Firing Pregnant Women
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Pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood are among the main reasons for discrimination against women at work. This discrimination can take the form of firing women while they are pregnant or after they return to work from maternity leave, in worsening of working conditions or refusing to hire a woman because she is pregnant or the mother of small children.
Following are a number of examples of cases that were handled by the legal department of the Israel Women’s Network during 2003: A woman of Ethiopian descent worked as a cleaner via an employment agency. She was fired late in her pregnancy, although she was employed more than six months; the employment agency had not asked for the required dismissal permit. The head of the IWN legal department turned to the Commissioner for the enforcement of the Employment of Women Law, who refused to issue said permit. The head of the IWN legal department also contacted the employment agency repeatedly, requesting that the worker be restored to her position and paid all the monies due her. These appeals were unheeded and in the wake, a law- suit was brought to the Labor Court. A woman was fired from her work after she notified her employers that she was pregnant. Her employer then hinged her continued employment upon the condition that she will have an abortion. A new immigrant was fired from her job because of her pregnancy one day before completing 6 months of employment. The employer claimed that he did not know of her pregnancy, although the woman had notified her direct supervisor. A mother of 9 children was fired from her job as a municipal social worker on the claim that she missed a great number of workdays because of her many maternity leaves. While there are no exact statistics as to the extent of the phenomenon, but data supplied by the Commissioner for the Employment of Women Law in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce shows that 1,657 inquiries were received in 2003 relating to the firing of pregnant women. In 56% of the cases dismissal permits were not refused. To this figure we must add the cases in which women workers are fired during pregnancy but no request for a permit was even made, cases where employers fire women when they return from maternity leave, and cases wherein employers refuse to hire women because they are pregnant or mothers. The IWN’s Hotline receives many calls from women who were fired during pregnancy, after childbirth, or while they undergo fertility treatments. In 2003 the Hotline received 778 calls, over 50% of which were related to the abovementioned issues. Approximately half of these callers had been fired from their work. This article was translated from Hebrew by Dvora Bitcover, an IWN volunteer
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