just a few of the stories we have collected over the last 4 years from women who have signed NDAs after they have experienced pregnancy or maternity discrimination:
Story 1)
I was working for a FTSE100 company at a senior level. I had been a dedicated, high achieving employee for 6 years with an exemplary record of achievement, so when I discovered I was pregnant I wasn’t worried about my career. I truly believed my employer valued me enough to manage this process properly. It is clear to me now how unbelievably naive I was. From the moment I announced my pregnancy things turned sour. My boss could barely make eye contact with me, I became a burden to him and the business. They sidelined me from meetings and started to give some of my work to a more junior, male member of my team without any discussion. They chipped away at my confidence, making back handed comments about my appearance and my work ethic, which hadn’t changed. My personal development review was substandard when it has previously been excellent. There was no real explanation as to why and when I addressed the change in behaviour and attitude towards me, It was met with animosity. I knew the stress of it all was getting to me and I was concerned about my health and the health of the baby so I kept my head down and waited until maternity leave, hoping that when I returned things would be back to normal. Six weeks after my baby was born I received an email. The email wasn’t meant for me, it had been sent to me by accident. It was a discussion between my boss and the HR department. My boss wanted to make me redundant and said I wouldn’t make a fuss as I was on maternity leave and probably wanted to leave anyway. He had realised his mistake and called me to invite me in for a meeting. I dragged myself there with my baby daughter, I was still in pain from the birth, having had 3 hours sleep. I was so confused and exhausted I barely remember how I got there or what was said but I know I didn’t have the resilience to fight it and I just wanted it to be over so I could try and get on with figuring out how to be a mother to my baby girl. They offered me money and a good reference as long as I signed a non disclosure agreement. They said that this was the best offer I would get, more than what redundancy would pay so I should take it and enjoy my time on maternity leave. They would make sure my reference was fantastic so I would have no problem getting a new job. I had a solicitor look over the agreement but I knew that I couldn’t fight it, not at this moment, I had no fight left in me. I accepted the offer. It is now 18 months later and my mental health has deteriorated as a result of what they did to me. I was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression but I know it was this incident that triggered it. With the evidence I had I could have taken them to tribunal and got a much larger payout and humiliated them in the process to ensure this didn’t happen to another woman. I know they targeted me because they knew I was fragile and vulnerable but it doesn’t stop me feeling guilty that I allowed them to get away with it. What message am I sending to my daughter?
Story 2)
Before falling pregnant my career as a project manager was going well, although I had not been working for the company for very long I had impressed my manager enough that she was happy to sign off on some fairly expensive project management training and certification. I won recognition awards for my work and was even approached by the head of another department for a position in that area. After announcing my pregnancy quite early to my manager she was initially fine with me but after my first trimester I approached her several times in regards to the promised training as I wanted to ensure I had enough time to complete it before the beginning of my maternity leave. At around 22 weeks I had a small bleed at work and had to go to hospital to be checked over, luckily everything was okay with the baby so I went home. Despite being advised to rest I went into work the next day only to be ushered back out by concerned colleagues. My GP thought it prudent to sign me off for a week to allow for healing and rest. The following day I had a call from my manager asking me to come in for a meeting as she wanted to discuss something she said would "be of benefit to me" and that I was allowed to bring someone in with me if I so wished. Alarm bells immediately went off as I knew this could only mean one thing. I rang my doctor in a panic and told him my work wanted me to go into a meeting and suspected they wanted to try and get rid of me. He told me under no circumstance was I to go to the meeting and as I had been signed off that they wouldn't be insured should something happen to me on the premises. I decided to follow this advice and email my manager (so that there was written record of what was happening) and turned off my work phone. A couple of hours later I got a call on my landline from HR. I told them that I knew what was happening and that I wasn't well enough to come into the office at that time. Their counter offer was that they would come to my home and have the meeting there. Feeling under quite a bit of pressure I agreed and asked a relative who was a solicitor to take notes for me.
So the following day two representatives from HR came to my house and told me my job was being made redundant and I had two options, apply for the new much more senior role or take a compromise agreement and leave the company.
With interviews being held around the time I was due to give birth and with the training I had been promised been put on hold I knew I didn't have the chance of the more senior role so decided to take a compromise agreement. I wish now that I had fought and taken them to tribunal but heading into your third trimester with your first child the last thing you feel like doing is pouring your efforts into such a negative situation.
