Enhancing the Role of the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) to Tackle Workplace and Job Discrimination

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for allowing me to join this Adjournment Motion. I agree with Member Mr Saktiandi Supaat that age discrimination or ageism is an issue we have to watch closely. It should have no place in an aging workforce like ours but unfortunately, it exists and makes our society less inclusive than it should be. However, like he also rightly pointed out, there are no silver bullet solutions.

Based on my ground experience in the Labour Movement, age discrimination can take two forms. First, the intentional variant, employers hire younger workers at the expense of older workers even though they could be equal or even surpass younger worker in capabilities. These employers can be quite artful in rejecting candidates at the pre-hiring stage. When already in employment, they might let go of workers through undeserved performance mark-downs; or making work assignments unduly difficult; or to offer workers a "rock or a hard place" job option at re-employment as a subtle way of signalling "perhaps, you should go". These are the egregious cases where the errant employers must be taken to task.

The second variant is unintentional. For example, preferring younger workers presumably because they have fewer medical problems or a longer career runway. Or allowing unkind age-related remarks to go unaddressed at workplaces. Or some advertisements that are discriminatory without intending to so so. For example, there are some advertisements seeking to hire digital natives. That would clearly exclude me, in my 40s, because I was born in the age of mainframes and typewriters in the 1970s. While I am not a digital native, I can pick up the digital skills to be a digital migrant.

Both of these variants clearly requires quite different approaches. Before we discuss the possible approaches, we must note two issues. The employment rates for our older workers have been trending upwards better than many developed countries. This is good progress and we must persist in this effort. Second, interventions should not result in undue dead-weight compliance costs without over-riding benefits to the older workers. For example, many pieces of legislation introduced overseas have not resulted in tangible benefits. The question is how do we protect workers from age discrimination without unintentionally making them less attractive to hire? How does Singapore continue to be pro-business and pro-worker at the same time?

I will like to offer a couple of suggestions. For the egregious cases where TAFEP and MOM have clear evidence of errant practices, would the Ministry consider publicly naming these companies? I understand the intent of the Fair Consideration Framework is to improve HR practices. But there could be alternatives to finetune the process. For example, the Singapore Police Force publishes the three-year grading for the security agencies annually. The security agencies would therefore work very hard to improve their processes.

Perhaps MOM can publish the egregious ones and publicly track them for a certain period of time. Companies must also know that while we offer second chances, we will also not hesitate to take tougher measures if you are recalcitrant. To paraphrase Lord Hewart CJ, "justice must be done and seen to be done." Our workers must know that we have been standing up for them and justice will be brought to bear on bad employers. And if you have improved, it would also be reflected transparently.

Second, age discrimination is rarely blatant. In fact, evidence are largely based on circumstantial observations. For example, if a company let go of an older worker and subsequently hire a younger one subsequently, three to six months down the road, it is difficult to prove a case of ageism. But that is with a longitudinal analysis of a company's practices that can surface discriminatory hiring or employment practices. Would the Ministry consider doing such studies? I think these studies will also show up companies that had consistently favoured foreign workers over local talent. The Labour Movement will certainly be keen to support such a study.

Third, we need to correct the unintended ageism at the workplace. Many employers hire younger workers simply because they are cheaper, or have higher learning abilities or a longer runway. In fact, this is not true. Learning ability is as much a capability as a skill that is honed over time. And there is no runway to speak of if your younger worker who tends to change job every two to three years. We need to debunk these myths. We cannot legislate away the myths but we can educate. And that is where the tripartism way of improving capabilities of our HR professionals is paramount.

Our goal in building the Singapore workforce is clear – one that is inclusive and built upon a strong Singaporean Core. Confronting ageism and building a strong Singaporean Core must be the aim of all companies and agencies. It need not always be the stick, like Member Mr Saktiandi has said. We must also reward companies for being aligned to the national mission. The Special Employment Credit is an important economic and policy signal that there is value to hiring older workers beyond what is perceived at face value by companies. I encourage the Government to continue to maintain this signal.

