Chương X Bộ luật Lao động 2019: Những quy định riêng đối với lao động nữ và bảo đảm bình đẳng giới

Chapter X

PROVISIONS APPLICABLE TO FEMALE EMPLOYEES AND ASSURANCE OF GENDER EQUALITY

Article 135. State policies

1. Equality between male and female employees shall be ensured; necessary measures for ensuring gender equality and prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace shall be implemented.

2. Employers are encouraged to enable both male and female employees to work regularly, and to widely apply the systems of flexible working hours, part-time work, or outwork.

3. Necessary measures shall be implemented to create employment opportunities, improve working conditions, develop occupational skills, provide healthcare, and strengthen the material and spiritual welfare of female employees in order to assist them in developing effectively their vocational capacities and harmoniously combine their working lives with their family lives.

4. Tax reductions shall be granted to employers who employ a large numbers of female employees in accordance with the tax laws.

5. The State shall develop plans and measures to open day care facilities and kindergartens in areas where a large number of female employees are employed; develop various forms of training to enable female employees to acquire additional occupational skills that are suitable to their physical and physiological characteristics and their motherhood roles.

6. The Government shall elaborate this Article.

Article 136. Responsibilities of the employer

1. Ensure gender equality and implementation of measures to promote gender equality in recruitment, job assignment, training, working hours and rest periods, salaries and other policies.

2. Consult with female employees or their representatives when taking decisions which affect their rights and interests.

3. Provide appropriate bathrooms and toilets at the workplace for female employees.

4. Assist in building day care facilities and kindergartens, or cover a part of the childcare expenses incurred by employees.

Article 137. Maternity protection

1. An employer must not require a female employee to work at night, work overtime or go on a long distance working trip in the following circumstances:

a) The employee reaches her seventh month of pregnancy; or her sixth month of pregnancy when working in upland, remote, border and island areas;

b) The employee is raising a child under 12 months of age, unless otherwise agreed by her.

2. Whenever an employer is informed of the pregnancy of an female employee who is doing a laborious, toxic or dangerous work, a highly laborious, toxic or dangerous work or any work that might negatively affect her maternity, the employer shall assign her to a less laborious or safer work, or reduce the working hours by 01 hour per day without reducing her salary, rights or benefits until her child reaches 12 months of age.

3. The employer must not dismiss an employee or unilaterally terminate the employment contract with an employee due to his/her marriage, pregnancy, maternity leave, or nursing a child under 12 months of age, except for cases where the employer that is a natural person dies or is declared incapacitated, missing or dead by the court, or the employer that is not a natural person ceases its business operation, declared by a provincial business registration authority that it does not have a legal representative or a person authorized to perform the legal representative’s rights and obligations.

Upon expiration of the employment contract with female employee who is pregnant or nursing a child under 12 months of age, conclusion of a new employment contract shall be given priority.

4. During her menstruation period, a female employee shall be entitled to a 30 minute break in every working day; a female employee nursing a child under 12 months of age shall be entitled to 60 minutes breaks in every working day with full salary as stipulated in the employment contract.

Article 138. The right of pregnant female employees to unilaterally terminate or suspend their employment contracts

1. Where a female employee is pregnant and obtains a confirmation from a competent health facility which states that if she continues to work, it may adversely affect her pregnancy, she shall have the right to unilaterally terminate or suspend the employment contract.

In case of unilateral termination or suspension of the employment contract, a notification enclosed with the aforementioned confirmation from the health facility shall be submitted to the employer.

2. In case of suspension of the employment contract, the suspension period shall be agreed by the employer and the employee and must not be shorter than the period specified by the health facility. If the rest period is not specified by the health facility, both parties shall negotiate the suspension period.

Article 139. Maternity leave

1. A female employee is entitled to 06 months of prenatal and postnatal leave; the prenatal leave period shall not exceed 02 months.

In case of a multiple birth, the leave shall be extended by 01 month for each child, counting from the second child.

2. During maternity leave, the female employee is entitled to maternity benefits as prescribed by social insurance laws.

3. After the maternity leave stipulated in Clause 1 of this Article expires, if so demanded, the female employee may be granted an additional unpaid leave under terms agreed upon with the employer.

4. The female employee may return to work before the expiry of her statutory maternity leave stipulated in Clause 1 of this Article after she has taken at least 04 months of leave, provided she has obtained a confirmation from a competent health facility that the early resumption of work does not adversely affect her health, the employer receives a prior notice of the early resumption and agrees to the early resumption. In this case, besides the salary of the working days, which is paid by the employer, the female employee shall continue to receive the maternity allowance in accordance with social insurance laws.

5. A male employee whose wife gives birth, an employee who adopts a child under 06 months of age, a female employee who becomes a surrogate mother shall be entitled to maternity leave in accordance with social insurance laws.

Article 140. Employment security for employees after maternity

An employee shall be reinstated to his/her previous work when he/she returns to work after the maternity leave prescribed in Clauses 1, 3 and 5 Article 139 of this Labor Code without any reduction in his/her salary, rights and benefits before the leave. In case the previous work is no longer available, the employer must assign another work to the employee with a salary not lower than the salary he/she received prior to the maternity leave.

Article 141. Allowances for during period of care for sick children, pregnancy and implementation of contraceptive methods

When an employee takes leave to take care of a sick child aged under 07, have prenatal care check-up, due to miscarriage, abortion, stillbirth, therapeutic abortion, implementation of contraceptive methods or sterilization, the employee shall receive allowance for the leave period in accordance with social insurance laws.

Article 142. Jobs and works that are harmful to child-bearing and parenting functions

1. The Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs shall promulgate the list of jobs and works that are harmful to child-bearing and parenting functions.

2. Employers must provide adequate information to their employees on the hazards and requirements of the works to before the employees make their decisions; ensure occupational safety and health of the employees when assign them any of the works on the list mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article.