A pregnant woman cannot be fired due to the reduction of the number of employees, which is directly established by the current labor legislation. Moreover, unjustified dismissal of a pregnant woman is a criminal offense.
Employers are usually not interested in having pregnant women on the staff of the organization, since the latter do not bring any economic benefits, but they create many problems. At the same time, labor legislation provides an increased level of protection for such women, one of the components of which is the prohibition on their dismissal at the initiative of the employer. The only exception to this rule is the liquidation of a company, the termination of the activities of an individual entrepreneur, in which the dismissal of pregnant women is allowed. On the reduction, a pregnant woman cannot be fired, which directly follows from the provisions of Article 261 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
What does an employer expect when a pregnant woman is fired?
In case of illegal dismissal of a pregnant woman, she can send a claim to the courts for reinstatement at work. In this case, the requirement is usually satisfied, which entails additional costs for the employer and other negative consequences. In addition, even in the absence of an appeal to the judicial authorities of the woman herself, the committed violation can be revealed during an inspection by the prosecutor's office, labor inspectorate. In this case, the employee will also have to be reinstated on the basis of an appropriate order, and a certain punishment will be incurred. Thus, an administrative fine may be imposed on an organization, since the violation is quite serious and has very specific negative consequences for a pregnant woman.
What is the threat to the head of the unjustified dismissal of a pregnant woman?
The manager who allowed the unjustified dismissal of a pregnant woman, including the termination of the reduction contract, may be subject to criminal punishment, since this act is considered a crime. Responsibility for it is established in Article 145 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The sanctions of this article imply the possibility of imposing a fine, the amount of which can be up to 200,000 rubles, compulsory work, the duration of which can be up to three hundred and sixty hours. That is why unjustified dismissal of pregnant women should be avoided, for whose protection the current legislation establishes rather strict measures, which is due to the large number of violations that are allowed in relation to this category of workers.
