PARIS: Qatar Airways (QA)Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker yesterday accused International Labour Organisation (ILO) of having a “vendetta” against Qatar and its state carrier after the UN agency called for it to stop discriminating against female staff.
ILO published a report on Saturday detailing its recommendations to Qatar on how the airline should change its employment rules to end discrimination.
The report was triggered by complaints from global workers’ rights movements, ILO said.
Rules cited as discriminatory included the requirement that employees get permission to change their marital status, the automatic dismissal of cabin crew members who fell pregnant and surveillance of the employees’ private lives.
“I don’t give a damn about ILO — I am there to run a successful airline,” Al Baker said at Paris Air Show when asked about the ILO ruling. “This is evidence of a vendetta they have against QA and my country. My country has responded to ILO accusations in a very robust way. We clarified the clauses in our contract.”
The report said Qatar justified QA’s dismissal of pregnant women by citing expectant mothers’ apparent lack of physical fitness to fly and inability to meet job requirements. The report also said QA introduced new employee contracts in December 2014 that no longer state that permission is required for a change in marital status.
Eighty percent of QA’s 9,000 cabin crew workforce are women, ILO said in the report, citing the Qatari government.“Protective measures should include action taken to ensure that a woman worker does not lose her job during pregnancy and that maternity is not a source of discrimination,” ILO said. A spokesman for Qatar government was immediately unavailable for comment.
Reuters
