No More Apathy

It's really hard to push my brain off the couch sometimes and get all hyped up about anything in particular and this one issue has taken years for me to take any interest at all in.

But it's getting increasingly hard to ignore.

Why don't employees in Singapore have real rights? Everyone knows about the Employment Act of course, but have they looked closely at the definition of "employee"? It excludes individuals who are employed in a managerial, executive or confidential position. Does that pretty much exclude everyone in your office, except for the pantry lady? So yes, it's a nice piece of legislation, but does it apply to you? *evil laughter*

If it does not apply to you, then what employment laws apply to you? *evil laughter*

What is your assurance that if you do your job well, you can't be pushed out on the street tomorrow? What is your assurance that, once you announce to your employer that you just got pregnant, you can't be asked to leave? Are you just like everyone else - you think your job is now protected, and you can get your job back when you return? *evil laughter*

Are you just like everyone else who thinks that you are entitled to redundancy pay if you have worked with an employer for more than 3 years? You think that you are entitled to 1 month's salary for every year of employment? Entitled? *evil laughter*

The legislative reasoning is that more MNCs will set up shop in Singapore if we have employer-friendly laws. But here is a factoid for you. When MNCs send through questionnaires to law firms asking about employment and other laws in Singapore, nobody ever asks about redundancy pay.

And when they want to ask people to leave and instruct lawyers to assist, they all think they need to pay redundancy pay.

And when we tell them that they don't need to pay redundancy pay, they are not exactly jumping up and down with joy at the savings. Because what they thought they had to pay - that's not really very much money anyway. It's like when you clean out the back of your couch and find some change.

We are in Asia. Near Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand where employers get reamed when they terminate employment of employees. Everyone else has much more stringent employment laws that protect employees. We don't need to bend over backwards like this.