Safe jobs for pregnant employees 

Even if a pregnant employee isn’t eligible for unpaid parental leave, they still have a range of workplace entitlements, including a safe job. All pregnant employees, including casuals, are entitled to move into an appropriate safe job if it’s unsafe to do their usual job because of their pregnancy. They will stay in the safe job until it’s safe to go back to their usual job or until they give birth.  

Employees who have been moved into a safe job still receive the same pay rate and other entitlements they get in their usual job for the hours they work in the safe job. Their hours should remain the same unless you and the employee agree to different ordinary hours. If their hours change, they may get different loadings, penalty rates or allowances for the new hours worked.

The employee will stay in their safe job until it is safe to go back to their normal job, or until they give birth. To request or move into a safe job position, the employee will need to give their employer evidence that:

• they can work but can’t do their normal job (including why the normal job isn’t safe), and
• how long they shouldn’t work in their normal job. 

The employee can provide a medical certificate to confirm this. 

An employee shouldn’t be discriminated against because they are pregnant. This means they can’t be fired, demoted or treated differently from other employees because they are pregnant. We have provided an example below of what this may look like.

Example
Stephanie is a full-time employee and works in a childcare center. She tells her boss Mark that she is pregnant. A few weeks later her hours are reduced and she is told that she is now a part-time employee. When Stephanie asks Mark about this, he says he’s reducing her hours to help her with her pregnancy and that in his family women always reduce their hours when they are pregnant. 

Even though Mark thinks he is helping Stephanie, this is still discrimination. He is treating her differently from his other employees because she is pregnant. 

In this scenario we can see Mark has initiated this new position for Stephanie without consultation and based on his own beliefs. Although this may be seen as Mark being helpful, he is taking an adverse action against Stephanie due to her pregnancy. 

	Workplace Relations Support  Workplace Relations Support can provide AMA Queensland members and their practice managers over the phone support for matters relating to staff in your practice taking maternity or parental leave. You can contact us via phone (07) 3872 2222 and email support workplacerelations@amaq.com.au.
	Workplace Relations Toolkit Workplace Relations Toolkit provides its subscribers with up to date information about entitlements in regards to pay rate increases and public holiday payments for your practice. It also comes with a range of policy templates, in particular, leave policies, which will assist with dealing with bulk leave applications during these holiday periods.
	Workplace Relations Consultancy Workplace Relations Consultancy can assist practice managers through the process of supporting employees when they fall pregnant and how to keep in touch with them when they are returning back to the workforce.