This letter appears in the Online Forum of the Straits Times on 24 May 2010.
I refer to the letter entitled “Less than 3% of private firms cut older worker’s wages” (ST 20 May) sent in jointly by the Singapore National Employer’s Federation, Ministry of Manpower and the National Trades Union Congress.
Employers in Singapore have the flexibility to terminate an older worker for a variety of reasons, including restructuring and outsourcing. This has been practiced quite often in the private and public sectors. There is little need for them to keep workers until age 60 to have their wages reduced under the Retirement Age Act. This probably account for the low percentage of employers exercising this wage cut.
I cite the case of a friend who has worked for 11 years in regional business development for a local insurance company. He was rated as a good performer by the previous management. Recently, with a change of top management, he was asked to leave and was offered a compensation of only 3 months of salary.
He asked for my assistance on how to make an appeal to the Ministry of Manpower, as he still has a family and an sick elderly mother to support.
I hope that our tripartite partners will recognise this type of difficulty faced by many Singaporeans. The current employment practices offer little protection to workers, especially those at the older wages, when the top management outsource the work to contractors to reduce their cost or replace senior people with their own buddies.
It is time for Singapore to consider a minimum wage so that the wages of our worker do not continue to stagnate due to outsourcing to contractors who can employ foreign workers at lower cost. There is also a need to set a certain level of retrenchment benefit for all workers, including managers, to protect them against being replaced for reasons that are not related to bad performance.
Tan Kin Lian
Fate of Older workers lost in the employment wilderness!
ReplyDeleteWith pay cuts for older workers and higher cost of living
Better let them have an option to retire in peace!
We all have the option of change once every 5 years.
ReplyDeleteThe older workers deserve their fate. They brought this upon themselves through their choices.
Let them go seek help from the MPs they voted in. Stop looking for help here.
The older PMETs are worse. They are forgoten by the society, and were passed "sarcartic remarks" by the younger ones when they apply for jobs.
ReplyDeleteNot only must they impose a minimum wage, they must also reduce the cost of living to be the same as other countries. This will make us competitive with other countries.
ReplyDeleteIf there is a minimum wage imposed, companies may simply move overseas to reduce cost and everyone will loose their jobs.
Reply to anonymous @ 8:17am
ReplyDeleteWage is only a component of the total business cost in any country.
For illustration purpose, let us assume that a company's total annual cost for wage and taxes are $2 million and $4 million respectively. If a minimum wage is set which increases the company's wage cost to $2.5 million but at the same time the government reduce the company taxes to $3.5 million, we can see that the total cost remains the same at $6 million. With a minimum wage the take home pay for the workers have increased and they will be able to spend more.
I believe a minimum wage scheme is workable. The question is whether this government is willing to implement it with the same determination as how they go about raising their own out of this world salary in 2007.
Merlion
Insensitive and unprofessional HR personnel (including those from recruitment agencies) also add to the woes of job seekers. They lack compassion and understanding (when those unemployed need it most). I personally know a HR Executive who wears funky eyewears and dresses in loud and bright colors in the office. She looks more like a professional clown to me than a professional HR Recruit.
ReplyDeleteI do agree. And other comments could be found in my blog in support of this topic on unfair employment practices affecting both older workers and PMETs.
ReplyDeleteLink to my blog :-
http://de-leviathan.blogspot.com/2010/05/little-protection-for-older-workers.html
I suspect that this is the same insurance company I used to work in recently. If it is so, then makes me even more happy to have keng'ed and skived in my last 2 months there, while collecting basic pay and waiting to be fired.
ReplyDeleteI totally lost faith in this company in just 4 weeks on the job when I discovered it is just BS and conning people to buy expensive wholelife and endowment. Everyday is all about API, AFYC and WPI to make the so-called managers look good. But I just tahan'ed to cross over the 1-year mark so don't have to pay the highly-inflated training cost.
Spent the last 2 months just clocking-in and out. In between, spend the hours just hanging out, talk cock sing song, surf internet, drink free coffee and milo (I even bring thermos flask to whack the free office milo, that's how cheapo I was). Go to nearby library and read financial mags and trade forex on my netbook using the free wi-fi.
I didn't even bother to do a "resignation" --- was happy to be fired -- churn the monthly salary and still get 1 month salary in-lieu. Coz I was mentally prepared to write-off this 14 months as there wasn't any value-add in the first place. I just say I was in private tuition.
And when the axe came, I made sure I knew thru the grapevine. I didn't even bother to report to HR as the supervisor ordered. A previous colleague was given immediate firing and when he reported to HR, there were 3 security guards waiting to escort him out of the building in front of other staff and even customers as well.
I simply went to the dept's admin clerk and threw over the staff pass. And when I handed over the staff pass, I video'ed the process as I didn't want the admin staff to sabo me by saying I didn't hand it in. The company subsequently mailed the termination letter to me, but only after some nasty SMS and email (I refused to engage them verbally -- everything must be recorded).
@ Merlion
ReplyDeleteThe MINIMUM WAGES for the ministers were already way out of this world since GCT's time, not 2007! They basically double it in 2007 based on the ridiculous benchmarks they invented for themselves. Instead of benchmarking against the other world leaders, they tied their pay level to some richest guys in the country.
Even young graduates also so hard to find jobs, not to mention te older PMETs.
ReplyDeleteBut the cost of living is so high.