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Written Answer by Mrs Josephine Teo Minister for Manpower to Parliamentary Question on remedies for wrongful dismissal

Employment practices

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1371 OF 2018 FOR THE SITTING ON 1 OCTOBER 2018

QUESTION NO. 2308 FOR WRITTEN ANSWER

MP: Mr Leon Perera

To ask the Minister for Manpower with regard to persons undergoing mediation by the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) for alleged unfair dismissal (a) whether there are remedies other than reinstatement that are provided in the law given that the complainant may prefer other forms of redress instead; and (b) if so, in what proportion of alleged unfair dismissal mediation cases have non-reinstatement remedies been applied in each of the past five years and what have been these remedies.

Answer

  1. The Employment Act empowers the Minister for Manpower to direct an employer to reinstate an employee who has been wrongfully dismissed in his former job and to pay the employee for the loss of income, or direct the employer to compensate the employee.
  2. An average of 200 employees sought assistance for wrongful dismissal each year, in the past 5 years. Following mediation, slightly more than half of the cases came to an amicable settlement with payments to the employee. Another 10% of cases were settled through other mutual agreements between employer and employee such as converting the employee’s dismissal into a resignation or the employer providing the employee with a service testimonial. A further 20% of the cases were withdrawn by the employee. These cases account for about 80% of the cases.
  3. The remaining 20% of the cases were escalated to the Minister for Manpower for a decision. Where an employee is found to have been wrongfully dismissed, compensation is generally preferred to reinstatement at this stage because the employer-employee relationship would have been strained and reinstatement would not be practical. In the last five years, where wrongful dismissal is substantiated, the Minister has ordered compensation instead of reinstatement.