Women on temporary contracts at high risk of losing job due to pregnancy

Women with flexible employment contracts are at high risk of discrimination because of their pregnancy or early motherhood. This includes women with temporary contracts and women who are seconded or work as temporary workers. This appears from the analysis of the temporary Pregnancy Discrimination Hotline of the Human Rights Board. In almost all cases of these reports, an employment relationship was terminated because of pregnancy or a resulting illness, the analysis shows.  

Adriana van Dooijeweert, chairperson of the Board: ‘The results from the analysis of the hotline confirm that we must continue to take action to counteract unequal treatment of women because of pregnancy. Also in the temporary employment and secondment sector, pregnancy discrimination is still prevalent. Many temporary employment agencies do not seem to be aware of their responsibilities towards their pregnant employees, this must change. The temporary employment industry needs to be better and more clearly informed about this. They are responsible for protecting their pregnant employees and have a duty to hold hirers and clients accountable if they are guilty of discrimination.’

Temporary employment and secondment sector
The Board analyzed in particular the reports related to the temporary employment and secondment sector (almost 20% of the reports). Until now, there has been little visibility of pregnancy discrimination in this specific form of flexible employment. From the reports it appears that in practice this does occur regularly. In half of the reports the contracts of temporary workers were not renewed because of pregnancy, according to the reporter. In a quarter of the cases temporary workers were fired after the announcement of the pregnancy. Sometimes immediately, sometimes from the first day of maternity leave. In one in eight reports, pregnancy was literally said to be the reason for breaking the contract. In one in five cases, a pregnancy-related illness (such as pelvic instability or nausea) was found to be the probable reason for terminating the contract; this is also discrimination.

Government action plan
The government has taken action this year to counteract pregnancy discrimination. In March of this year, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment launched the Pregnancy Discrimination Action Plan. The Board is pleased with this, but also sees a number of concerns. Adriana van Dooijeweert: “The measures aimed at increasing the willingness to report and improving enforcement are as yet incomplete and unclear. Moreover, the action plan does not show how precisely women in a vulnerable position can be protected against labour market discrimination because of their motherhood.

Recommendations on tackling pregnancy discrimination
Women with flexible employment contracts run a high risk of being discriminated against in the labor market because of their pregnancy or early motherhood. This was already evident from the College’s 2016 pregnancy discrimination study, ‘Is it better liked now’. The temporary Pregnancy Discrimination Hotline once again shows that this group deserves extra attention in the approach to combat pregnancy discrimination in the labor market.

The Board opened a hotline in May 2017, to gain a better understanding of the risks women face. Based on the responses to the hotline, the Board wrote a letter to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment with recommendations to combat pregnancy discrimination in a more targeted way. In the approach, extra attention must be paid to women with a flexible labor market relationship and better information must be provided about the responsibility of hirers and employment agencies. Also, temporary workers should not be disadvantaged because of an illness when it is caused by pregnancy.