Chapter 30.1 Boss, reimburse and pay me.

As Bai Duanduan joined Sheng Lin as an independent lawyer, there was no such thing as allocation of case sources by partners of the firm. So if she wants to have business, she would have to develop and explore it herself.

Generally, lawyers who specialize in labor disputes, such as Bai Duanduan, who have a certain number of years of work experience, actually have some old clients as resources in hand. However, Bai Duanduan’s situation was relatively special. She had been practicing in B City for the previous few years. Now she has returned to A City just a short while ago. Her roots were not yet stable, and at the same time, her client selection bias was finally showing its downside —

She had always represented the labour side of the business, and it was difficult to get repeat cases from this side of the business. No matter how well she represented this side, it was impossible to have long-term continuity with individual clients.

If Bai Duanduan had paid more attention to restructuring her client portfolio and maintained a few corporate clients alongside her individual ones, she wouldn’t have been in the predicament she was in now—

As long as there was hiring and firing of corporate clients, there would always be labour disputes. Even if the company was in City B, the labor dispute lawyers between the companies will recommend each other. Once the corporate client in City B has a partner company in City A, Bai Duanduan will have the opportunity to be recommended to this partner company.

In this way, Bai Duanduan would not be short of case sources, which was better than sitting on a cold bench for the time being.

Bai Duanduan was bored and browsing through Weibo, when she casually clicked on the hot search. She was accidentally attracted by a topic – #Women announce their pregnancy and start taking leave after one month of probation.#

[Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China]

Bai Duanduan has seen a lot of conflicts between female employees and companies over pregnancy and maternity leave in labour dispute cases. However, there was so much discussion on this old topic, and this time it involved a local company, Guifeng Communications, in City A. Bai Duanduan was a bit curious and clicked on the video of the interview that sparked the topic.

The person in front of the camera was a middle-aged woman, a little chubby, wearing a pair of glasses, with a very popular and not very recognisable face, like every ordinary 9 to 5 office worker, and her tone of voice was quite approachable. The subtitles of the video indicated that she was Ms Li, the General Manager of the HR Department of Guifeng Communication.

“We recruited Xiao Dai through a headhunter. Because her position was quite important, we interviewed a lot of people, spent a lot of energy screening resumes and asked headhunters to help us with the search before we finally decided to let Xiao Dai join us. Her resume was not really the best of all the applicants, but she was very young and energetic.”

“She specifically stated during the recruitment process that she was unmarried and had no children and had no boyfriend. She was single and had no intention to fall in love and get married in the next two years. Our company has plans to develop new business in the next two years. The work pressure of this position will be relatively high, and we hope to recruit employees with continuity in their work, so this was a plus point for her, and we finally hired her.”

The reporter who was interviewing duly came out to steer the conversation and said, “As a result, one month after joining, this Xiao Dai, who claimed she had no boyfriend and would not consider getting married and having children in next two year, suddenly announced she was pregnant and then started taking a leave of absence?”

In the camera, Ms. Li nodded, with a look of helplessness, “That’s right, because we are in a hurry to hire people, Xiao Dai only provided a very simple medical examination certificate. There was no such thing as an X-ray or chest X-ray. In addition, she said that the physical examination happened to be during her menstrual period, so the urine test has to be done after a while. We didn’t pay much attention then.”

“She kept dragging it for a while and everytime we asked her for it, she excused herself by claiming that she didn’t have time to do it. We didn’t think much about it. After all, on the one hand, her job in this position was indeed very busy, and it was normal to say that she was not free. Unexpectedly, she waited for the probation period to pass, and suddenly brought the hospital health report and told us that she was pregnant and wanted to take a maternity leave.”

“That is, as soon as the probationary period was over and she was officially transferred as a regular employee, she became pregnant unexpectedly?”

Ms. Li laughed bitterly, “How can it be an unexpected pregnancy? It was clearly written on that hospital health report that the pregnancy was already three months old. She should have known she was pregnant when she first attended the interview. If you think about it, you will know the answer as to why she didn’t get an X-ray and why she never went for a urine test.” Ms. Li pushed her glasses and explained, “There is an item in our company’s urine test that requires a check for pregnancy.”

It dawned on the reporter, “So this female employee’s induction was a scam from the start?”

“It can be said that she knew she was pregnant from the beginning, but our company is not a nursing home.” Ms. Li said distressingly, “It is because of employees like this that our personnel work is very difficult to do. The salary for her position is not low. During the sick leave period, we also need to pay the salary in accordance with the law. The law stipulates that no matter what, it cannot be less than 70% of her salary. In addition to the salary, there is the cost of the social security provident fund, which we also have to pay as usual, plus the final payment to the headhunter’s side that we have just paid after the official induction ……”

As the general manager of personnel, Ms. Li sighed and said frankly, “The most difficult thing is that she is asking for leave now. Maybe she is not ready to come before giving birth. According to the labor law, we cannot fire female employees during pregnancy. The job in this position is very important. We have to go through the recruitment process again and recruit another employee to do the job in her stead. This is both a waste of time and a high cost, and she will also have to take maternity leave after giving birth.”

She shook her head, “I always feel that our personnel department, as well as the company, seems to have been deliberately defrauded by her. She clearly knew that she was pregnant, but she concealed the truth. It’s like picking a place to take maternity leave while pregnant and giving birth, and getting paid for maternity benefits at the same time. Social security doesn’t have to be cut off either. Our business had to pay a huge cost for her pregnancy, yet she took a sabbatical as soon as she turned into a regular employee. It is almost foreseeable that she will not create any labor value for the company in the coming year and a half…..”

When Ms Li’s narration was finished, the journalist turned to the camera and began his concluding remarks, “In today’s labour market, where employees have the sufferings of employees, the companies also have the difficulties of companies as well. In addition to Guifeng Communications, we have also interviewed the personnel managers of several other companies in City A to see what they think about this matter.”