I also agree with Member Saktiandi that inclusive and exemplary companies should be rewarded in access to grants and support. Perhaps, the Ministry can also consider granting exemplary companies with administrative green lanes and longer leases perhaps to show Government's commitment to building an inclusive workforce.

The difficulties in building an inclusive workforce with a strong Singaporean Core have multiplied because of rapid economic changes and our ageing workforce. An inclusive workforce can, in fact, be a competitive workforce. No one will doubt that professional team sports are one of the most ruthlessly competitive industries in the world. Yet, many athletes are playing well into their late 30s and 40s now. Some of them are hired specifically for their experience and locker room influence for the younger players. The Chinese have a saying, "上有政策，下有对策“。It roughly translates to, "For every policy, there is a counter move." Therefore, the way ahead is not one necessarily of more legislation. It is one whereby we affirm that every worker matters through trust and true belief amongst workers, employers and the Government. I support the Motion.

Deputy Speaker, I would like to thank Mr Saktiandi and Mr Desmond Choo for speaking about this important issue.

Our over-arching goal is to develop fair and progressive employment practices within the backdrop of a harmonious labour relation.

In labour-constraint Singapore, where we continue to create a surplus of jobs, businesses have a natural incentive to improve the employment practices. However, as the Members noted, some employers may still lag behind with outdated practices.

But let me clear, workplace discrimination, even in small pockets, is simply not acceptable. We must do everything we can to stamp it out.

To this end, MOM and our tripartite partners adopt a multi-pronged approach that actively promotes fair and progressive workplaces, stay vigilant to detect and investigate all forms of workplace discrimination, acts firmly against errant employers while helping them improve.

The tripartite approach is important. It recognises that workplace practices are shaped not by Government only and certainly not through legislation alone, as Mr Sakitiandi acknowledged. Employers and unions all play a critical part.

Our measures include the tripartite standards, the Human Capital Partnerships Programme and the Tripartite Alliance Awards. These publicly recognise companies with fair, responsible and progressive employment practices.

Mr Saktiandi suggested certifying age inclusive companies. The Tripartite Standards on Age-friendly Workplace Practices already does so. This includes not using age as a selection criterion for recruitment and designing jobs and workplaces to be age-friendly.

TAFEP is a tripartite body that: (a) educates employers and workers on the merits of inclusive and progressive practices; (b) issues tripartite guidelines on fair employment practices; and (c) investigate reports of workplace discrimination. The guidelines are unambiguous on workplace discrimination. They state that employers should recruit and select employees on the basis of merit.

To be clear, hiring a younger worker, in itself, may not reflect discrimination. The key to consider employees based on merit without discriminating on any measure, including age, race, gender, religion, marital status, family responsibilities or disability. A younger worker should also be given a chance to prove his merit even if he has less experience. But, more importantly, employers must also give fair consideration to Singaporeans.

When TAFEP finds employers that fail to abide by the guidelines, it works with MOM to take enforcement action, including curtailing work pass privileges.

Over the last three years, MOM has taken enforcement action against about 900 errant employers for such infringements. One example concerns a marine engineering company. Our investigations found that it had rejected 20% of job applications for no reason other than age.

Mr Desmond Choo will be pleased to know that this company had their work pass privileges curtailed. They certainly did not think that TAFEP or MOM were lenient. For six months, they had to deal with unhappy customers and potential liquidated damages for project delays.

MOM and TAFEP also take the stern action through the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF). The FCF requires employers to fairly consider all jobseekers, in particular, Singaporeans should not be discriminated against.

Under the FCF, employers must advertise on a national Jobsbank before submitting employer pass or employment pass (EP) applications. This is to ensure that these job openings are made public and not only to a close circle of friends. Employers that treat these advertisements as paper exercise or what some say, "wayang" have been uncovered and have been taken to task.

In fact, MOM and TAFEP have been improving the methods to detect and scrutinise suspicious employers.

