United Nations Labor Agency Slams Airline For Sexist Policies

United Nations Labor Agency Slams Airline For Sexist Policies
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/06/23/3672877/ilo-qatar-sexist-pol...
BY BRYCE COVERT POSTED ON JUNE 23, 2015 AT 10:51 AM
CREDIT: FRED LANCELOT, AP

Qatar Airways has denied widespread accusations that it bans employees from getting married and that it doesn’t always summarily fire pregnant workers. But the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the labor agency at the United Nations, says otherwise.
After a yearlong investigation into complaints made by the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Transport Workers’ Federation, it not only decided that parts of the airlines’ policies do in fact require workers to notify the company when they become pregnant, but that doing so often ends up in those workers getting terminated. The complaints included evidence of a clause in a previous employment contract that read, “The employee shall notify the employer in case of pregnancy from the date of her knowledge or its occurrence. The employer shall have the right to terminate the contract of employment from the date of notification of the pregnancy.”
A new contract has similar language: “Cabin Crew are considered unfit to fly during pregnancy. Accordingly, the company reserves the right to automatically terminate your contract as a flying Cabin Crew Member should you become pregnant.” The company says employees can apply to other positions that don’t require flight but doesn’t guarantee that they’ll get one.
Those provisions, the ILO said, are discriminatory under UN anti-discrimination conventions and should be removed. It also urged the government of Qatar to push the airline to make a real effort to find alternative roles for pregnant workers or other temporary solutions like leave.
The airline didn’t respond to a request for comment, although CEO Akbar Al Baker accused the agency of having a “vendetta” against it and the country of Qatar, saying, “I don’t give a damn about the ILO.”
Given that the flight attendant workforce at Qatar is 80 percent female, the complaints had also charged that the provisions relating to marriage constitute indirect gender discrimination. The complaints alleged that employees have to get permission to get married or change their marital status and that if they’re denied, employees have to resign if they want to get married. While the ILO noted that a previous contract said “the employee is required to obtain prior permission from the company, in case [he/she] wishes to change [his/her] marital status and get married,” it’s not in the new one and that references to “single status” don’t constitute gender discrimination, although “may raise other concerns.”
But the ILO also noted, “The Committee expresses the firm hope that the Government takes the necessary measures without delay to ensure that all cabin crew members are…able to get married and change their marital status without the company’s permission.”
The airline’s policies aren’t a unique instance, however. According to previous reporting by the Washington Post, Emirates also fires flight attendants who get pregnant within the first three years. Female flight attendants face other intense restrictions. Those for Asiana Airlines have to comply with makeup, hairstyle, and nail length guidelines, while those for Singapore Airlines, called “Singapore Girls,” can only wear sarongs.
These kinds of policies used to be the norm for flight attendants throughout the whole airline industry. Stewardesses in the 1960s were forced to quit if they got married, and supervisors scanned wedding announcements to catch those who broke the rules. They also had to comply with rules about their height and weight and their appearances were constantly monitored. The first people to bring complaints of discrimination at the newly opened Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1965 were stewardesses fighting these policies.
Even after that, they were allowed to continue for a while as some courts sided with the industry, which claimed male passengers would feel strange if attendants weren’t young, single women. But in 1973, a federal court in Washington, D.C. ruled against Northwest Airlines’s policy and they were soon struck down across the industry.
These practices still continue at many workplaces, however, even if they constitute discrimination. Complaints of pregnancy discrimination, including getting fired just for getting pregnant, have risen faster than women’s entrance into the workforce. And some employees have sued over being forced to comply with restrictions on weight and appearance.
The complaints from the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Transport Workers’ Federation against Qatar Airways made other allegations, such as rules prohibiting female employees to get dropped up or picked up from work by a man other than their fathers, brothers, or husbands, which the company has said is due to cultural norms in the country. But the ILO found that “this restriction in the company’s code of practice, which only applies to women and which is not a requirement imposed on men cabin crew, amounts to discrimination based on sex” and that it should be reviewed.