Magistrates in Moscow fined at least five Russian and foreign companies for posting job vacancies only in English, discovered by «Verstka»*. Administrative charges were brought against the large Russian pharmaceutical company «Veropharm», the shoe store «Intermode», as well as branches of three foreign companies — Johnson&Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, and Haier.
According to court decisions, the companies posted vacancies on the recruitment site HeadHunter. Currently, all vacancies have already been removed.
Protocols on administrative violations were drawn up by employees of the Moscow Department of Labor and Social Protection under the article «dissemination of information about available jobs or vacant positions containing discriminatory information». Officials saw discrimination in the fact that the job descriptions were not duplicated in Russian. In their opinion, this restricts the rights of Russian speakers.
In court, company representatives explained that they did not translate the vacancies into Russian because they wanted to find an employee with foreign language skills. They referred to the fact that Russian laws do not explicitly require the use of the Russian language when posting job vacancies.
However, according to the court, job vacancies in English create a «direct advantage» for applicants who know English and restrict the rights of those who do not know English. The judges also noted that the Russian language is the language of the «state-forming people» and, according to the law on the state language, must be used in communications between legal and physical persons. Subsequently, all five companies were fined 10,000 rubles.
* Recognized in Russia as a «foreign agent».