Circuit Breaker’s been done for a while and I’m sure most of us are happy about that.
Still, it’s only just “phase one” now so don’t get too excited just yet.
The good news is that some have been able to return to work and unfortunately school as well.
However, resuming business doesn’t mean all normalcy has come back.
In fact, some find it worse than before.
Extra Hours
Some people seem to have lost privileges as well.
According to The Straits Times, a manicurist known as Mary, a Malaysian work permit holder, is one such individual.
The 30-year old was initially called back to work, her employer offering her back the same salary as before.
This soon quickly turned to horror when she was told that staff had to return working hours by putting in 50 hours of extra overtime.
Not only that, but her annual leave was cut in half from 14 to 7 days.
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If that isn’t a horror story for the year.
Mary felt that it was unfair that her boss had received help from the government and wasn’t sure how her overtime hours were made up
When asking MOM (Ministry of Manpower) for help, they allegedly stated that her employer’s request was not unreasonable.
A spokesperson said that her employer was merely ‘time-banking’ less than two weeks of unworked hours, which allows employees to be paid now for work to be done later.
“Overall, it appears that Mary would be paid her full basic salary for three months, while the employer has only asked her to consume part of her annual leave entitlement.”
Mary’s job isn’t the only one to do this either.
Many F&B, hotel, retail and manufacturing sectors have also adopted this scheme. As of now, over 120 companies have started to use time-banking.
Labour MP Patrick Tay even states that the scheme can help manage business costs and retain manpower.
“However, this must be implemented fairly. In unionised companies, there are controls put in place for such a practice as it is a negotiated position between union and management.”
Some Feel It Is Unfair
This then brings us to the next part: when would it be considered fair or not to implement this?
MP Lim Biow Chuan felt that time-banking is unfair to the employees.
The welfare of employees has to be taken care of aside from them simply repaying hours.
“It cannot be a free market for unreasonable employment practices.”
Meanwhile, Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Gan Thiam Poh said he has received requests for help from residents who felt they have been unfairly treated by their employers.
He has since referred these cases to MOM, whose pleas mostly come from blue-collar workers.
MOM’s Stance
On MOMs side, though, they claim to have found most employers requests for new measures to be pretty fair.
A lot of these complaints apparently came from poor communication from employers.
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A spokesperson also mentioned that employees need to be engaged and informed how these changes work and why it would help them retain their jobs.
So what do you think about this whole time-banking scenario? Do you think it’s legit, or maybe this needs to be thought through a bit more?
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