A Chinese job applicant on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against 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.The highly unusual lawsuit underscores moves by Hepatitis B carriers to use legal channels to challenge what they say is endemic discrimination against the estimated 120m Chinese infected by the virus.
Chinese companies routinely refuse to employ people who carry the Hepatitis B virus, even though it is mainly transmitted at birth, through sexual contact or by contaminated needles.
However, the job applicant, who asked to be identified only by his surname, Li, said he had been surprised when the Nokia unit in China’s southern city of Dongguan cancelled plans to hire him after a company-ordered medical examination.
"I thought that as a big company, Nokia would have a better understanding of this issue," Mr Li said. "But they still said that because I was a [Hepatitis B] carrier, they had to reject me."
Mr Li yesterday filed a lawsuit at a Dongguan court calling on it to order Nokia to hire him and to pay Rmb500,000 ($64,540, £33,370, €48,830) in compensation for "mental suffering".
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."
I wonder if Nokia fires HR people via SMS? That would be pretty awesome.