Are women always disqualified in the labour market?

 

 

 The recession is prolonged. Employers are considering voluntary retirement and restructuring. In the meantime, there are more and more female workers who are being resigned without somewhat secretly. Since 2014, the financial sector has undergone structural restructuring in the form of voluntary retirement and revising contract for irregular employment. There were cases of counselling where some companies encouraged women workers, especially women workers who have taken maternity leave to voluntarily resign. Hyundai Heavy Industries also had women workers voluntarily resign, especially those who have been working long period, at a large scale in 2015. Call for Equality(1670-1611) steadily receives calls from female workers who are hanging on the cliff of voluntary retirement.

 

 Ms. A got a call by the company during her maternity leave. The employer said she could be paid retirement allowance if she retires immediately after the maternity leave, while she is at the risk of being fired for low performance in case of rejection. She had been working for the company for 15 years. She ended up adding her name on the list of voluntary retirees.

 

 As seen in the case of Ms. A, there is an increasing number of ways to exert pressure on female workers to dismiss women for pregnancy and childbirth. In order to overcome the low birthrate, the government tried to prevent the disadvantages caused by pregnancy and childbirth for female workers in various ways. However, under the name of labor reform, companies are pressing workers to resign by using the guideline on dismissal of low performers since last year,

 

 Women workers are the first to be laid off when a financial crisis approaches. This has been repeated over and over again in history. During IMF economic crisis, being a woman was a explicit reason for dismissal. In 1998, 91.2% of calls for counseling received by Call for Equality were about working condition. Back then, maternal rights, gender discrimination, and sexual harassment in the workplace were hardly addressed. These ‘slaughtered’ regular female workers were forced to work for the same position with half of the wage they used to receive as irregular workers.

 

 Female workers were the ones who sharply decreased during the financial crisis from the end of 2007. The difference, however, was that the dismissal was secretly practiced. During the IMF economic crisis, regular women workers’ posts were replaced by various types of irregular workers, such as temporary workers, daily workers, part-time workers, dispatched workers, and service workers. Irregular workers functioned as a safety net that can absorb risks in every recession or economic crisis. Because the contract was terminated through a 'fair' procedure of termination, workers were not able to fight against it. The fact that 75% of the jobs lost during the 2007 financial crisis were female jobs also implies that the restructuring was discrimination against women in nature.

 

 Although the recent economic recession has been prolonged and corporate restructuring has begun to take off, statistics have yet to reveal the impact on women workers. On the contrary, statistics for March 2016 show that the increase in female employees is more than that of the same month of last year. Most of them, however, are women in their fifth and sixth decades who entered in the labor market because of financial difficulty. They have no choice but to accept hourly, irregular jobs and work at low wages.

 

 Working condition for female workers is worsening, considering that the majority of female workers are irregular workers, and the gender wage gap is also increasing every year. This was accelerated by recent trend in increasing hourly jobs for women to boost employment rate of women. In such a vulnerable situation, female workers who wish to contribute to the household in the prolonged recession period are repeatedly taking precarious jobs and being asked to leave the jobs.

 

 Ms. B might have to move the department against her will. There will be a team reorganization next week and rumors are circulating that only 4 women of the team will be transferred. The department in question is known to accommodate soon-to-retire workers for a short period.

 

 The case of Ms. B is not directly caused by gender discrimination in a practical sense as the transfer to the unimportant department also involves male workers. But one can reasonably doubt the company’s intension reflecting the existing practices of placing women workers to the petty department which usually leads to workers’ resignation.

 

 Tae-im Kim, the head of the Call for Equality said, “Never write a resignation letter when you are asked resignation and not going to work because of anger doesn’t help because it is an unauthorized absence.” She also advised to calm down and consult with labor organizations.

 

 During the IMF crisis, women were laid off because they were women and women workers are not the primary earners in the family. Still in 2016, the employers are forcing workers to voluntarily leave the company under the name of layoffs on low performers. The blade of dismissal is aiming at women with more cunning lies.

Posted by KWWA
|