Bank dumps pregnancy permission rule

A bank in Hebei province has abandoned its rule that female employees cannot get pregnant without permission.

The decision was made after a staff member reported the situation to a local trade union.

"A female employee should receive an abortion if she gets pregnant without permission from the bank in advance, otherwise she will be punished," the staff member was quoted as saying in a report by Worker's Daily.

According to the report, the staff member told the Shijiazhuang City Federation of Trade Unions on a complaint hotline on Oct 19 that she didn't apply for permission from the bank where she worked and had an unplanned pregnancy.

The report did not include the name of the staff member or the bank.

"The bank asked me to make a choice between my newly conceived child and my post at the bank," she was quoted as saying. Several of her female colleagues had been punished by the bank for becoming pregnant, the report said.

This is the rule for all female employees at the bank, whether it's a first or second child, she said.

The trade union's Yang Yongliang, who received the complaint, said, "The rule is obviously against the law and has infringed females' rights for having children."

According to a guideline approved by the State Council in 2012 to protect female workers' rights, employers are not allowed to fire a female employee or cut her pay due to pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding.

The bank abolished the rule and will implement new rules on employee pregnancies.

The female staff member who reported the rule, as well as other employees the bank punished for unapproved pregnancies, will regain their positions and pay.

By law in China, female workers are eligible to receive their salary while on maternity leave for about 100 days.

In recent years, as more parents want a second child, some institutions, including schools and companies, have been caught requiring female employees to report their plans on pregnancy.

"Employers that have a lot of young female workers want to regulate women's maternity leaves to ensure the normal operation of the company," said a Weibo user Qingshui810225, who claimed to be a human resources worker.