During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people had lost their jobs—obviously, this left many with disputes over owed salaries or wrongful dismissals.
Unfortunately, it’s a little hard to resolve a dispute in person when you have safe distancing measures in place.
Luckily, like many things during the pandemic, the mediation process for employment and salary disputes will be going online.
Mediation Process for Employment & Salary Disputes Moving Online by 2023
On Friday (9 July), Senior Minister of State for Health and Manpower Koh Poh Koon announced that employment and salary disputes will be mediated and resolved without the parties having to meet face to face by 2023.
In a Facebook post, Mr Koh said that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is converting the mediation process to an online one so that disputes can be resolved remotely.
This was in response to statistics released by MOM and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM). The statistics, which were released on Friday, showed that more local workers sought help from the authorities for disputes with their employers over owed salaries and wrongful dismissals amid the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
According to TADM, it already had a pilot online dispute resolution process that allows parties to use electronic communication tools to settle their disputes. This process had come in handy during the circuit breaker period, TADM said.
It also added that it will explore using artificial intelligence (AI) to guide parties in resolving disputes. The AI will be a comprehensive online system covering all aspects of the process when it is developed, said TADM. This includes filing complaints and resolving them.
“When disputes have to be escalated, TADM stands ready to help parties reach a fair and amicable settlement,” said Dr Koh.
“We will continue to work with our partners, to digitalise efforts and to further smoothen the process of dispute resolution, particularly given the continued need for safety measures and social distancing,” said the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) assistant secretary-general Patrick Tay in a Facebook post.
Employers Generally Responsible in Treatment of Employees
According to the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), employers were generally “responsible in managing excess manpower during the pandemic”.
That being said, there were some employers whose businesses had failed and did not have the financial means to pay the salaries of their employees, said SNEF.
Speaking in relation to this, SNEF said that in order to help local lower-wage workers whose employers were in such situations, it had contributed $1 million to the Short-Term Relief Fund.
As the Singapore Government had contributed $3 for every dollar SNEF had put in, the Short-Term Relief Fund was boosted by $4 million in total.
In another Facebook post, SNEF said: “Overall, the tripartite approach to try to resolve employment disputes through mediation has resulted in most cases being settled amicably and expeditiously.”
The Statistics Released by MOM & TADM
While more local workers had sought help from authorities in disputes regarding employment and salaries, statistics released by MOM and TADM also showed that employment claims by foreign workers experienced a sharp drop.
As a result, the overall incidence of employment claims was pushed down last year.
According to Lam Yi Young, chief executive of the Singapore Business Federation, last year was challenging for many businesses. Many had to implement cost-cutting measurements like retrenchments, pay cuts, pay freezes and no-pay leave periods.
The slight increase in the incidence of employment claims for local employees last year might have been caused partly by this, said Mr Lam.
“Although the incidence of claims remains low, we urge all employers to continue to treat their employees fairly and prioritise prompt payment of salaries to their employees,” he added.
Vice-president of the Association for Small and Medium Enterprises’ (ASME) awards and special projects department Ms Chew Lee Ching also said that SMEs have been particularly hard-hit.
She noted that some of the claims from local workers could have been from SMEs which were hard-hit.
“In the feedback sessions that ASME holds occasionally, this is a constant issue brought up by SME owners—that business is severely impacted,” said Ms Chew.
Skills upgrading and training will play a big role in companies’ journeys towards recovery, she added.
Ms Chew said: “When the business situation improves, the workers will be in a better position to apply the skills they have learnt and help the companies grow… We will need to look at what new skills we can help our staff and employees to pick up, so that they can stay relevant.”
Featured Image: Miguel Vidal/ Shutterstock.com
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