The issue of unfair dismissal was sort of brought up by Manpower Minister Josephine Teo first.
Basically, she said that there’s a system which automatically discourages employers from firing their current employees to look for new employees to enjoy more support from both the JSS and the Jobs Growth incentive scheme.
Still, that doesn’t stop some companies from doing abusing the system.
What if a boss decides to dismiss you anyway? And you know there’s no valid reason for him to do so other than he dislikes your face.
That’s where this MP came in.
Number Of ‘Wrongful’ Dismissal Claims In S’pore Allegedly Doubled During CB; MP Teaches You How To Deal With It
In a Facebook note published on Friday, 21 Aug 2020, MP Patrick Tay, also Assistant Secretary-General of NTUC, talked about unfair dismissal.
He pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly increased the number of unfair dismissal claims.
In fact, the number of claims for unfair dismissal in April 2020 was double the average from Jan to Apr 2020.
Yes, during the circuit breaker which started from 7 Apr 2020 to 1 June 2020.
In other words, if Jan, Feb and Mar has an average of 20 per month, April alone has 40 of such claims.
What is Unfair Dismissal?
To know whether you are unfairly dismissed or not, you can check out the guidelines here, which the government, employers and unions have all agreed to.
Here’s the TL;DR:
It’s a wrongful dismissal:
- if you’re terminated without a notice period
- if the employer fires you for poor performance but cannot prove your incompetence
- if you’re fired because of discriminatory reasons like age, gender, marital status, etc
- if your employer is letting you go because they don’t want to give you the benefits, like firing pregnant women so the company doesn’t have to pay maternity benefits
- if you’re fired for trying to exercise your employee rights
- if you’re fired for a fake reason (the boss says he’s closing down, then you were on JobStreet the next month and realise he’s still hiring)
Proving Your Words
In cases of dispute, there’s a term called “burden of proof”.
Basically, one of the party is responsible for proving that his allegations are correct, and it varies depending on the case.
For example, if the employer fires you because of poor performance, your former boss must prove that you are incompetent.
That means keeping records, advising you and giving you a chance to redeem yourself. Only after all these are done can you be dismissed without it being wrongful.
If, however, you claim that your boss didn’t fire you, but made it so hard to work that you felt “forced to resign”, then you’ll have to prove your words.
“Redundancy”
Redundancy, which is where a company has more manpower than they need, is a legitimate reason for termination, MP Patrick Tay noted in his post.
However, employees must be given ample notice and employers must prove that they’ve gone through a process before they can retrench anybody.
If not, you might see a repeat of Eagle Services Asia.
Anyone who tries to disguise their retrenchments as terminations for other reasons will also be punished with the withdrawal of support like the JSS and work pass privileges.
What You Should Do If You Suspect You’re Wrongfully Dismissed
If you even suspect that you’re wrongfully dismissed, here are the three steps you might want to take:
- Read through your employment contract
- Read through the guidelines for wrongful dismissals
- Try and resolve with your employers
- file a claim at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) for non-union members
- approach union for help if you are a union member
You can read his full post below
Would you be jailed for being half-naked in public? Well, the answer will shock you. Seriously. Watch this to the end and you'll understand:
