The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a St. Petersburg woman's appeal to drive metro trains, one of the hundreds of jobs women are prohibited from holding under Russian law.
The court upheld its earlier decision to reject a complaint by law student Anna Klevets, 22, who filed a discrimination suit after being turned down for a job as an assistant metro operator with the St. Petersburg metro in November because of her gender, her lawyer, Yelena Pleshko, told The Moscow Times.
Pleshko said she had not yet received in writing the court's justification for Thursday's ruling.
A court spokesman confirmed the decision but said he could provide no further details.
Klevets was unavailable for comment Thursday, but she told RIA-Novosti that she plans to pursue the case further.
The case has drawn attention to a section of the Labor Code -- dating back to Soviet times -- listing 460 jobs deemed too dangerous or physically demanding for women.
While the Russian Constitution guarantees equal employment opportunity for men and women, Article 253 of the Labor Code states that women should not perform "hard physical" labor, jobs "with harmful or dangerous labor conditions or work underground except for nonphysical jobs or sanitary and consumer services."
In 2000, then-President Vladimir Putin signed off on the most recent list of jobs that women are forbidden from holding, including firefighter, chimney sweep, miner and blasting crew member.
Seeking steady employment during turbulent economic times, Klevets applied for the job with the St. Petersburg metro in November because she could not find a job in law, said Pleshko, her lawyer.
After she was turned down because of her gender, she filed the discrimination suit with St. Petersburg's Leninsky District Court, asking for 100,000 rubles ($2,800) in moral damages and monetary compensation equivalent to the salary she would have earned as a metro operator.
After the court rejected the lawsuit, she appealed to the Supreme Court, which in March upheld the lower court's ruling and dismissed Klevets' subsequent appeal Thursday.
Representatives of the Health and Social Development Ministry, which was listed as a defendant in Klevets' lawsuit, have insisted that the rules preventing the plaintiff from operating a metro train are merely aimed at protecting women.
Valery Koshev, who represented the ministry in the case, told Interfax that the exclusion of women from working as metro operators is "reasonable."
"As for women, the slightest possibility of risk, for a woman herself or other people, must be excluded," he said.
Women are not barred from operating vehicles in other areas of public transportation. Female drivers of buses, trams and trolleys are common in Russia.
Moscow metro spokeswoman Svetlana Tsaryova said the prohibition of female metro operators is a somewhat obsolete rule.
"The ban on women driving trains is a standard established in the Soviet Union," Tsaryova told The Moscow Times on Thursday. "Since then, the working conditions have changed, and women can now work in modern trains."
In fact, a year ago the Moscow metro was having trouble finding enough metro operators, with only about 20 percent of applicants healthy enough to drive the trains, Tsaryova said.
"We were even planning to appeal to authorities to allow us to hire women," she said.
But the Moscow metro has been flooded with job applicants since the global financial crisis hit Russia in the fall, Tsaryova said. "At the moment, we don't have any staff problems," she said. "There is even a line of people willing to work at the metro."
The average monthly salary of a Moscow metro operator runs between 55,000 rubles ($1,700) and 70,000 rubles ($2,200), while an assistant operator earns about 28,000 rubles ($900).
As for Klevets, she has found a solution to her employment troubles: The law firm representing her has hired her as a paralegal, Pleshko said.
The court upheld its earlier decision to reject a complaint by law student Anna Klevets, 22, who filed a discrimination suit after being turned down for a job as an assistant metro operator with the St. Petersburg metro in November because of her gender, her lawyer, Yelena Pleshko, told The Moscow Times.
Pleshko said she had not yet received in writing the court's justification for Thursday's ruling.
A court spokesman confirmed the decision but said he could provide no further details.
Klevets was unavailable for comment Thursday, but she told RIA-Novosti that she plans to pursue the case further.
The case has drawn attention to a section of the Labor Code -- dating back to Soviet times -- listing 460 jobs deemed too dangerous or physically demanding for women.
While the Russian Constitution guarantees equal employment opportunity for men and women, Article 253 of the Labor Code states that women should not perform "hard physical" labor, jobs "with harmful or dangerous labor conditions or work underground except for nonphysical jobs or sanitary and consumer services."
In 2000, then-President Vladimir Putin signed off on the most recent list of jobs that women are forbidden from holding, including firefighter, chimney sweep, miner and blasting crew member.
Seeking steady employment during turbulent economic times, Klevets applied for the job with the St. Petersburg metro in November because she could not find a job in law, said Pleshko, her lawyer.
No Women Allowed |
A sampling of jobs women are barred from holding
|
| Source: Labor Code |
After the court rejected the lawsuit, she appealed to the Supreme Court, which in March upheld the lower court's ruling and dismissed Klevets' subsequent appeal Thursday.
Representatives of the Health and Social Development Ministry, which was listed as a defendant in Klevets' lawsuit, have insisted that the rules preventing the plaintiff from operating a metro train are merely aimed at protecting women.
Valery Koshev, who represented the ministry in the case, told Interfax that the exclusion of women from working as metro operators is "reasonable."
"As for women, the slightest possibility of risk, for a woman herself or other people, must be excluded," he said.
Women are not barred from operating vehicles in other areas of public transportation. Female drivers of buses, trams and trolleys are common in Russia.
Moscow metro spokeswoman Svetlana Tsaryova said the prohibition of female metro operators is a somewhat obsolete rule.
"The ban on women driving trains is a standard established in the Soviet Union," Tsaryova told The Moscow Times on Thursday. "Since then, the working conditions have changed, and women can now work in modern trains."
In fact, a year ago the Moscow metro was having trouble finding enough metro operators, with only about 20 percent of applicants healthy enough to drive the trains, Tsaryova said.
"We were even planning to appeal to authorities to allow us to hire women," she said.
But the Moscow metro has been flooded with job applicants since the global financial crisis hit Russia in the fall, Tsaryova said. "At the moment, we don't have any staff problems," she said. "There is even a line of people willing to work at the metro."
The average monthly salary of a Moscow metro operator runs between 55,000 rubles ($1,700) and 70,000 rubles ($2,200), while an assistant operator earns about 28,000 rubles ($900).
As for Klevets, she has found a solution to her employment troubles: The law firm representing her has hired her as a paralegal, Pleshko said.
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