Racial and Religious Discrimination in Workplace

Thank you, Madam. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) was set up in 2006 to promote fair employment practices. TAFEP released the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices in 2007. Recognising that the key to dealing with discrimination issues is to change employers' mindsets, TAFEP adopts both a promotional and capability building approach in helping employers to adopt the Tripartite Guidelines.

An employee who feels discriminated against can approach TAFEP for assistance. In the last five years, TAFEP has, on average, received less than 80 race-, language- and religion-related discrimination complaints per year against employers. This number has remained fairly stable. When TAFEP engages these employers, the large majority will rectify their employment practices.

Where there is evidence of non-compliance with the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, TAFEP will refer these cases to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) for investigation. In 2014, MOM investigated and took action against nine employers for race, language and religion-related discriminatory employment practices. These employers were issued stern warnings and had their work pass privileges curtailed.

I am happy to note that most employers that have been approached by TAFEP have responded positively and have adopted fair employment practices. Only a small minority are

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referred to MOM for enforcement. This shows that our current approach has worked well.

What was the outcome of MOM's investigation into the recent alleged cases of discrimination that went viral over the social media, in particular, I am referring to the first case of an alleged discrimination against a Chinese-Muslim woman and, the second, an alleged discrimination of a foreign national recruiting his own nationality for a position in the company?

First, let me note that MOM takes a very firm and serious stance against workplace discrimination. There is no place for discrimination at the workplace and we expect all employers to consider and treat employees fairly, complying with the Fair Consideration Framework and the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. MOM, together with TAFEP, will seriously follow-up on every discriminatory case received.

For Ms Heng's case, I understand that TAFEP contacted both Ms Heng as well as the company in question. According to the company, the person who posted the discriminatory post is not one of their employees. In fact, they have actually lodged a Police report to investigate the incident. With regard to the other nationality-based case, I think it is in relation to a Myanmar national. I understand that we are currently looking into the matter.

Let me highlight that given that social media has the potential to amplify a case, it is important that we get our facts right. And let me also assure the House that MOM, together with TAFEP, will continue to work at addressing workplace discrimination. In fact, recently, my Minister has also announced additional measures under the Fair Consideration Framework as well as the National Jobs Bank to address nationality-related discrimination cases, and to build a strong Singapore Core.

I thank the Senior Minister of State for her earlier clarification. Just a couple of things. One, I am surprised that the number of 80 per year, in terms of complaints related to race and religion, is quite low, considering the fact that many Singaporeans and, especially among the minority communities, the Malay and Indian communities who have come forward to raise concerns that there is discrimination that goes on. Does MOM think that this number is a little under-declared, or do you think that it is a barrier for people to come forward to make reports?

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Secondly, specific to the example given by the hon Member Mr Zainal Sapari was the case of Ms Heidi Heng. That is one where it is very difficult to prove in the sense that you do not overtly put up the requirements but, at the same time, at the backend, when they found out she was a Chinese Muslim, but she meets the language criteria – not specific for this case but there are cases which we have heard of – how many of such cases have been reported? And out of the 80 cases that MOM receives a year, how many are actually found to be guilty and what form of recourse does MOM have with regard to race and religious discrimination by employers? Work pass discrimination only works if you are dealing with the nationality-based discrimination. But for religious- and race-based discrimination, what is the recourse taken on such employers and how many of them are found guilty per year for the last five years?

As I have noted earlier in my reply, we believe that the way to tackle workplace discrimination, whether it is age-related or based on nationality, race, language, religion or any other workplace discrimination, fundamentally, you have to change the mindsets of employers. Therefore, we have adopted the promotional approach as well as the capability-building approach but coupled with enforcement by MOM for cases where there is prima facie evidence of discriminatory practices.

As I have also noted, the number of cases over the last five years has actually remained relatively stable at about 80. We encourage anyone who feels that they are victims of discriminatory workplace practices to come forward and inform TAFEP. But when we talk about the promotional and capability-building approach, we are also talking about educating the employers, human resource (HR) practitioners, the supervisors in the companies not to inadvertently practise discrimination at the workplace.

In addition to that, last year, 2014, there were nine cases. As I have said, for the less than 80 cases that come up to us, TAFEP will investigate every case and when there is no evidence, as the Member has noted, it is not easy. It is unlike other employment offences, it is actually not easy to prove discriminatory practices. Therefore, if TAFEP sees that there are gaps in HR practices or gaps in some of the hiring practices, TAFEP will advise and share guidelines with these employers.

In most instances, the employers respond positively. They will either take down or refine the job advertisements. For gaps in HR practices, employers will rectify them. In most cases, they indicate that they are supportive of fair hiring employment practices.

So, for the cases which are unresponsive or recalcitrant, and where there is prima facie evidence of discriminatory practices, they will be referred to MOM for investigation. For last year, we enforced action against the nine companies. Whilst it is true that these are not nationality-based, the fact is that most companies do employ some numbers of foreign

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workers and, therefore, curtailing their work pass privileges is very serious for them. We curtail the work pass privileges for six months and more.

Just a clarification: for the nine cases that were found guilty, what were the measures taken on them? Were they all deprived of work passes or were there other measures taken?

Out of the nine companies, one received a stern warning, which means that they will be on our watch list and eight had their work pass privileges curtailed.