MTUC: Demeaning for pregnant women to leave office earlier

KUCHING: It is demeaning for women who are five months into their pregnancy to be allowed to go back one hour earlier, said the secretary of Malaysian Trades Unions Congress (MTUC) Sarawak division, Andrew Lo.

He said such a move made by the government would make the women less productive and less competitive.

“Frankly speaking, there is no justification for such a move. What is the rationale behind it? And so, as far as the private sector is concerned, we will not recommend it to the employers as it is demeaning to women,” Lo told The Borneo Post here yesterday.

He added that it would be a different scenario if the women employees were manual workers.

“But most of the government servants are working in airconditioned offices and the extra one hour is totally out of the question,” he added.

Lo also pointed out that the extra one hour given to women who are five months pregnant will further make the civil service less productive and would put extra financial burden on the government, and could only be perceived as fishing for votes in view of the impending general election.

On a related issue, Lo, who is also the chief executive officer of the Sarawak Bank Employees' Union, hoped that the private sector could follow the global trend by giving their female employees three months of maternity leave.

“We hope that the government could amend the current Employment Act so that women employees in the private sector too could enjoy such benefit as their counterparts in the civil service,” he said.