A Chinese company plans to demand its employees seek approval to get
pregnant and fine those who conceive a child without permission, reports
said, provoking a media firestorm Friday.
“Only married female workers who have worked for the company for more
than one year can apply for a place on the birth planning schedule,”
read a policy distributed by a credit cooperative in Jiaozuo, in the
central province of Henan.
“The employee must strictly stick to the birth plan once it is
approved,” it added. “Those who get pregnant in violation of the plan
such that their work is affected will be fined 1,000 yuan ($161),” it
said.
News portal The Paper published a screen shot of the document, adding
a company representative had admitted the lender sent the notice to its
staff but said it was only a draft seeking employees’ comment.
Violators will not be considered for promotion or awards and their
incentives and year-end bonuses will be cancelled “if their pregnancy
severely hindered their work”, the policy said.
T he circular triggered scathing criticism from Chinese media, with the state-run China Youth Daily lambasting it as bizarre.
The
company “does not regard its employees as living human beings, instead
it treats them as working tools on the production line”, it said in a
commentary.
Official interference in personal matters has a long history in
Communist China, with the “one child policy” birth control rules, which
were imposed in the late 1970s limiting most couples to a single
offspring, being the most well known.
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