Woman retrenched in favour of foreign talent, MOM says it can't help
On 6 March, activist Gilbert Goh shared on his Facebook page an email he received from a woman named Laura who was retrenched, having lost her job to a foreigner. He also shared three images showing the email Laura sent to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) regarding her ‘wrongful dismissal’.Laura, who is in her 40s, noted first that she can only talk about this matter now that she’s finally received her severance payout and that both MOM and the Tripartite Alliance for Fair & Progressive Employment (TAFEP) told her that they wouldn’t be able to safeguard her payout if she decided to make the story public sooner.In her email to Mr Goh, Laura said, “I've seen the government promoting discrimination against locals and safeguarding the jobs of local PMETs recently but I would like to shed a totally different light despite what the government has claimed based on my personal experience.”Laura, who used to earn a five-figure salary described herself as “just another local PMET [professionals, managers, executives and technicians] who was retrenched recently from an MNC and being displaced by an FT [foreign talent] who is not any cheaper if not more expensive than me.”She went on to point out that the multinational company (MNC) she worked for would also have to pay the FT’s relocation cost of maybe S$20,000 to S$30,000 which she says is “probably funded by my bonus since I'm probably going to get peanuts if not nothing.”Laura added that the company told her that “roles have combined” and that they think the FT is “more suitable”.She described how she was told out of the blue that she was underperforming even though her past appraisals did not indicate that at all.She wrote, “I was simply told I had "suddenly" underperformed and after appraising, the FT is more suitable for the new role. Nothing whatsoever was documented throughout the year to indicate any underperformance on my part.”TOC reached out to Laura who told us that she was informed in January this year by her employer that she has underperformed for the year 2019. She said, “The FT hiring manager was recently relocated to Singapore from [Hong Kong] and shortly after, he informed me that though my BAU (business as usual) is solid, I had failed to value add.”However, Laura noted that this manager did not elaborate nor give specific examples of value-adding, simply saying that he expected her to do more than her BAU.Aggrieved, Laura slammed the MNC for not having a proper performance appraisal system and for “simply telling people at end of the year that sorry you have underperformed, out you go.”When asked about her previous appraisal, Laura explained that the appraisal in early 2019 for her 2018 performance was good, having received an “Achieved” rating which she says is equivalent to about 2 months’ bonus. The only bad appraisal was the most recent one.In a follow-up interview with Laura, she told Mr Goh that redundancy was not an issue for her as she was made redundant in her previous job in an MNC. What she felt was unfair this time is how her company handled the process.Laura said, “I was told I had to go because my role had combined with a lady from HK and she will be relocating from HK to SG to replace me. I asked if he had considered me for that combined role and he said he had appraised and think the HK lady is more suitable.”
