New reports of discrimination in the workplace against persons with Hepatitis B have emerged from China since my last post on this topic. In this new case, a Chinese job applicant filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against cell-phone giant Nokia alleging that a local unit of the Finnish telecommunications equipment company refused to employ him because he is a carrier of the Hepatitis B virus.
Fortunately Nokia is taking the right approach. According to the report,
“Nokia stressed its global policy did not allow hiring decisions to be affected by whether an applicant was suffering from a chronic disease, such as Hepatitis B, unless the condition would render the employee incapable or would pose ‘considerable risk’ to others. ‘We are looking into this case,’ said Thomas Jönsson, director of communications for Nokia China. ‘If a mistake has been committed, we will follow up and take whatever measures are required to correct it.’”
Good corporate social responsibility deserves no less.