For example, TAFEP investigated a metal fabrication firm that applied for an EP for an engineer role. The employer required candidates to have a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering but this was not stated in the Jobsbank posting. The employer also disregarded a local candidate who had a Masters Degree in Mechanical and Materials Engineering and provided false information to TAFEP by claiming to have interviewed three other candidates. In fact, they had pre-selected the foreigner and did not interview anyone else. MOM rejected the EP application and debarred the employer from hiring new foreign workers for six months.

MOM also proactively identifies firms with workforce profiles that suggest possible discrimination against Singaporeans, such as having an exceptional share of foreign PMETs compared to the industry peers or an extremely high concentration of a single foreign nationality.

We place such employers on the FCF watchlist and scrutinise their EP applications closely. Since 2016, we have placed about 600 firms across all sectors on the watchlist. A total of 2,300 EP applications have been rejected by MOM or withdrawn by employers. In addition, employers on the FCF watchlist have hired more than 3,800 Singaporean PMETs to date. While MOM clamps down on the EP applications, TAFEP also engages the employers on one-on-one basis to help them improve their HR practices and support local hiring. Of the 600 firms, TAFEP has helped 260 firms to improve and exit the watchlist so far.

We also deal firmly with those who try to play games with us. For example, we have employers on the watchlist who used related entities to apply for EPs to by-pass our controls. For such cases, we curtail the work pass privilege of all their related entities.

Mr Sakitiandi called for the EP policy to be tightened. MOM regularly reviews the EP salary criterion, taking reference from local PMET salaries and a similar experience in seniority. This is to ensure that local PMETs are not disadvantaged based on cost as their salaries go up over time.

To clarity, the minimum salary requirement of $3,600 applies to young graduates with good qualifications. And experienced EP holders in their mid-40s would need to earn much more to qualify compared to a similarly experienced local PMET. So, our last EP salary requirement was adjusted in 2017. As part of our regular process, we will review if it needs to be updated to preserve a level playing field for local PMETs.

Our multi-pronged approach has worked visibly well. Despite the employer tactics that Mr Desmond Choo described, older worker employment has gone up steadily. More older Singaporeans are employed today than ever before – 500,000 today compared to about half, 270,000 just 10 years ago. The unemployment rate for workers aged 50 and above has also been consistently lower than the overall unemployment rate.

FCF watchlist has also raised awareness and shifted employer behaviour. In fact, locals continue to hold the majority of jobs that companies can hire EPs for. But I should also add that our strong stance against favouring foreigners has not gone unnoticed. For example, in a recent global competitiveness ranking by the World Economic Forum, Singapore was ranked 93rd in terms of ease hiring foreign labour. From the view of business leaders, they see far much favourable regimes outside of Singapore. It is an international business hub. Such perceptions carry some costs. If leading global companies think twice about investing in Singapore or rethink their future plans for Singapore, the result could be fewer good jobs for Singaporeans.

So, it is a delicate balancing act. But ultimately, we must also continue to create good jobs and help more Singaporeans access them.

Mr Saktiandi also spoke about capability transfer and called for businesses to step up in localising their workforce to support Singapore's competitiveness and workforce sustainability. MOM supports his call. In fact, MOM introduced the capability transfer programme (CTP) to support companies to transfer global expertise and capabilities to Singaporean workers. The results are encouraging. And since the start of the CTP in 2017, more than 120 companies and 800 local workers are expected to benefit from CTP-supported projects. We will study Mr Saktiandi's suggestion to expand the CTP and including how it can support companies to set localisation targets.

To conclude, workplace discrimination of any kind is unacceptable. In Singapore, the tripartite partners are fully committed to stamping out workplace discrimination altogether. I thank the Member as well as Desmond Choo from NTUC for their support for this Motion. We welcome and look forward to more initiatives in the Labour Movement to tackle workplace discrimination of all forms. We need all hands on that. And as Member Choo mentioned earlier, every worker matters.

Let us also ensure that Singapore remains competitive and redouble our efforts to help more locals access the jobs that are created. Thank you, Deputy Speaker.