The Daily Telegraph

Airline fined over ‘sexist’ pregnancy tests

- By Hannah Strange in Barcelona

SPANISH airline Iberia has been fined for asking female job applicants to undergo pregnancy tests, prompting an outcry over sexism.

Iberia, which formed a £5billion alliance with British Airways in 2010, was criticised on social media after claiming the measure was aimed at ensuring “the well-being of the baby and future mother”. It had argued that the test for flight crew applicants was not intended to filter out expectant mothers, but to make sure they were placed in roles that would not involve any risk to the pregnancy.

But authoritie­s in Majorca – where the practice was originally discovered – rejected that claim, ordering Iberia to pay €25,000 (£22,135) for what they described as a serious act of gender discrimina­tion.

Iago Negueruela, the work, trade and industry secretary for the Balearic Islands government, said Iberia was guilty of a “very grave infraction” and that men and women could not be given different tests for access to work.

Iberia had not been asking male applicants if they were going to become fathers, Mr Negueruela told Cadena Sur radio, insisting: “Any practice of this type must be excluded from the job market.”

Iberia has now said it will drop the requiremen­t and instead “trust” its female employees to notify their bosses of pregnancie­s. As it attempted to fend off a barrage of criticism yesterday, it insisted it had “at no moment” refused a woman for a position because she was pregnant.

The company stressed that since the beginning of 2016 it had moved 60 female employees to alternativ­e roles due to pregnancie­s and that 71 per cent of its cabin crew were women.

The pregnancy tests, as well as other medical examinatio­ns for both genders, were carried out by Randstad, the human resources contractor that operates Iberia’s recruitmen­t. Under Spanish law, women are only required to notify employers of pregnancie­s after being hired and cannot be penalised or dismissed.

The Spanish trade union UGT (General Union of Workers) said that airlines were obliged to protect pregnant workers from posts that might put their unborn babies at risk, but that pregnancy tests before hiring constitute­d “a clear case of discrimina­tion”. The sanction comes at a time when Spanish authoritie­s are cracking down on sexist hiring practices across the country. In one high-profile case, a restaurant in Galicia last year advertised for a female waitress who was “hardworkin­g, responsibl­e, pretty and a little bit slutty,” newspaper Diario de Mallorca said.

In May, authoritie­s reported an online recruitmen­t site for “sexist” and “denigratin­g” practices after it found adverts seeking “cute girls” for retail positions.

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