Wrongful dismissal, owed wages: Employees recover $13m

Employees who made claims for owed salaries or wrongful dismissal between April last year and March this year managed to recover $13 million in total from their employers.

About 93 per cent of the 4,556 employees who made claims fully recovered their salaries or received compensation from their employers. Their cases were resolved at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) and the Employment Claims Tribunals.

This was revealed by the Tripartite Alliance Limited (TAL) yesterday in its annual report for the year ended March 31.

Workers who want to make a wrongful dismissal claim must first undergo mediation with their employers at TADM. If this is unsuccessful, they will be referred to the Employment Claims Tribunals.

In the previous financial year, TADM recovered about $16 million in salaries owed to employees in Singapore, with about 91 per cent of employees who filed claims fully recovering their salaries.

The TAL was set up by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), National Trades Union Congress and Singapore National Employers Federation in 2016. It oversees TADM, the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (Tafep) and the Workplace Safety and Health Council.

TAL chairman Stephen Lee said that, like many organisations, TAL found that its operations were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and it needed to quickly change the way it worked.

He said in the report: "This meant that we had to disrupt some established work processes and find new ways to reach out to our customers."

TAL said it has changed the way it engages employers and employees amid the pandemic.

TADM conducted advisory and mediation services through e-platforms and over the phone, assisting about 18,000 employees, self-employed persons and employers.

MOM also enhanced the Short-Term Relief Fund in April last year. The fund is operated by TADM and provides financial help to lower-income local workers whose employers are unable to pay their salaries due to business failure.

Support was increased from up to one month's salary, capped at $1,000 previously, to up to two months' salary with a cap of $4,600.

The initiative now covers half of the workforce, up from 20 per cent before the enhancement.

Meanwhile, Tafep engaged employers carrying out retrenchments to help them do so in line with tripartite advisories. It also helped to resolve disputes relating to retrenchment benefits.

The unit managed twice the number of complaints, inquiries and instances of feedback in the latest financial year, compared with the previous one.

TAL said the increase could be due to enhancements to the Fair Consideration Framework, which was introduced in 2014 and sets out the requirements for employers here to consider Singaporeans fairly for job opportunities before hiring foreign professionals on Employment Passes and S Passes.

Penalties under the framework were stiffened in January last year and its requirements were expanded last October.

TAL said that issues related to termination, dismissal or retrenchment and human resource policies arising from the Covid-19 situation played a part in the rise in reports and inquiries received by Tafep.

The top three issues handled were fair consideration for Singaporeans (one in three), age (one in eight) and gender (one in 13), similar to the previous year.

Complaints rose from 507 in financial year 2019/2020 to reach a high of 710 in the next financial year, while the number of inquiries nearly tripled from 1,350 to 3,816.

More than 10,000 companies adopted at least one tripartite standard, benefiting more than one million employees, said TAL. "In particular, more employers adopted the tripartite standard on flexible work arrangements following the announcement of the Enhanced Work-Life Grant to sustain the use of these arrangements during and beyond the pandemic."

The grant provides eligible companies with $2,000 for each local worker on flexi-work per year and $3,500 for each local, full-time professional, manager, executive and technician employee on job-sharing arrangements, subject to caps.

The Workplace Safety and Health Council also shifted its engagement efforts online by organising e-forums and webinars that included topics such as safe management measures for businesses.

Nearly 38,000 companies joined the council's bizSafe programme, which aims to help companies build workplace safety and health capabilities.

A former human resource manager of a company in the financial industry alleged that her department head had made inappropriate comments with sexual overtones at a meeting.

Mary (not her real name) filed an internal report but was not given an update.

She approached her MP, appealing for an investigation to be conducted. The MP referred her appeal to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (Tafep), which contacted Mary's company's chief executive.

The CEO and the company's legal counsel investigated the complaint, and the company acknowledged that inappropriate comments were made. It served a warning letter to the department head.

The company subsequently let Tafep review its whistle-blowing and grievance-handling policy, which was found to be robust.

Tafep then asked the company to update the complainant on the outcome of the investigations and actions taken.

Tafep also reiterated the need to communicate clearly and promptly to employees the policies and procedures pertaining to filing of reports and handling grievances.

Mr Rama and his employee, Nancy (not their real names), contacted the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) for help to resolve a dispute.

Nancy had received a bonus of $1,500 after serving the company for eight months and resigned after working for a total of 12 months.

Mr Rama deducted $1,500 from her salary as he claimed Nancy would be entitled to this bonus only if she had completed the full bond period of 16 months.

Nancy, however, pointed out that the employment contract did not state that the company had the right to recover this bonus.

According to the Employment Act, employers may deduct employees' salaries only for specific reasons stated in the Act.

Recovery of the bonus in this situation was not supported by the Act.

Mr Rama accepted the TADM mediator's advice to repay the bonus to Nancy.

A manufacturer of professional audio-visual equipment dismissed 15 employees without paying any retrenchment benefits to them.

Some of the employees filed their cases with TADM for wrongful dismissal and non-payment of retrenchment benefits.

Tafep urged the company to offer a fair retrenchment package to the affected employees.

Although the payment of retrenchment benefits is not mandatory under the law, a company should make such payments based on the prevailing norms of between two weeks' and one month's salary for each year of service, depending on its financial position, said the Tripartite Alliance Limited.

The company said that its business had been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with orders dropping by more than 65 per cent from the previous year.

It eventually agreed to pay retrenchment benefits to eligible employees based on 0.3 month's salary per year of service, with no cap on the number of years of service.