Maternity Leave Increases to 90 Days from Today

The government enforces the labor standard law, equal employment law for both sexes, and employment insurance law strengthening the stipulations on the protection of mothers.

According to new legal enforcement, the maternity leave of female worker extends from 60 days to 90 days. The husband of a housewife having an under-one-year-old baby can have a child-care leave within one year. And the business owner should pay a fine of maximum 10 million won in case of sexual harassment against the female employee.

To lessen the burdens of companies, the wages of 30 days by which the maternity leave extends will be paid up to 1.35 million won through the finance and employment insurance. In order to receive the wage of 30 days, an employment insurance holder should apply to the Center for Employment Stability within 6 months from the day when the leave ends. Irrespective of sexes, the workers having an under-one-year-old baby can apply the temporary lay-off for child-care up to one year. During the child-care leave, they can receive 200,000 won monthly through the employment insurance. In order to receive the wage during the leave, they should submit the application form every month to the Center for Employment Stability.

The company should not demand the overtime work on pregnant female workers, and can request the night work and the holiday work only with the agreement of workers.

The overtime work is limited to 2 hours a day for the female workers within a year since the delivery of baby.

In particular, the revised laws provided the stipulations preventing the sexual discrimination. Even if the distinction of sexes is not stated on the conditions of employment and working, the revised laws define as the indirect discrimination the case that male/female workers cannot satisfy the stipulations or the standards itself are not fair. The workers who are sexually discriminated or harassed in relation to the employment or the promotion can request for the relief to the Equal Employment Commission of the Ministry of Labor.

The laws related to the protection of mothers elevated the degree of punishment as follows; under-five-year imprisonment, under-30-million won penalty and maximum 10 million won fine for the violators of major stipulations.

leej@donga.com