Protections for Freelancers During Pregnancy and Maternity

What are self employed musicians entitled to during pregnancy

If you are self-employed, you are entitled to:

• Basic health and safety protection. An organisation is not only obliged to safeguard the health and safety for its workforce but also in respect of the risks to the health and safety of persons not in its employment arising out of or in connection with its business and activities. This means that an organisation or work-provider needs to take steps to carry out a risk assessment, including identifying any risks to new and expectant mothers, and do all that is reasonable to remove or reduce any risks.
• Maternity allowance (if you meet the qualifying conditions).
• Protection from discrimination:

Discrimination can include being treated less favourably because of your pregnancy and/or maternity, harassment and other unfavourable treatment.

The law says that it is pregnancy discrimination to treat a woman unfavourably on the grounds of her pregnancy or because she wants to take or has taken maternity leave.

Unfavourable treatment can include the refusal of work, training, attendance at meetings with certain clients or customers or other unfair treatment because of pregnancy, pregnancy-related absence or illness, or for taking time off after childbirth.

Who is protected while pregnant?

As a freelancer, contractor or self-employed person it’s unlikely that you will be protected specifically against ‘unfair dismissal’ (as that applies only to traditional employees) but it is possible for you to be protected against work-based discrimination law.

This protection applies to ‘job applicants’, employees and agency workers, but it can also apply to freelancers, contractors and the self-employed.

There are different ways in which a self-employed person can operate, such as a straightforward freelancer type role, or within a co-operative, a partnership (such as an LLP) or within a limited company structure. The question of whether you have protection against discrimination will depend on how you operate, your own factual circumstances and the way in which you actually undertake the work on a day-to-day basis.

The first question is whether despite the fact you may be treated as self-employed for tax purposes, you are in law a ‘worker’ or ‘employee’. It’s not unusual for freelancers or contractors to sometimes be employees or workers in employment law terms. If you are classed as ‘self-employed’ or an ‘independent contractor’ but, for example, have worked for the same organisation or work-provider on a regular basis and follow their rules e.g. on uniform and timekeeping, you may in fact be an employee or worker. You can find out more about employment status and rights on our advice page.

If not, and you consider yourself to be truly ‘self-employed’ the key question is whether under the contractual relationship you have with the work-provider or organisation you are obliged to perform the work personally. This means that even if you are treated as self-employed for tax purposes, as long as you are required to perform the work personally, you are also likely to be protected against work-based discrimination.

On the other hand, if you sub-contract the work to others or employ individuals to do it, you are unlikely to be considered to perform the work personally, falling outside normal work-based discrimination protection.

However, some non-work-based discrimination protections may still apply. There is protection against discrimination against members of relevant qualifications bodies and also by trade organisations’ (e.g. an organisation of workers or any other organisation whose members carry on a particular trade or profession for the purposes of which the organisation exists). There is protection against discrimination by service providers and persons exercising public functions.