Chương X Bộ Luật lao động 2012: Những quy định riêng đối với lao động nữ

Chapter X

SEPARATE PROVISIONS FOR FEMALE EMPLOYEES

Article 153. State policies toward female employees

1. To protect the female employees’ right to employment equality.

2. To encourage employers to create conditions for female employees to have regular employment, and to extensively implement systems of flexible working hours, part-time work or home-based work for female employees.

3. To introduce measures to create employment opportunities, improve working conditions, raise vocational qualifications and healthcare, and increase material and spiritual welfare for female employees in order to assist them in effectively bringing into play their vocational capacity and harmoniously combining their working lives with family lives.

4. To formulate policies on tax reductions for employers using many female employees in accordance with tax laws.

5. To develop various forms of training which are favorable for female employees to acquire standby vocational skills suitable to their physical and physiological characteristics and their motherhood function.

6. The State shall develop plans and measures to organize crèches and kindergartens in areas with large numbers of female employees.

Article 154. Obligations of employers toward female employees

1. To ensure gender equality and implement measures to promote gender equality in recruitment, employment, training, working time, rest time, wages and other policies.

2. To consult female employees or their representatives when taking decisions on issues related to the rights and interests of women.

3. To ensure sufficient bathrooms and appropriate toilets in the workplace.

4. To assist and support in building crèches and kindergartens, or cover part of childcare expenses at crèches and kindergartens incurred by female employees.

Article 155. Protection of maternity for female employees

1. An employer may not mobilize female employees to work at night, work overtime or go on a long working trip in the following cases:

a/ The employee is in her seventh month of pregnancy, or in her sixth month of pregnancy in case of working in a mountainous, remote, distant, border or island area;

b/ The employee is nursing a child under 12 months of age.

2. A female employee who performs heavy work, upon reaching her seventh month of pregnancy, is entitled to be transferred to a lighter work or have her daily working time reduced by 1 hour while still receiving her full wage.

3. An employer may neither dismiss a female employee nor unilaterally terminate the labor contract with a female employee for the reason of her marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, or that she is nursing a child under 12 months of age, except the case in which the employer is an individual who dies, or is declared by a court to have lost his/her civil act capacity, or to be missing or dead, or the employer is an institution that ceases operation.

4. Labor disciplinary measures may not applied to a female employee during the time of pregnancy or maternity leave as provided by the law on social insurance, or nursing a child under 12 months of age.

5. A female employee in her menstruation period is entitled to a 30-minute break in every working day; a female employee nursing a child under 12 months of age is entitled to a 60-minute break in every working day with full wage as stated in the labor contract.

Article 156. Right of pregnant employees to unilaterally terminate or postpone labor contracts

In case a pregnant employee has a certificate of a competent health establishment which states that continued work will adversely affect her pregnancy, she may unilaterally terminate the labor contract or temporarily postpone the performance of the labor contract. The period for the female employee to give advance notice to the employer depends on the period determined by the competent health establishment.

Article 157. Maternity leave

1. A female employee is entitled to 6 months of prenatal and postnatal leave.

In case a female employee gives birth to twin or more babies, counting from the second child upward, for each child the mother is entitled to 1 more month off.

Prenatal leave must not exceed 2 months.

2. During the maternity leave, a female employee is entitled to maternity policies provided by the law on social insurance.

3. After the maternity leave period stipulated in Clause 1 of this Article, if a female employee wishes, she may take additional leave without pay as agreed upon with the employer.

4. Before the expiration of her maternity leave stipulated in Clause 1 of this Article, a female employee may return to work if she so wishes and the employer so agrees provided that she has a certificate from a competent health establishment that early resumption of work will not adversely affect her health and she has taken at least 4 months of maternity leave.

In this case, the female employee continues to receive the maternity allowance as provided by the law on social insurance, in addition to the wage paid by the employer for her working days.

Article 158. Guarantee of employment for female employees after maternity leave

A female employee shall be guaranteed the old employment when she returns to work after taking the maternity leave as provided in Clauses 1 and 3, Article 157 of this Code. In case the old employment is no longer available, the employer shall arrange another employment for her with a wage not lower than that paid to her before her maternity leave.

Article 159. Allowances for leave for caring a sick child, for pregnancy checks-up and for applying contraceptive measures

When taking leaves for pregnancy check-up, miscarriage, abortion, dead or diseased fetus in womb, for applying contraceptive measures, caring a sick child who is under 7 years of age or for nursing an adopted child under 6 months of age, a female employee is entitled to social insurance allowance in accordance with the law on social insurance.

Article 160. Prohibited work for female employees

1. Work that is harmful to child bearing and nursing functions as specified in the list of jobs issued by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs in coordination with the Ministry of Health.

2. Work that requires the body constantly immersed in water.

3. Regular underground work in mines.