As reported by El País, Iberia has been fined 25,000 euros for request a pregnancy test before hiring of women in your workforce. The Department of Labor of the Balearic Islands has condemned the company for a very serious violation of discrimination based on sex.
The company has justified itself by saying that if a pregnancy is confirmed in the candidates, it would be necessary to implement a different occupational health protocol set for these cases and aimed at avoiding activities that could carry a risk.
Violation of a worker's right or protection?
This particular requirement in the personnel selection tests was discovered last year in the Balearic Islands, although Iberia assured the Labor Inspection that the pregnancy test was required of all candidates at the national level.
The selection tests were carried out by a temporary work company hired by Iberia, and the classic stress or analytical tests to detect drug use that all applicants had to do, added a medical examination with pregnancy test included for women.
The company has defended itself by claiming that the pregnancy test is part of the medical examination that is done to the candidates once they have passed the first selection process, and prior to the training course “that some pass and others do not”.
In any case, Iberia affirms that the only objective it has to perform a pregnancy test is avoid the risks that certain work activities have during pregnancy, assuring the pregnant woman a position and functions compatible with her condition.
The labor authority, however, has rejected this explanation remembering that it must be the woman who notifies her pregnancy once it has been hired and not before, and that the requirement of this type of evidence can be considered as a way to avoid hiring the candidate.
Now the airline must decide whether to assume the fine or resort to the Ministry of Labor.
The reactions on Twitter have not been expected to know the news and is that, despite the arguments of the airline, there are those who, like the Ministry of Labor, sees a Clear case of labor discrimination based on sex.
Hi Enrique, medical examination is a process covered by article 26 of the prevention law, it is done once / 1
- Iberia (@Iberia) July 9, 2017
after the selection tests, before the induction and with full knowledge of the participants, the purpose of it / 2
- Iberia (@Iberia) July 9, 2017
is to ensure that if the person is pregnant, the work to be performed does not put them at risk at any time / 3
- Iberia (@Iberia) July 9, 2017
Your health or that of the baby. Greetings / 4
- Iberia (@Iberia) July 9, 2017
"Have children?" The million dollar question in job interviews
Personally, there have been several job interviews that I have done in recent years, and although they have never asked me for a pregnancy test to hire me, they have asked me many times if I had children or planned to have them (when I was not yet mother).
Sometimes the question came directly, like a projectile that you do not expect, but in other cases the interviewer ended up doing the million dollar question in a subtle and innocent way.
Eight months after becoming a mother for the first time, I went to a job interview with the aim of re-engaging in the labor market. It was a part-time position near my home, and the requirements they requested were fully covered, both professionally and academically.
Everything went perfectly until the interviewer asked me if I had children. When I told him that I had an eight-month-old baby he looked at me in an upset gesture and asked me the following question: "Imagine we hired you. You are working with us and one day they call you from the nursery to tell you that your baby has a fever of 40 ... what would you do?".
I went blank for a few seconds. They had never asked me a similar question and I did not know that I should answer: what did they expect from me? What was "politically correct" or that told the truth? Obviously, The answer I gave was not what my interviewer expected, but I did not say something I did not feel.
"They needed a person delivered 100% and without personal distractions," they told me openly when they rejected me, and although deep down I was glad that I had not joined a company with that philosophy, I could not help feeling certain outrage over the brutal discrimination to which she had been subjected, for being a woman and mother.
Pixabay Photos
Via El País
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