Story 3)
I was waiting till my 12 week scan to tell my employer I was pregnant, but due to a complication at 11 weeks when I was rushed to A&E and took the morning off work, I had to tell my employer I was pregnant due to it becoming a high-risk pregnancy. One of my bosses was polite, the other didn’t look at me. Relations deteriorated with the one that didn’t look at me, it was first passive aggression - slamming doors, muttering under his breath and him ignoring me, it then turned into him humiliating me in front of my team and clients, throwing work at me. After a month of this, and trying to manage the situation, I had a series of panic attacks, I then realised that not only was I in trouble but I could be harming my baby too. I called a meeting with my boss and senior colleague to explain what was going on, my senior colleague supported me. My doctor then signed me off with stress, a week into this, a solicitors letter came through my door they were firing me due to "poor performance"… Thankfully I had the evidence to prove the opposite, the lawyers then battled it out, I settled out of court and I have an NDA tying my hands. On the surface I came out ok, but not a day goes by that it doesn’t upset me.
Story 4)
In 2014 I was in senior comms role for one of the world’s biggest ecommerce companies. Picked out as a high flyer I had already been promoted once since joining in 2012 and was the only person in a senior comms role outside North America. My immediate manager who was a father of 2 girls could not have been more supportive. He was very firm that if I felt even the least bit unwell I was to work from home and went out of his way to push for things like health assessments, new lighter tech etc. The GM in London was a mother of 2 and always banged on about how she wanted more working mums in the office. The fact was, I was the first woman in the London office to get pregnant. Apparently the first thing she said to my manager I response to my announcement was “Should we plan for her not to return?” A man who had previously worked for our external PR agency was drafted as my maternity cover and it was soon very clear that the London GM could not wait to replace me with him. While I was on leave, requests to discuss a phase return to work and a flexible working pattern were ignored. When I went into the office after my son as born and asked if I could have a place to express breast milk another senior female manager vaguely waved in the direction of the breakout area. This wasn’t even a room, just a partition wall that didn’t reach the ceiling and with no door, less than 5 feet away from all my colleagues. I was horrified – difficult to imagine how you make quite an undignified process worse but somehow they did. Just 2 weeks before I was due to return I was summoned into the office for a meeting and informed that my role was at risk and was to be replaced by a more senior role which required me to be multilingual and a more junior role. I was offered either the more junior role or the freedom to apply for any other suitable role within the wider organisation. I was also explicitly told that my male maternity cover would not be eligible for the senior role either. However my maternity cover was kept on part time as a contractor (although I was not offered that option) and within a few months had been hired fulltime for the senior role - for more money. During my consultation period I was repeatedly lied to, their lawyers refused to engage with mine until we were preparing to take a case to tribunal and sent them a summary of our case. The only other alternative role was in Zurich and I had to apply if I wanted to be considered.In the end I settled with them and was forced to sign an NDA. The whole experience has left me with a bad taste in the mouth and a desire to help other women avoid corporate bullying in cases of pregnancy and maternity discrimination.
Story 5)
Hi I'm an ex director of a large mobile company, and I have a story to tell. I left under a settlement agreement as did many other women I know who were either mothers or forced out post maternity leave. I know of at least 5 cases... I noticed today that this same company has launched their career returners programme aimed at mothers. I find it quite ironic and to be honest, annoying that no one ever talks about the way they treat mothers and in particular maternity returners.
Story 6)
I had my babies at age 25,27 and 29. I have left two jobs now as a result of discrimination surrounding pregnancy and maternity leave. The first job I left after my first child I was a teacher and after I requested part time and my priorities changed to wanting to spend time with my 6month old daughter suddenly my performance was inadequate having previously been good or outstanding. I was regularly observed teaching my three or more members of the senior leadership team unannounced and nothing I did was good enough. This was a huge shock after they had previously been so lovely and being young and having only been teaching a few years I didn't know what to do, it was awful. I was off sick and supported by my union and finally resigned from my job as I just couldn't face going back. I needed lots of CBT and was diagnosed by Occupational Health with PTSD as a result of their relentless drive to wear me down. My boss told me "you can see your own children at Christmas". I have just left the job I went to after that working for a charity after my boss took personal offence over my second pregnancy while I was there (3rd child) as my two youngest are quite close together. She swore at me when I told her I was expecting again and was very rude making derogatory comments both to me and my partner and about me to colleagues. Again issues suddenly arose with my working hours and she tried to enforce old contracts and make me redundant without telling me. Thankfully my first experience taught me not to take it lying down and I was able to collect 'evidence' from the start of the problems.
