Tianjin Further Promotes Equal Employment of Women

North China's Tianjin Municipality recently strengthened its regulations banning any form of gender discrimination by employers in hiring procedures to guarantee women's rights and interests and promote equal employment of women.

Tianjin's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau together with eight other governmental departments issued a notice to further standardize hiring by employers on August 26.

In the notice, Tianjin makes it clear that any companies or organizations with hiring information that contains gender-discriminatory content will be fined between 10,000 yuan ((US $1,397) and 50,000 yuan (US $6,987) if they fail to correct it.

The notice also requires companies and human resources service organizations to provide women employees with equal work opportunities and the same salary package as men employees.

Employers are not allowed to limit women applicants or give preference to men in their hiring procedures. Any gender discrimination, including a refusal to hire women, asking about a woman's marital status, pregnancy testing in physical examinations before hiring, and rules on consequences of women becoming pregnant is prohibited according to the notice.

The notice also calls for human resources service organizations to strengthen market supervision. They should establish and improve the hiring information releases, establish complaint handling mechanisms, and promptly deal with job ads or other publications containing gender-discriminatory content.

Tianjin had taken some earlier measures to protect women from discrimination in employment. Tianjin's women rights protection regulations stipulate that enterprises are not allowed to discriminate against women in employment.

The women's federations in Tianjin at all levels are entitled to transfer complaints of infringement upon the lawful rights and interests of women to related departments and supervise the feedback, said the regulations.

The Women's Federation of Tianjin also works with the municipality's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau in formulating guidelines to promote equal employment for women.

In accordance with the guidelines, upon receipt of information from women's federations that employers are suspected of gender discrimination and other violations of women's legitimate rights and interests, the Labor Security Supervision Department must investigate and take steps according to law, and report the results of their investigation and any punishment imposed in a timely manner to the women's federations.

Going further, the notice highlights again the response-on-demand mechanism in safeguarding women's legal rights. It requires Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Institutions to deal with women labor disputes as soon as possible and talk to or investigate employers suspected of gender discrimination in employment, urging them to correct their practices.

In addition, a judicial relief mechanism is proposed in the notice.
 

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)