Dear Mr Goh,
Thank you for your invitation to the MOM meeting.
I would be pleased to attend but unfortunately I am unable to get away from the office today so I will have to give the meeting a miss.
Just some points that I would appreciate if you could bring up during the meeting with MOM and TAFEP officers:-
1) There has to be some form of legalities in place to protect employees not covered under the Employment Act. This will deter employers from acting above all laws and bully their employees. Some form of legalities will make it tough for employers to simply just employ, use the expertise of employees, and then conveniently and unfairly terminate the employee. There should be a preventive system rather than reactive measure.
When there are no laws to protect, an employer will not think twice about terminating an employee.
Most times, when unfair termination happens, the employee then has to check and react.
2) In the event that a termination of employment is really necessary, it is the onus of the employer to prove it has done its due diligence in counseling, negotiations, mediation, etc. There should be some record of this eg. appraisals, notes of discussions to prove that the employer has been fair and it is really the employee who is not willing to perform. No employer should terminate an employee without proving its case.
3) The only recourse that an employee who has been unfairly terminated is to sue the employer. In a society and small country like Singapore, anybody who has lost a job, no matter how highly paid he has been or how much buffer savings he has, the first priority will always be securing another job for survival’s sake. To have to get into a lawsuit may affect his potential employment opportunities and it can also be very costly.
Why should an employee who has been unfairly terminated already, going through a roller coaster of emotions, and worrying about bread and butter issues, go through the pressure of a legal suit for justice sake? Shouldn’t the law protect and prevent this mayhew from happening?
4) There is no protection for employees not covered under the Employment Act, right down to payment of salary in the event of resignation/termination. Shouldn’t part of the Employment Act like payment of salary covers ALL employees?
Thanks for all your efforts in speaking up for PMETs.
Regds,
Alicia
Editor’s Note: The writer has another article posted here Lady PMET felt unjustified with wrongful dismissal and have nowhere to turn to for assistance. The writer is now gainfully employed but wish that we have protection protection for our PMETs. Transitioning.org has been seeing at least one case of unfair dismissal a week during these few months and is alarmed at the lack of protection here for our executives. We are monitoring the situation closely and this matter has been feedbacked in detail to TAFEP and MOM during our bi-annual discussion. Do write in to me at gilbert@transitioning.org if you have faced unfair dismissal before. We want to hear from you. Don’t take unfair dismissal lying low – we need to expose the culprits!
Hi Gilbert,
How was the meeting? Were the MOM & TAFEP officials sincere in implementing some policy changes?
I have just thought of 2 issues for those officials.
1) I am sure many of the jobless were very fustrated when they kept on applying for jobs or went for interviews without getting any response.
The problem was that many companies would keep on advertising for the same position repeatedly without giving you a chance to try it out.
They would always choose the “cheapest” person who is willing to work for them. Although you are willing to take a reasonable pay cut, they are not willing to negotiate with you. They would rather advertise for the “cheapest” person again.
I have met a boss of a small company who complained to me that he couldn’t find locals/ PRs after advertising many times. He had hit the quota for foreigners and MOM refused to budge on the tightening of the inflow of foreigners. But the pay he quoted me was very low. He asked me to wait for news and went to advertise again.
The issue is that either we settle for a very lowly-paid job or get no job. I think many of us can take a reasonable pay cut for survival, but many employers still won’t budge on finding the “cheapest” worker, even for big companies.
2) Many companies in both the public and private sectors always recruit temp/ contract workers. After a few months, they would terminate you without any reasons. This would inevitably reflect “badly” in the resume. Many employers would question your loyalty, but it was not your fault when you were asked to go.
Many of the jobless would do such temp/ contract jobs to survive, hoping to be converted to perm eventually. But not all were lucky enough. Some were asked to go when the peak period was over. And it was a vicious cycle of being in and out of jobs.
Hope that you can bring up the above issues the next time you meet them again.
Many companies regardless SME or MNC are facing manpower crunch. So what would they do to solve manpower crunch?
Actually, there is no lack of workers if the employers are willing to pay you a “reasonable” salary close to your last drawn pay. They rather advertise repeatedly for months to find the “cheapest” person for the position.
