Firing employees due to pregnancy or marriage illegal

It’s unlawful to dismiss an employee based on pregnancy without marriage. The law and the jurisprudence are unanimous. Under Article 135, Book III, Title III, Chapter 1, any employer who dismisses a pregnant woman can be prosecuted and if found guilty, penalized by imprisonment for three months to three years under Article 303, Book VII, Title1.

The law makes it unlawful to deny any woman, even if unmarried, the right to avail of maternity benefits. It’s also unlawful to terminate the services of a pregnant employee to avoid having to provide her with maternity and other related benefits. It’s also unlawful to terminate the employment of any female personnel currently on maternity leave. Likewise, it’s unlawful on the part of the employer to refuse admitting back an employee returning to work after her maternity leave.

Our labor laws nurture women especially those pregnant. The Philippine Constitution protects women and assures them of equal work opportunities. Under Article 158, management is mandated by law to undertake adequate and timely measures to provide women employees, especially pregnant women, alternative to night work, before and after childbirth, for at least 16 weeks or four months, and even for a longer period if justified through an appropriate medical certificate, or for nine months during pregnancy.

The law even so solicitously provides: "Pregnant women and nursing mothers may be allowed to work at night only if a competent physician, other than the company physician, shall certify their fitness to render night work, and specify, in the case of pregnant employees, the period of pregnancy that they can safely work.” I have advised my clients to be very careful when dealing with female employees. Under Book Three of the Labor Code, they are classified as special employees with special legal protection.

In the case of Zaida Inocente v. St Vincent Foundation, GR 202621, June 22, 2016, the Labor arbiter decided in favor of management which dismissed a pregnant employee who suffered a miscarriage on the ground of pregnancy without marriage. The arbiter decided in favor of management and declared that there was just cause for dismissal. The decision was affirmed by the NLRC. The Court of Appeals also affirmed. But the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Arturo Brion, former DOLE secretary, reversed the decision and held that the dismissal on account of pregnancy was illegal.

Both employees, Zaida and Marlon (he voluntarily resigned after the pregnancy) had no impediment to marry each other. They conducted their love affair in a discreet, decent, and private manner. Their intimate and consensual relations were done in the privacy of their abodes outside the premises of the employer. Their love was pure.

In fact, they eventually took their marital vow in an appropriate ceremony after Zaida recovered from her miscarriage. Said the court: "All these show the sincerity and honesty of their relationship. They also show their genuine regard and love for one another, a natural human emotion, that is neither shameless, callous, nor offensive to the opinion of the upright and respectable members of the secular community."

Brion further said in his decision: "While their actions might not have strictly conformed with the beliefs, ways and mores of St. Vincent, which is governed largely by religious morality, or with the personal views of the officials, these actions are not prohibited by law." Thus, it means that when two employees become in love with each other, and they express their love with a sense of decency, and they are both single, it isn’t against any law if the woman gets pregnant.

Pregnancy isn’t a crime and the woman shouldn’t get punished because of it. We have a long line of cases to support this thesis but we neither have the space nor the time. What matters most is that we understand that, under the law and based on established precedents, pregnancy is neither a disease nor a crime. It isn’t a ground to justify dismissal of an employee under the law.

I have more than 20 cases about illegal dismissals when companies terminate employment on the basis of pregnancy or marriage. This is a legal boundary that management should never cross. Remember always that women are extraordinarily special. The symbol of justice is a woman and the Statue of Liberty is a lady. In many houses where the husband is an attorney, he is just a lawyer. The wife is the Supreme Court. The last and final word is hers.