Lucinda Schmidt, Sunday Life – Many women are still worried about how a pregnancy announcement will affect their careers. Photo: LOUISE KENNERLEY

Laws supposedly protect pregnant working women from getting a raw deal, but the reality can be different.

When Amber De Vries was six weeks pregnant with her first child, the human resources manager at her work asked her if she was expecting. She was shocked and embarrassed by the question, but felt a duty to be honest. A few days later, at a meeting with her boss and the HR manager, she was told that as she had been with the Melbourne-based uniform manufacturer for less than three months as an account manager, her employment status would be changed from permanent to casual and her job could not be guaranteed post-baby. Two weeks later, she was sacked for “making too many mistakes”.

De Vries, now 29 and a mother of two, won her pregnancy discrimination claim but the experience left her nervous. She switched jobs, and is now a communications officer at a large Sydney-based financial services company. Becoming pregnant with her second child less than six months into her new role, she planned to leave the announcement as late as possible – but was forced to spill the beans at six weeks because of severe morning sickness. “The second time, though, my position was secure, and I returned to my job full-time three months after my daughter was born,” she says. She now works from home once a week and can take her eldest daughter to kindergarten and stay for parent helper time.

Despite women comprising 58 per cent of the workforce (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics) and rigorous anti-discrimination laws regarding pregnancy and maternity leave (see panel), many women are still worried about how announcing that they’re expecting a baby will affect their careers.

Almost one in five employed women feel they have been discriminated against at work, according to a 2007 University of Melbourne study. Discrimination ranged from negative or offensive comments to being denied promotion or training. The findings echoed a 2005 survey by the ABS, which found that 22 per cent of women with children under two had experienced problems in the workplace because of their pregnancy. These ranged from “inappropriate or negative” comments to more serious issues, such as missing out on a promotion.

Kelly Winder, the creator of Melbourne-based pregnancy website BellyBelly, says many of the posts on her maternity-leave forum show that “we’re still in the Dark Ages”. A post from a woman with a fairly sedentary administrative job complained that her employer had demanded a monthly “fit to work” letter from her doctor. “Often, it’s little, subtle things that the employer can’t get caught out on [by antidiscrimination legislation],” says Winder. “Some people have fantastic, supportive bosses, but a lot of women are treading on eggshells.”

A general manager at a Sydney-based training business describes how she kept her first pregnancy secret for five months. She wore pashminas draped around her torso, and was helped by weight loss in the first month or two because of sickness. “I work in quite a male industry and there weren’t many women on the management team,” she says. “And I do think they take you less seriously once you tell them you’re pregnant – even if it’s not said outright.”

Even once she’d told her boss, she felt under pressure to plan how long she would take maternity leave and to organise a return to work. “I did some project work after five weeks [after the birth], partly so they wouldn’t give my job away.” After she went back to work following the birth of her second child, the financial controller at her work confirmed what she’d sensed, confessing he wouldn’t employ women of childbearing age because “it’s too much hassle”.

You won’t hear many bosses foolhardy enough to say that out loud. Some concede, however, that – despite their best efforts – juggling staff pregnancies can be a frustrating experience. Naomi Simson, for example, the founder of Sydney-based gift retailer RedBalloon, says her past two employees to take maternity leave never came back. Her friend, who runs a successful mid-sized Sydney business, has had 12 staffers not return in the way they had planned.

“The hardest thing as an employer is when someone says they’ll come back and they don’t,” Simson says.

Just as frustrating, it seems, are employees who insist that their full-time role be officially kept open for 12 months when they know they’ll almost certainly want to work part-time. A Sydney advertising agency boss describes how he had to replace his general manager with a maternity-leave contractor until the manager admitted 10 months into her leave that she didn’t want the full-time role.

“In a big company that might be fine,” he says. “In a smaller company it’s hard.”

Barbara Heilemann, a director of Melbourne consultancy Positive Leadership, says most organisations these days are trying to be good employers – but the biases of a woman’s direct manager are crucial.

“You can have two managers in one company with totally different views on the same policy,” says Heilemann, who coaches senior female executives and professionals. She says the managers’ views will be influenced by their own experiences (for example, whether they have children or, if they are male, a wife who works fulltime, part-time or stays home), causing behaviour that is often subtle and subconscious, such as looking at their watch when mothers leave the office at 5pm or not giving them more demanding clients or projects.

“There’s a growing legislative onus on employers to accommodate staff with family responsibilities,” says employment lawyer Peter Vitale, principal of CCI Lawyers. He also notes that under the Labor government’s Fair Work Bill, which passed Federal Parliament in March 2008, women employed under federal awards and agreements will be able to request an extension to unpaid maternity leave of up to 12 months (on top of the original 12 months) and employers will have to show reasonable grounds to refuse a request for flexible work practices.

One of the most important steps for mothers’ – and fathers’ – rights was the passing, on June 17, of the nation’s first paid parental leave scheme. The federal government’s scheme gives eligible parents 18 weeks of parental leave, paid at the national minimum wage (about $570 a week before tax). The scheme, which is scheduled to start on January 1 next year, is expected to help some 150,000 families.

RedBalloon’s Naomi Simson does not presently offer her staff paid maternity leave, but she does offer part-time work and flexible hours. “I struggled with corporate life [as a mum] and I won’t do that to anyone here,” says Simson, who returned to her full-time marketing job when her daughter was two months old, then resigned 10 months later. “But we are a business. We are not a kindergarten. The real issue is how we, as a society, are dealing with the fact that biologically

Down by law

Federal and state antidiscrimination laws operate on the general principle that women should not be disadvantaged by pregnancy or potential pregnancy (subject to occupational health and safety issues).

For example, an employer can’t:

• reject a woman for a job because they think she might become pregnant
• dismiss or retrench a woman because she is pregnant
• harass a woman, or allow other employees to harass her, because of her pregnancy
• transfer a pregnant woman to another job “out of sight”, or to a “safer” job – unless she willingly agrees to the transfer or there are valid medical reasons
• deny a woman training just because she’s pregnant
• stop a woman being promoted because she’s pregnant
• not give her the same or a similar job when she returns from maternity leave.

Source: Anti-Discrimination Board of NSW