Wed, May 08, 2013 page11

• Gender bias plagues sanitation workers’ recruitment: city councilors 台南清潔隊徵工 八百多女考生僅一人上榜

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  Greater Tainan’s Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) recently recruited 126 new temporary sanitation workers, but out of the 817 women who applied, only one was given a job. City councilors are saying that the hiring process allegedly discriminates against women, making it practically meaningless for women to apply.

  EPB boss Chang Huang-chen says that the agency had initially considered guaranteeing jobs for women, but says that regulations in the Act of Gender Equality in Employment and the Employment Services Act keep them from doing so. The agency follows the same standards as Taipei and other counties and cities for the recruiting process, which stipulate that men should be able to carry sandbags weighing 15kg and women should be able to carry 12kg as part of the physical examination process. Women usually account for around 20 percent of the top 100 candidates. More than 2,000 people applied for jobs this time, but out of the more than 800 women who applied only one was actually hired.

  “I’m a woman, so I’m personally dissatisfied with the results of the test, and hope that the way the test is carried out will be altered to get better, more satisfactory results in the future,” Chang says.

  

  A female sanitation worker poses in Taipei on July 13 last year. 一位女清潔隊員去年七月十三日於台北留影。

  Photo: Lin Hsiang-mei, Liberty Times
  照片：自由時報記者林相美

  Last week, Greater Tainan councilors Hung Yu-feng and Chen Wen-ke held a press conference, criticizing the EPB’s hiring procedures for being fair on the surface but actually discriminating against women.

  Hung says that the overall recruitment process is fair but quite cruel toward women, “Pretty much leaving all of the women who apply high and dry.” Although it ostensibly seems like there are no barriers against women, they are effectively guilty of gender discrimination. “Twelve kilograms is quite heavy. I couldn’t even run carrying that much weight.”

  Chen says that while women carry less than men in the exam, women are also generally not as physically strong as men, adding that not having different standards for different age groups and weight divisions is completely unfair to older people and women, particularly when you have 20-year-olds competing against 50-year-olds and people who weigh 50kg up against people who weigh 100kg.

  

  Women run with sandbags as part of the recruitment process for sanitation workers in Greater Tainan on April 30. 四月三十日，參加台南環保局清潔隊員招考的女士們，扛沙袋跑步。

  Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Liberty Times
  照片：自由時報記者蔡文居

  Huang Mei-hui, secretary-general of Tainan City’s Department of Labor Affairs, says that setting hiring restrictions based on age would be discriminatory and arouse concerns, but says that it is something that definitely requires more legal discussion. Exactly how many kilograms a person should be able to lift to qualify for a job should ultimately be left to the department that is responsible for hiring to decide, Huang says.

  (Liberty Times, Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat)

  台南環保局清潔隊臨時儲備人員招考共錄取一百廿六人，錄取名單公布，全數八百一十七名女性報考人僅一人上榜。議員質疑對女性不公平，對女性報考人根本是「莊孝維」。

  環保局長張皇珍表示，當初也有考慮到女性保障問題，但受限於「性別工作平等法」及「就業服務法」規定，不能有性別保障。招考有參考台北市等縣市做法，男生負重沙袋十五公斤，女生則十二公斤，加上先前該局內部清潔人員以同樣標準進行體能測驗，排名前一百名中女性約佔百分之廿；這次招考男生多達二千多人報考，女生則有八百多人，最後只有一名女性錄取。

  張皇珍說：「我也是女生，個人對此結果是有點遺憾，未來考試方式將會修正，讓結果更好、更圓滿。」

  市議員洪玉鳳、陳文科上週召開記者會，批評環保局招考方式表面上看似公平，實際上對女性卻是另一種「歧視」。

  洪玉鳳說，招考過程公平公正這點沒問題，但對女性很殘忍，報考女性全部「摃龜」，雖然表面上沒有設限，但卻造成性別的不公平。她說，「十二公斤這麼重，以我自己來扛著跑步，根本跑不來。」

  陳文科則說，雖然女生扛比較輕，但女生先天上體力就不如男生，而且比賽沒有年齡、體重分組限制，廿歲與五十歲，五十公斤與一百公斤也都一起跑，對年紀大的和女生一點都不公平。

  勞工局主秘黃美惠則表示，分齡設限可能有歧視的問題，並引起疑慮，在法令上有待商榷，到底要負重幾公斤才能做到能力上均衡，應由業務單位來考量。

  （自由時報記者蔡文居）

  For your information

  TODAY’S WORDS 今日單字

  1. alter v. 改變；更改 (gai3 bian4; geng1 gai3) 例: The book altered the public’s perception of the entire war. (這本書改變了民眾對這場戰爭的看法。) 2. unfair adj. 不公平的 (bu4 gong1 ping2 de5) 例: It’s unfair to expect her to know that. She wasn’t even there. (預設她該知道這件事不公平。她當時根本不在場。) 3. discriminatory adj. 歧視的；差別對待的 (qi2 shi4 de5; cha1 bie2 dui4 dai4 de5) 例: They are protesting against the company’s discriminatory hiring policies. (他們正在抗議這間公司歧視性的聘僱規則。)
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