The first workplace gender discrimination case in China resulted in a ruling in favor of seven plaintiffs in Jinjiang District Court last Thursday, according to China Daily today.

"We have fought for nearly half a year for equal rights between men and women, which is written in the Constitution of the People's Republic of China," 53-year-old Huang Yongqi told the paper.
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Huang and six female colleagues from Chengdu Air Compressor Plant aged between 52 and 54 received a written notice of compulsory early retirement in December from administrators in charge of their employer's liquidation.

Their male coworkers under retirement age had been given the option of early retirement or a redundancy package, as required by government regulations.

The women asked for arbitration from Chengdu Municipal Labor Dispute Arbitration Committee, based in the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

They asked the committee to veto the plant's notice, but their request was rejected.

In March this year, they took the country's constitution with them to the district court, filing a lawsuit alleging sex discrimination.

The court, which started hearing the case in May, ruled that the plant's administrators should take back the notice and offer them the same options they had given male employees.

"The respondent, the plant's liquidation administrators, was not present when the court pronounced its judgment," said Zhang Jing, chief of the court's research office.

The court will send the judgment to the administrators and, if they do not appeal, it will take effect 15 days afterwards.

The official retirement age in China is 55 for women and 60 for men.

(China Daily June 20, 2005)