A newborn baby room at a hospital in Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do last January. Newsis
“When I move in, I say that I have no plans to conceive, and a scammer who secretly got pregnant.”
This is what the director of a hospital in Korea said while referring to a pregnant employee. The hospital director forced the employee to leave the company because he was pregnant, and the employee, who was suffering from extreme stress, had to quit the company.
The civic group’Job Gap Jil 119′ disclosed on the 1st of January and February reports of cases of being disadvantaged at work due to marriage, childbirth and parental leave. Looking at the side, we can guess why Korea’s total fertility rate is 0.84, which is behind the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
According to a report from the daycare employee, A, when entering the company, A was asked by the director, “Do you have any plans to marry?” However, time passed and the marriage was ahead, and I was told by the director that “if you have a marriage or pregnancy plan, you must submit a resignation letter.”
Office worker B reported, “I was notified of dismissal while discussing maternity leave.” “I fired it for business reasons, and I posted a job posting for the department where I worked,” he argued. “In fact, it was fired for not giving maternity leave.”
C, a male employee, was advised to resign because he used parental leave at a company that had worked for 10 years. He confessed, “After reinstatement after parental leave, I was excluded from work from the first day and told me not to attend meetings, but later I took my computer,” he said.
According to the’Act on Equal Employment of Men and Women and Support for Work-Family Balance (Act on Equal Employment of Men and Women), employers should not enter into labor contracts that prescribe marriage, pregnancy, or childbirth of female workers as reasons for retirement. Violations are subject to imprisonment of up to 4 years or fines of up to 30 million won, but actual punishment cases are extremely rare.
Park Jeom-gyu, a member of the workplace Gap-Jil 119, said, “I reported the case of Mr. A, who had to quit because he had a marriage plan, to the Labor Office, but the daycare center or the director did not receive any punishment.” He pointed out that the reality is what cannot be done. He urged, “Public corporations and large corporations can use the rights guaranteed under the Gender Equal Employment Act, but private small and medium-sized enterprises can use the rights guaranteed by the Gender Equal Employment Act,” he said. “The government should actively supervise labor so that these rights can be properly guaranteed.” .
Song Okjin reporter [email protected]
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