Consequently I have managed to negotiate a settlement agreement to leave with but it was hard going and only thanks to your legal support line that I had the guts to go through with it and not just walk away for the sake of my mental health (again!) now I'm left jobless with three children 5 and under and feeling defeated with no prospects. I hate that this happens to people and I hate feeling like I let my family down just by daring to have them. The worst bit is that I can’t tell anyone what happened to me because I had to sign an NDA. I suffer in silence , afraid to tell a soul.
Story 7)
I had been working in a [work place] for 10 years when we were taken over and everything changed drastically.
I'd always wanted to be a surrogate and it took me years to persuade my husband, He finally caved in and we found a couple to help. We had IVF and it was confirmed I was pregnant 2 weeks later. All the changes at work were for the worst and I suffered a miscarriage. 3 months passed and I had IVF for a second time. Again the stress from work caused a miscarriage so I decided not to go ahead for a third and final time until I was in a less stressful situation.
It was announced the [work place] was closing down and I was made redundant. I found a job in an [work place] more or less immediately. It was known from interview I hadn't had recent [type of work] experience and never within an [profession], I was promised training and offered the job.
Within four months I was feeling much more positive so I told my couple I'd like to try for the final round of IVF for them.
I informed my employers and was told that I was supported and how much they admired me.
I was confirmed pregnant in [date] and informed my employers at 8 weeks. I had begun to feel uneasy at work, I was being pulled from pillar to post between our two offices. In one office everything was fine and I was getting on well, in the other it seemed I could nothing right.
Because of this I asked about training and was put off time and again. I would follow written instructions from my manager only to be told once I'd completed the work that I had done it wrong, even after following HER written instructions.
I had a couple of early scans due to bleeding and was advised to keep the stress levels to the very minimum in order to hold onto this surrogate pregnancy.
It had got so bad at work I started not wanting to go to that office in fear of being told I was useless and just the thought of going would make me feel sick and bring me to tears.
On a Friday afternoon in June, when I was 16 weeks pregnant, I was told one of the Directors wanted to have a 'word' with me on the Monday. I asked him if I needed anyone with me, his response was 'No, not unless you want to'.
I asked my manager from the office where I hadn't got any problems and she agreed to come in to the meeting with me. It was there that I was greeted by the director and the woman from the HR department and told that as I kept making mistakes, I was being offered a settlement to leave. It was said that as I was pregnant, they realised that I may find it difficult to get work so I was offered £4000 and told I had until Friday that week to make my decision, and should I chose not to accept, I would face disciplinary procedures which could lead to my dismissal.
It took all the strength I could muster to not break down in that meeting. I was totally mortified and broke down as we left the room. My manager who was with me kept saying she couldn't believe it, there was no need as far as she was concerned there were no problems with my work.
She advised me to go home as I was in such a state. I got my bag and said I'd be back the following day. I couldn't return. I was totally ashamed and made to feel as though I was incapable, I hadn't stopped crying, my eyes were swollen and I hadn't slept. All the time I kept thinking 'think of the baby, think of the baby'.
I decided I had had enough, I would accept the offer as it had started to become unbearable anyway.
I was sent the agreement by email from the HR woman and I found a solicitor. My solicitor went through everything with me. I provided emails I had sent to one of the directors expressing my concerns about the manager in the office where I apparently kept making mistakes, where I had requested training as promised at interview and my solicitor asked if they had offered me extra support for my role or provided me with extra training or taken into consideration tiredness and lack of concentration. None of these had.
She asked me if £4000 would cover what I would have earned had I returned to work straight after the baby was born which had been my intention. It didn't. My monthly wage was calculated plus maternity leave I would have been entitled to and my solicitor asked for £10000. This was refused but they offered £6500 plus full maternity pay which would make the total roughly £8000.
I accepted as I thought I had to, I signed the amended agreement which when I read, stated I had 10 working days to make my decision from the initial meeting. I was told I had 4 days and threatened with disciplinary action and possible termination of employment.
I went on to have a healthy baby [gender] for my couple. He is now [age] and I'm proud I was able to help them but I nearly lost him too, caused by the amount of stress I was put under throughout my pregnancy by those employers.
May 2019