Proposal to Make Public Data on Complaints of Unfair Employment Practices

13 Assoc Prof Walter Theseira asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry will consider making public the data on complaints of unfair employment practices received by the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) or the Ministry that identify the employer, specific complaint, and action taken; and (b) what considerations the Ministry has in publishing such data or keeping such data confidential.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Mr Zaqy Mohamad) (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, TAFEP already publishes aggregated statistics on complaints of unfair employment practices. TAFEP and MOM received 450 such complaints a year on average between 2015 and 2017. The vast majority of complaints are claims of unfair consideration for Singaporeans or age-discrimination. In investigating these complaints, TAFEP would engage the employers involved and employers are generally cooperative. Most of the complaints arise because employers do not have a proper system to address internal grievances or are insensitive to the different needs and conditions of employees. For the former, TAFEP would help employers improve their internal practices and processes. For the latter, our priority is to resolve such complaints amicably in a way that allows both the employers and the employees to move on from the incidents.

Some complaints result in sanctions. These involve employers who are not cooperative with TAFEP or who are found to adopt unfair employment practices. MOM takes enforcement actions against such employers, including curtailing their work pass privileges.

MOM and TAFEP will consider publicising cases in situations of public interest or where the conduct is egregious, as we have done so in the past. However, while naming all errant employers publicly would serve as a deterrence, there could be unintended consequences such as indirectly identifying the affected employees and breaching their privacy.

To raise public awareness and prevent unfair employment practices, TAFEP develops cases studies from actual cases and educates employers through focused channels such as TAFEP's briefings and workshops to share contextualised learnings from specific cases. Employers can better understand and appreciate the need to adopt fair employment practices through such in-depth discussions.

Mr Speaker: Assoc Prof Walter Theseira.

Assoc Prof Walter Theseira (Nominated Member): Mr Speaker, I thank the Minister of State for his response. I think the concern here among the public is whether there is effective action taken when they make a complaint on discrimination. Of course, I understand the Ministry and TAFEP are doing all they can on this matter. But I suppose when many employers are not named specifically, when only case studies are made, perhaps the most erroneous are named, then perhaps, there may be the perception amongst discriminated against parties that not much is being done by the Government on this front. So, I would appreciate if the Minister of State could reconsider this policy of not naming, in general, employers in cases.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: I thank the Member for his supplementary question. One thing that I wish to assure the Member and Singaporeans in general about is that TAFEP will assess every complaint that comes in, especially those that are based on facts, and certainly, where you have a formal complaint where the employee also identifies himself, puts a specific complaint on the employer. We will listen to both sides, the employer as well as the employee. In fact, to assure you that action has been taken, from 2013 to 2017, MOM investigated, and we took action against 521 companies for discriminatory employment practices. Among the 521 companies, 300 or 58% received warnings, and 221 or 42% had their work pass privileges curtailed.

So, to certain sense, you can see from the number of complaints and the number of companies that we have taken action against, it is quite substantive. So, to a certain sense, you can see that there is action being taken. And certainly, we have to be fair to both employees and employers to make sure that the cases are dealt with fairly.

Mr Speaker: Mr Saktiandi Suppat.

Mr Saktiandi Supaat (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Thank you, Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of State a follow-up question with regards to the first question. Since the inception of TAFEP, as the number of complaints, in terms of discriminatory practices or in addition to that, increased over time? Can you share the general trend of the number of complaints since the inception of TAFEP?

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: The Member's question relates to publicity so I do not have the statistics from the time TAFEP was conceived. But as stated in my earlier reply, there has been 450 complaints a year on average between 2015 and 2017. So, that is the number we got.

Mr Speaker: Mr Patrick Tay.

Mr Patrick Tay Teck Guan (West Coast): I thank the Minister of State. I just wanted to give a suggestion. As TAFEP flags out annually that kind of complaints it receives, whether it is possible to outline it. If you cannot pinpoint company and name a company, perhaps, the type of companies, that is, the sectors, the nature of the complaints, what kinds of discriminatory practices or unfair practices and as well as the size of the company.

Mr Zaqy Mohamad: I thank the Member for his question. Mr Speaker, as I had mentioned earlier, we do share with companies in general some of the cases and contextualise. And, in certain cases where the situation can be egregious, we actually name companies. So, we are not shy from naming companies. But to name every single one, well, there are different considerations. One, there is different levels of egregiousness. Second one, you may end up breaching the privacy of the employers especially if it is just one targeted. So, we have to be quite careful about the kind of cases we put up. But generally, we do contextualise and put up case studies for other companies. But certainly, we consider the Member's suggestion.