Pregnancy discrimination: Bosses show their dirty tricks

Pregnancy discrimination

Bosses show their dirty tricks

THIRTY YEARS ago, the 1975 Sex Discrimination gave legal protection
to pregnant women. Under current legislation it’s automatically unfair
to dismiss someone or for them to suffer any other detriment because
they’re pregnant. Yet discrimination against pregnant women remains
rife.

A Citizen’s Advice Bureau worker, north London

One pregnant woman asked her manager for maternity leave and pay and
was told: "we’re not paying that, you can f**k off." Most bosses aren’t
so crude, but Tips & Advice Personnel, a legal publication aimed at the
"cost-effective employer", recently cynically described how bosses can
try to avoid employing pregnant women at all.

It’s discrimination not to employ a woman because she’s pregnant.
It’s also against the law to ask her if she’s pregnant or plans to start
a family. Tips & Advice finds this intolerable: "You’ve finally found
the perfect candidate for the job. But given the costly training she’ll
need to undergo, you’re worried she might be pregnant. Is there a
(legal) way to find out?"

The journal suggests using a pre-employment medical questionnaire on
both men and women to prevent bias claims. "You might want to include a
load of innocuous questions then slip in something like ‘Are you
pregnant?’ Don’t!" It says that instead bosses should include a question
such as "Are you currently under the care of a doctor or other medical
professional?" Tips & Advice admits this is just a ruse to establish
whether the potential employee, that is woman, is under the care of a
midwife.

With gob-smacking frankness it says: "If you then choose not to hire
her because she’s pregnant, this too will be sex discrimination.
Naturally, you’ll need to show why she was unsuccessful, e.g. wrong
experience."

Last year the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) reported on its
investigation into new and expectant mothers in the workplace. The
report points to an ‘appalling’ level of pregnancy discrimination.

Each year, almost half of the 440,000 pregnant women in Britain
experience some disadvantage at work such as dismissal, demotion, denial
of training or promotion, or are bullied into resigning just because
they’re pregnant. Fewer than 5% will seek advice and only 3% of those
who lose their jobs will take their case to the Employment Tribunal.

Equal opportunities and sex discrimination laws were introduced in
the 1970s at a time of heightened class struggle. Today this legislation
remains meaningless for hundreds of thousands of workers, particularly
for those not in trade unions. Anti-trade union laws are enforced
vigorously while workers’ few employment rights are trampled on.

Real employment protection can only be ensured by a strong trade
union movement that recruits the unorganised and unites workers around a
campaign for workers’ rights. This inevitably means challenging New
Labour’s big business policies on the industrial front and taking steps
to found independent political representation for working people.