The independent administrative authority has published on Monday a “legal guide” to remind employees that the law protects them.
Le Monde with AFP
Pregnant employees or return from maternity leave are still too often victims of discrimination at work, the defender of rights, who publishes a “legal guide” to remind women that the law protects them .
“We still make an excessive number of decisions where women are not hired because of their state of pregnancy, do not find their post at the return of their maternity leave, or whose trial period is broken because. They are pregnant “, criticism in a communiqué the rights defense, Claire hedon.
On about 7,000 referrals received last year for discrimination cases, 3.2% “had for pregnancy”. “Many believe that this type of discrimination is over, but in fact it is still very pregnant,” abounds Mathilde Zylberberg, head of employment issues at the Defender of Rights.
By publishing a legal guide ( available here ) on these questions, the institution hopes that women will be able to” realize that they are discriminated with “. Those who seize the Defender of Rights or Justice are only the “emerging part of the iceberg”, because many give up complaining for fear of losing their job, adds M Zylberberg.
Not the right to query a candidate on pregnancy present or desired
The legal guide published on Monday, on the eve of International Women’s Rights Day, reviews a large number of situations where employees can be harmed because they expect a child or have taken leave Maternity, and recalls all the prohibitions weighing on the employer.
This one does not have the right “to question a candidate on his state of pregnancy present or future”, to refuse to hire a woman because of his pregnancy, or dismiss an employee because she is pregnant. In the latter case, an exception is planned in case of serious misconduct of the person concerned, but it is necessary that this fault should not be linked to pregnancy: in other words, “certain behaviors such as fatigue or irritability that are in connection with pregnancy are not patterns allowed “for dismissal.
In some cases, the employee may be founded to argue before the justice that she has undergone a form of discriminatory harassment: for example, if management has suddenly changed an attitude towards her after the announcement of her Pregnancy, multiplying reproaches against it and destabilizing meetings.
In civil matters (before the Council of Prud’hommes), the burden of proof is reversed, emphasize the authors of the legal guide: the employee does not have to report an indisputable evidence of alleged discrimination, but only from To create a “reasonable doubt” in the spirit of the judge.