Mustafa Centre Told Staff Staying at Home to Look for New Job But Didn’t Mention About Retrenchment

Time travel back to April 2020 and you might think of Mustafa Centre as the epicentre for the clusters in dormitories: it’s believed that migrant workers have been infected there after visiting the place, and then spreading the coronavirus to various dormitories in Singapore.

The mall closed on 2 April 2020 and reopened with long queues on 6 May, though they changed their operating hours to 9:30am to 11:30pm instead of staying open for 24 hours.

With it selling daily essentials, you’d have thought that it’s become another Sheng Siong, right?

After all, some people travelled all the way to the mall to buy some daily essentials that are only sold there.

Apparently not.

Mustafa Centre Hit Hard by COVID-19

You might’ve forgotten about this: the main visitors to Mustafa Centre are migrant workers and tourists.

Currently, migrant workers living in dormitories can’t hang out anywhere in Singapore. They can only leave their dormitories for the recreational centres (RCs) “in a measured and safe manner” when the infection rates in both the community and dormitories are sustained at lower levels for a long period of time.

In other words, migrant workers can’t head to Mustafa Centre—in fact, they can’t head to any place except their residence and their workplace.

And as for tourists, the only ones you can find in Singapore now are those birds flying over from another country.

In other words, the popular mall is now facing the…crisis of its generation.

Sending Back Its Foreign Workers Who Passes Have Expired & Told Some Staff to Take on Second Job

According to The Straits Times, a manager in the mall has said that business is now just 20% of its pre-COVID-19 days, as both migrant workers and tourists have “disappeared”.

The place was also noticeably quiet on a Sunday, and there’s no need to queue to enter the premises.

The founder and managing director, Mustaq Ahmad, has just sent a letter on 27 August 2020 to all employees of Mustafa group and its related companies.

And it’s…weird.

In it, he said that the business has been affected badly by COVID-19, and therefore has not been able to “recall all our employees to work due to these reasons”.

Those workers who’ve not been called back to work appeared to have been paid $300 a month since June 2020, but that will end on September 2020. He then urged them to “take on a second employment to earn an income.”

According to the letter, he said that they’re working with the unions on various job vacancies that might be available for interested parties.

Are they retrenched or are they not?

Also, “many” employees are apparently on the lookout for other job opportunities, and therefore Mustafa Centre will allow resignation letters without notice period and even give one month’s basic pay “as a token of appreciation”.

For foreign workers, they’re unable to renew the worker passes and will “repatriate them with a return ticket home and a month’s basic pay as a token”.

Now, of course, you’d be wondering: Wait, is this a retrenchment exercise or what?

Those people who’ve not been coming back to work can still be considered on no-pay leave, and not renewing work passes is just…not renewing.

Interesting, no?

Retrenchment During COVID-19 Period

If you know more about how retrenchment works, you’d know that this isn’t a retrenchment exercise.

If not, the headline would be different.

For a start, retrenchment must be the last resort, and by right, according to MOM,
“Employers who are in sound financial position should continue to pay retrenchment benefit according to their existing employment contracts, collective agreements, memoranda of understanding, or the prevailing norms for retrenchment benefit (between 2 weeks and 1 month salary per year of service) stated in the Tripartite Advisory.”

However, if the company is suffering financially, they should “should work with the union or the employees to renegotiate for a fair retrenchment benefit linked to the employee’s years of service.”

If the employer is in severe financial difficulties, employers that are unionised should negotiate with their unions for a mutually acceptable retrenchment benefit package while non-unionised employers should support their retrenched employees by providing a lump sum retrenchment benefit. Instead of linking retrenchment benefit to employees’ years of service, a lump sum of between one and three months of salary could be provided, taking into consideration the JSS pay-outs that employers have received and their financial position.

So, if you’d have realised, in every retrenchment exercise, there should always be some retrenchment benefits even if the company is in severe financial difficulties.

However, do note that the retrenchment benefits are not mandated by law, though MOM “strongly encourages employers to adhere to the advisories, including to provide retrenchment benefit to help affected employees while they search for employment.”

Also, when a company is conducting any retrenchment exercise, they must notify MOM of the retrenchment exercise if the employer has at least 10 employees and retrenches 5 or more employees within any 6-month period.