The first workplace gender discrimination case in China resulted
in a ruling in favor of seven plaintiffs in Jinjiang District Court
last Thursday, according to China Daily today.
"We have fought for nearly half a year for equal rights between
men and women, which is written in the Constitution of the People's
Republic of China," 53-year-old Huang Yongqi told the paper.
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Huang and six female colleagues from Chengdu Air Compressor Plant
aged between 52 and 54 received a written notice of compulsory
early retirement in December from administrators in charge of their
employer's liquidation.
Their male coworkers under retirement age had been given the
option of early retirement or a redundancy package, as required by
government regulations.
The women asked for arbitration from Chengdu Municipal Labor
Dispute Arbitration Committee, based in the capital of southwest
China's Sichuan
Province.
They asked the committee to veto the plant's notice, but their
request was rejected.
In March this year, they took the country's constitution with
them to the district court, filing a lawsuit alleging sex
discrimination.
The court, which started hearing the case in May, ruled that the
plant's administrators should take back the notice and offer them
the same options they had given male employees.
"The respondent, the plant's liquidation administrators, was not
present when the court pronounced its judgment," said Zhang Jing,
chief of the court's research office.
The court will send the judgment to the administrators and, if
they do not appeal, it will take effect 15 days afterwards.
The official retirement age in China is 55 for women and 60 for
men.
(China Daily June 20, 2005)