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Six lose jobs after becoming pregnant

2010/10/20
By Elizabeth Zachariah and Natasha Ilyas
news@nst.com.my

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KUALA LUMPUR: Six women claimed they were forced to resign from their jobs just because they were pregnant.

Claiming they were treated unfairly, they then approached the MCA public services and complaints bureau for advice.

Bureau head Datuk Michael Chong said the six women were all from different private companies, who got pregnant while working for the companies.

He said two of the women were sacked immediately as they were still under probation while the other four were bullied into leaving their well-paying jobs.

Chong said upon realising their employees were pregnant, most of the employers had picked on the women by either giving them difficult jobs, or none at all, resulting in the women getting frustrated and stressed at work.

"When I talked to the employers, some even told me they would not have hired the women if they knew they were going to get pregnant."

He added that all the cases had been referred to the Industrial Court and the Labour Department.

Most of the women had already been compensated for their grievances.

Chong said it was unfair for these women to be discriminated against because they became pregnant.

He appealed to employers, especially those from the private sector, to treat women well and fairly and not resort to dirty tactics to force them to leave the company.

One of the women, who did not want to be identified, said she had been employed as a software engineer at an information technology company for five years when she became pregnant in April.

In August, the employer told the 29-year-old to leave the company, claiming the company was not doing well and he could not afford to pay her salary. She was given a choice of leaving with three months' salary as compensation or stay on with a 50 per cent pay cut.

Last month, her employer threatened to withdraw the salary compensation if she did not accept it immediately. She then took the cheque and left the company but maintained she was the only employee to be treated in such a way.

"I was the only employee in the history of the company to ever get pregnant," she claimed.

She advised women seeking jobs to understand their future companies' policies regarding their rights and benefits before accepting employment.

Read more: Six lose jobs after becoming pregnant http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/16preg/Article#ixzz12wyqEoB6