After that, the camera turned around to show a mosaic made of the interviewee’s face. The subtitle was Mr. Zhang, the personnel manager of a certain company, “We have encountered what Ms. Li’s company encountered it before. Now it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy with us. When we recruit now, as long as there is a male candidate for the position, and if he is at the same level as female candidates, or even if the level is slightly lower than the level of female candidates, we will send the final offer to the male candidates. I am really afraid of female employees like Xiao Dai. I heard that there are also the kind of female employees like Xiao Dai who just came back to work after giving birth for less than half a year, and they were pregnant with their second child again …”

The next speaker was Mr. Chen, the general manager of a company that was mosaiced, said, “Our company has never encountered this kind of thing, because our entry process is very rigorous and strict. One must provide a medical examination report that they are not pregnant before they can enter the job. To be honest, Guifeng Communications is still a little bit more humane and caring. I heard that one of the managers of the HR department visited the employee named Xiao Dai after she took a leave of absence for her pregnancy, but she didn’t show any gratitude and stayed at home to get paid for not working because she was pregnant.”

. . . . . . .

Finally, the reporter took over again, “In the workplace, female employees who are pregnant and on maternity leave are often mentioned as suffering from discrimination and oppression. But shouldn’t you also think about the discrimination women face in the workplace today and the fact that most companies don’t want to recruit female employees. Is it possible that the root cause of most companies not wanting to hire female employees is because of the negative effect caused by employees like Xiao Dai? It will take a long time for women to change their status in the workplace, and it will take every woman to actually discipline herself and unite together and work hard to improve the stereotype mindset against the women in the workplace after pregnancy!”

This was a talk show about the workplace in City A. It had been running for a year, but the ratings were mediocre and it was only circulated locally in City A. It was just unexpected that now, with such a topic, it had attracted the attention of people all over the country at once.

Bai Duanduan turned off the video and clicked on the related topic, only to find that the discussion was also very intense. The interview video alone had been retweeted more than 30,000 times.

The employee, who goes by the pseudonym Xiao Dai, was almost overwhelmingly attacked by netizens. Bai Duanduan casually clicked on the avatars of a few retweeters and found that, apart from male netizens, the ones who cursed the hardest were, instead, female netizens.

“A piece of rat sh!it spoiled the whole pot of congee! 1 one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch It’s because of such shameless women that it’s getting harder and harder for us women to find jobs!”

“Some pregnant women open their mouths about women’s protection under labour law, and rights, and violations, and labour arbitration and all that. But the thing is that the company is not here for charity. If in an extreme case, a company recruits 50 new employees and all 50 of them go on leave when they are pregnant like this, isn’t it better for the business in such a situation to go bankrupt directly? Is that what you’re looking for? I think you are looking for a bank! Women like the one in the video are just assh0les! Face_Vomit!”

“So many sisters are now being discriminated against in the workplace, thanks to these shameless people.”

……

Naturally, there were also different voices in them ——

“Although Xiao Dai did it in the wrong way and concealed it, she is really pregnant. If she does need to protect her fetus, she can ask for sick leave. As long as the process is complete and it is in line with the provisions of the medical period. This is what the law stipulates!”

“Or is the cost and pressure of childbirth too great, and perhaps the person concerned is also forced to pass it on to the others and find a company to be the receiver. But this is an issue that society should actually pay attention to, especially nowadays when the fertility rate is so low, is it not doing enough in terms of social welfare protection for pregnant women?”

It’s a pity that such voices were quickly drowned out by verbal abuse and attacks —

“If you want to have a baby and protect the fetus, fine, but don’t stay in the job. The boss and the rest of your colleagues aren’t the father of your baby, are they? Go to whoever you want! You are blind to find a man who is incapable of keeping you at home pregnant with a baby full time and you want the business to take responsibility for it? I worked until the day before I gave birth to my baby. You’re the only one who became frail and sick as soon as you got pregnant? You’re a delicate princess and you have to take a leave of absence when you get pregnant? You don’t have the life of a princess, but have the illness of a  princess.”

“Come on, it looks like it has been planned for a long time. Does this kind of liar really want to give birth to the child? They are just lazy and want to get money for nothing.”

“That’s right, and forced to pass it on to the company? Let’s say it’s true, but in the end it’s all about one word, isn’t it? Poor! You’re poor and crazy! But I ask, if you are so poor, how can you have a child? If you’re so poor that you have to rely on a company to support your pregnancy expenses, then why are you giving birth to a child, do you know how much it costs nowadays to raise a child?”

. . . . . .

The topic probably touched on the sore point of women in the workplace, triggering widespread concern and discussion not only among women, but also among men. The heat of such a social issue was unprecedented. There were some good people also who created a poll, but in this case, public opinion was almost always biased towards the company, and there were various attacks and condemnations on the employee who was under the pseudonym Xiao Dai.

Bai Duanduan flipped through it again and found that someone had even fleshed out the real-life employee based on the details and clues in the interview —

“Dai Qin, 25 years old, just joined Guifeng Communication for a month and a half. She has recently been on leave to take care of her fetus. Come on, the photo is here, let’s test it.”

After that, the trend of public opinion began to deviate even more completely. Originally, there was a good discussion about women’s pregnancy and labor disputes in the workplace. As soon as the photo of a human face appeared, it became an attack on Dai Qin’s appearance.

“Real beauty is in one’s heart, people’s faces are ugly!”

“Shame on you, so ugly, Dai Qin come out, it’s better to have self-determination for other people!”

“Be sensible and resign of your own accord, don’t disgust your company, let your company make a living.”

This woman’s eyes are so small, and from her five features don’t you think that she looks like she will jinx her husband?

……