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In February this year, 200 Bangladeshi workers conducted a sit-in over a salary dispute with their employers Sunway Concrete Pte Ltd and TechCom Construction. The workers said then that they made to work till 12 am on busy days, without overtime pay.
More recently, in August, some workers at the Panasonic company protested when they too were cheated of their salaries.
It has come to our knowledge that Yangzijiang International (S) Pte Ltd requires its workers to agree to no overtime pay when the workers work on the weekends. Printed on its “Work Record Card” for its workers, it says:
“I volunteer to work on Sundays, salary being paid as usual as normal working days, without extra compensation.”
Before you think this is illegal, it actually is not. Section 37(2) of the Employment Act states:
An employee who at his own request works for an employer on a rest day shall be paid for that day —
(a) if the period of work does not exceed half his normal hours of work, a sum at the basic rate of pay for half a day’s work;
(b) if the period of work is more than half but does not exceed his normal hours of work, a sum at the basic rate of pay for one day’s work; or
(c) if the period of work exceeds his normal hours of work for one day —
(i) a sum at the basic rate of pay for one day’s work; and
(ii) a sum at the rate of not less than one and a half times his hourly basic rate of pay for each hour or part thereof that the period of work exceeds his normal hours of work for one day."
Simply, if it is the worker who requests to work on his rest day, his employer does not have to pay him up to two days’ worth of salary, as advised in this MOM “Employment Rights of Foreign Workers” advisory:
Hours of Work and Overtime
All work in excess of your contractual working hours shall be considered as overtime work. You can claim overtime pay which is 1½ times your hourly basic pay.
Rest Days
You are entitled to one no-pay rest day each week. However, if your employer asks you to work, you will be paid two days of your basic pay. If you want to work on your rest day and your employer agrees, you will be paid one day of your basic pay.
Public Holidays
For each public holiday that you do not need to work, you will be paid one day of your basic salary. However, if your employer asks you to work on a public holiday, you will be paid two days of your basic salary.
What Yangzijiang seems to be doing is to circumvent the regulations by getting the workers to sign off their work days without the appropriate compensation – with a carefully crafted “Work Report Card.”
As many foreign workers face various restrictive and exploitative situations, they are subject or forced to accept these compensation conditions. It is not improbable that the workers will be pressured to sign onto such conditions, given that if they do not, they could have their work passes cancelled and sent home.
“The Employment act states that a worker who requests to work on a rest day will not be paid double,” explains Mr Jolovan Wham, the executive director of the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME). “Only if the work was requested by the employer that double pay needs to be given. But companies always claim in front of MOM that the workers request to work on rest day when in reality if the workers don't, the employer may deduct their salary or they may be seen as trying to be 'funny' and the employer may give them a hard time.”
Cases of salary disputes, as earlier mentioned, have been in the news in recent times and such disputes can take months and even years to be resolved. Migrant aid groups have been urging the Government to do more in not only settling such disputes quicker but also to implement measures to prevent them in the first place. (Read our report on what some of these measures could be, here and here.)
Without a greater – and more urgent – emphasis and enforcement of such measures, employers such as Yangzijiang will continue to try to circumvent current legislations which, evidently, are not appropriate in protecting the 900,000 migrant workers in Singapore.
The Ministry for Manpower has proposed changes to the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA) and further tightening of the law is expected. However, it should immediately look into companies like Yangzijiang which are attempting to hoodwink the authorities and to exploit the workers.