” On October 01st, 2015, the Government issued Decree No. 85/2015/ND-CP (“Decree No. 85″) detailing some regulations of the Labor Code regarding policies for female employees.”
To facilitate your search, PLF has summarized the main points of Decree No. 85 as below:
1. Clarifying the concept of employers hiring many female employees
Under current regulations, the Government shall have a tax reduction policy applied to employers hiring many female employees; however, the definition of employers hiring many female employees has yet to be clarified.
Clause 1 of Article 3 of Decree No. 85 has introduced the concept of employers employing many female employees, specifically:
2. Representatives of female employees
In Article 4 of Decree No. 85, representatives of female employees in provisions related to employer’s obligations in the 2012 Labour Code are construed as:
3. Health care for female employees
Female workers are entitled to obstetric examination according to the obstetric care category issued by the Ministry of Health during periodic health examinations.
In addition, female employees shall receive menstrual leave of 30 minutes per day and at least 3 days per month. The specific amount of time off is decided between the employees and employers regarding realistic working conditions and the needs of female employees.
Female employees raising a child under 12 months are entitled to a 60-minute break each day during working hours for breastfeeding, milking, storing milk and resting.
Female workers shall nevertheless get paid according to their labor contract despite the regulated amount of time off mentioned above.
4. The right of unilateral termination and temporary suspension of the labor contract
In case an authorized health establishment confirms that continuing work would negatively affect the unborn baby, the female worker has the right to:
The minimum duration of temporary suspension shall be the same as the temporary break assigned by the authorized health establishment. Without said assignment, the duration of temporary suspension shall be decided between the two parties.
5. Effect
Decree No. 85 shall come into effect from November 15th 2015.
This decree will replace Decree No. 23/CP dated 1996 by the Government guiding the 2012 Labor Code regarding specific provisions for female workers.
PLF recommends that Enterprises should promptly update and adjust company policies related to female employees (if any) under specific guidelines stated in Decree No. 85 mentioned above in order to avoid any labor disputes that might happen once this Decree comes into legal force.
PLF Law Firm