Boss orders pregnant employee with health risks to travel for work — or lose her commission
Despite HR and senior management supporting flexible arrangements and confirming she wouldn’t need to travel, her direct manager kept pushing.
A woman in England has shared her troubling experience of workplace pressure during a high-risk pregnancy, and it has many people online questioning how far bosses can go. Posting on Reddit, u/throwRAevents explained that she has been with her company for five years and works in events, though most of her role involves research, sales, and agenda writing rather than travel. "I am currently 21 weeks pregnant. I informed my manager at 6 weeks due to medical history and health issues," she wrote. Her doctor placed her on bed rest and gave her a note forbidding flying, which also voided her company’s travel insurance.
Despite HR and senior management supporting flexible arrangements and confirming she wouldn’t need to travel, her direct manager allegedly kept pushing. "She forced me to go to one event at 7 weeks pregnant, a week after I told her, telling me I'd lose my £3000 (around $4000) commission if I didn't go," the user wrote. She ended up bedridden during the event, and her manager later pretended not to know about her condition. The pressure didn’t stop. "She has given me grief for midwife appointments, being very inflexible over deadlines, expecting me to work when hospitalised on an IV drip, and continuously asking me when I'm coming back to the office," the post continued.
Most recently, the manager told her she should give £1,600 (around $2100) of her commission to a colleague who covered an event she had fully prepared. "I said no," the woman wrote, adding that when she formalized her concerns in an email, her boss dismissed it by asking why she sent "such a long email." She added that her manager is now threatening to introduce a new blanket policy docking commission from anyone who can’t travel, even though no such precedent exists, and others with serious health conditions were never penalized.
"Nobody gave any grief to my colleague who had cancer last year," she said. This situation of maternity discrimination isn’t unique, as many figures show how widespread the problem really is. A 2023 UK survey that interviewed over 1,000 mothers who worked during or pre-pregnancy found that 12% of pregnant women reported experiencing workplace discrimination, and more than 1 in 5 know someone who has.
The post enraged the readers, many of whom weighed in with advice and perspective on how she should handle the situation. u/LegitimateSkin587 wrote, "Given the response of HR already, don't wait. Forward every detail to HR and upper management. I would absolutely be approaching legal companies on the expectation that this could get messy. I understand your reservations about the extra stress on your pregnancy, but it looks like your manager isn't going to stop, especially considering that HR has already spoken to her. You've said that you'd be prepared to argue this retrospectively anyway, why wait?"
u/doalittledance_ added, "I’d highly advise checking your company's Teams’ message retention policy. Don’t assume they’ll just stay there till you need them. Screenshot every Teams interaction with your manager as soon as it happens, and print them off/email yourself with them. Keep a record of everything, time and date stamped." u/TopAngle7630 pointed out, "NAL, but I work in aviation. It's worth noting that at 28 weeks, you will not be allowed to fly without a fit-to-fly note from your doctor. As it sounds like you will not be able to get one, it will at this point be impossible for you to fly."
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