Many advertisements in the Classified are repeated and there is an unspoken rule that you can’t apply again within 6 months.
In the meantime, they will just ask the other workers to do OT daily to cover for the vacancy. They may be overworked, but they may not complain as having a job is better than none.
Some companies will adjust the salary package to attract more jobseekers but many will not.
Some interviewers will ask the jobseeker who applied for other position (usually PME positions) to consider taking up those positions (usually nonPME positions) with less applicants or low salary. The interviewers will firstly condemn the jobseeker that he/she doesn’t has the relevant experience or experience not enough but they are willing to give him/her a chance to learn & grow with the company.
Some interviewers are willing to hire the jobseeker for the position he/she applied for but they will firstly condemn jobseeker doesn’t has the relevant experience or experience not enough & then ask the jobseeker to accept a lower salary much lesser than he/she asked for.
These companies mgmt & interviewers are playing some dirty psychological mindgames with jobseekers.
In the name of learning, the jobseeker who turned company staff will be ask to do a lot of work by the mgmt. All chores will be throw to him/her. The staff usually won’t stay long on the job due to heavy workload, low salary & stressful working condition etc. When the staff can’t finish the work or complained or resigned. The mgmt will condemn the staff useless & ungrateful.
Turnover rate in these companies are high but they would still insist not to adjust salary package. Yes, they would rather advertised repeatedly for months or years to find the “cheapest” persons for the positions. Advertising fees must be cheap for them. Company reputation & image must be not important to them too.
It is a very sad truth that employers focus on recruiting the “cheapest” person instead of the person of “best fit” who can integrate well with the others in a company.
Even if their image is tarnished, it wouldn’t matter much to them. Their operations can still go on as normal with less people doing more work. Turnover rate can be high everywhere with increasing work stress, but it is usually the “old” ones who will stay on because having some money is better than none.
The main issue here is that even with the tightening of foreigners, the jobless still have difficulties landing a job close to their last job’s pay. Our savings cannot last forever and we are deemed unproductive.
Usually, the jobless may accept a lowly-paid job just for survival. But the mindset of the employers won’t change. Even the Malaysians will find the pay too low and quit now. Maybe only the Filipinos or Chinese nationals will take up such jobs.
Regarding temp or contract jobs, please don’t be naive. When companies advertise for such jobs, they REALLY MEAN TEMP & CONTRACT. Only at most 1% of companies will seriously consider converting good performers to permanent staff.
S’pore is about the only developed country whereby it is the widespread practice and LEGAL to employ temp & contract WITHOUT BENEFITS and often on UNCONSCIONABLE LOW PAY. Often the pay can be just 50% of a permanent staff, even though the temp or contract staff is doing the same type of work and responsibility.
S’pore govt is basically allowing exploitation of its citizens, in the name of being pro-business and growing GDP. Frankly you deserve it for always voting for PAP and their policies.
Many temp, contract & freelance workers are also victims of exploitation. They are paid little with not much or no company benefits. Some companies also refused to pay cpf contribution for them.
When i was working as a associate trainer (freelance) for ntuc learning hub. Associate trainers are not consider as part of their manpower headcount. The ntuc learning hub also refused to pay cpf contribution for trainers. Needless to say about company benefits.
That’s why recently all the unions & workers were on strikes in protests against the temp, contract & outsourcing activities carried out by the companies over there. The indonesia court’s passed verdict in favour to the unions & workers.
Its the real world….theres no more welfare out there. You need to take care of yourself first.
I have never voted for PAP in my life!! Don’t make baseless assumptions!!
When you are jobless, you will just “grab” any job regardless of whether it is temp/ contract/ freelance. Having a little income is better than none and we shouldn’t be penalised for being “not loyal” or ” not committed”. Why the employers are not penalised for saving money by offering such jobs?
There are a few cases of temp converting to perm, depending on your luck and their needs.
It can be disheartening for temps to work hard without any perm job in the end. But the problem is that such jobs provide some income to tide out instead of no income at all.
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The real world out there….”Its who you know, not what you know”. Systems have changed nowadays, people goes for who you know rather than what you know. You can have all the paper qualifications, but eventually the hiring person will employ someone he/she knows (from school/village/country/language).