Navigating Maternity Benefits and Post-Leave Employment: What Are Your Rights and Options?

Hi Aparna, please suggest for the following query:

Eligibility for Maternity Benefits

a) To avail of maternity benefits, how many days must a person work? Is there an eligible period?

b) Is there a salary limit to avail of maternity benefits? For example, if a woman is earning a salary of 25,000, 50,000, or above, will she be eligible for maternity benefits?

c) If a woman has taken maternity leave for 3 months, how many additional days can she take leave without pay?

Post-Maternity Leave Employment Scenario

d) A woman who worked as a team leader went on maternity leave for 3 months and then took a further 6 months of leave without pay. Upon returning to duty, the company had promoted another employee to the team leader position, resulting in her being offered a team member role instead. She declined this offer and to report to the new team leader. Management observed that due to her absence from work for the past 9 months, she may need some training. In this scenario, what should the management do?

Thank you.

Best regards,
Aparna

Replies to Queries

1) A woman employee must work for at least 80 days during the 12 months preceding the expected date of delivery.

2) In addition to maternity leave, she will be eligible for an additional one-month leave due to any sickness arising out of pregnancy or delivery. However, the admissibility of leave for a period longer than that depends upon the facts and circumstances of each case and the doctor's certificates.

3) Regarding the last query, it is absolutely an employer's right to organize their business. Since she remained absent for 9 months, the employer has promoted someone as a team leader, and she was asked to work as a team member. The question is, merely because a woman absented herself from work on maternity grounds, should she be demoted, or in other words, does motherhood negatively impact a woman's career? It is also not known what the company did during the six-month period. If it did not do anything like writing letters to her to ascertain the reasons for the extended absence, it means it also accepted her absence. The issue is loaded with such social overtones. Therefore, it requires sensitivity in approach. It is beyond doubt that the employee who went on maternity leave is fit to be a TL since she was working as a TL at the relevant time. Now she cannot be treated as a misfit for the post unless there is evidence of her performance being unsatisfactory. What the company should have done is to deploy another employee as TL in an officiating capacity but not on a permanent basis and should have paid some officiating allowance to her. Once the regular TL joined duty, the employee should have been reverted to her original position. This would not have created any ill-feeling in the officiating employee also since she was rewarded for shouldering TL responsibilities by way of officiating allowance, and she was made aware that this is a temporary arrangement and would have accepted her reversion without any grumble. Now you can explore the possibility of whether the woman who went on maternity leave can be accommodated as TL elsewhere.

Regards,
B. Saikumar
HR & Labour Law Advisor
Mumbai

Maternity Benefits and Salary Limit

There is no salary limit for availing maternity benefits. The last drawn salary before taking maternity leave shall be payable during the maternity leave period.

Regards

Mr. Pon has replied to query (b) and there is no wage limit.

Regards,
B. Saikumar
HR & Labour Law Advisor
Mumbai