Louis asked the Minister for Manpower whether his Ministry will consider setting up a grant that companies can apply for to partially offset their cost of hiring one temporary staff member for each female employee entering their second trimester of pregnancy until their employee's child turns two years old.

Mrs Josephine Teo (for the Minister for Manpower): Mr Speaker, to make our workplaces more family-friendly, employers, supervisors and co-workers should support working mothers during pregnancy and parenthood. As the requirements of each company and needs of the workers may differ, we do not prescribe how the support should be provided. One main way is through Flexible Work Arrangements (FWAs). To encourage companies to implement FWAs, we provide the Work-Life Grant of up to $160,000 over four years per company. 

Louis: Mr Speaker, I thank the Second Minister for the reply. A lot of our focus is on providing support during the maternity leave period. I am just wondering whether we can provide more support before and after. Secondly, in a lot of the dialogue sessions that I have, the feedback is really about this kind of discrimination at the workplace. So, I wonder if MOM can conduct a study into this so that we can come up with some solutions and recommendations. 

Mrs Josephine Teo: Mr Speaker, Mr Louis Ng's comment brought to mind two instances that I encountered not too long ago. One was the case of a food services company, a very well-known company that has got a significant presence in Singapore and quite a lot of employees. The person whom I met from this company is, in fact, someone who is on a Term Contract. Why is this person on a Term Contract? She is providing relief for the duties of a permanent, regular employee who is with child and is unable to handle all of the work at the same time and so, needs a little bit of support. What this company has done is to bring on board this Term Contract employee so as to allow the pregnant employee to have a greater ability to cope with the twin challenges of work and also the pregnancy. That is one example.

Another example that I came across was an accounting services firm. This is not a very big firm. It provides accounting and corporate secretarial services. The nature of the work is such that, actually, they have got significant representation of women in their workforce. The owners of this practice are themselves very family-friendly. They wanted to be able to support their employees. But they did find that in their circumstance, the continued interaction with the customers is very important. In fact, even if they were to bring on-board someone to relieve the duties or to help this person carry out the work, it does not quite satisfy the customers.

So, they were creative and they found an alternative solution. They took advantage of the Work-Life Grant and they put in place a system that is known as the double robotics technology. What this equipment allows the company to do is to bring the clients to the office, and even though the staff is working from home, they are actually able to interact with each other, speak, look at each other's facial expressions, talk about the project that is being worked on and how to move forward, and they can do so using technology.

The point that I am trying to highlight is that actually there are very many different needs of companies that we cannot predict in advance, and we have to leave it to the companies to specify and to design interventions that work for them. This is the reason when we draw up the Work-Life Grant, we make it quite broad. We do not overly prescribe, we do not say you must do only this or do that, we tell them the grant is available to them, they put up a proposal and we will take a look. If it seems to make sense to what they are hoping that it would achieve for their employees as well as for their business, then we would like to be able to support it.

I would also like to share with Mr Ng that since the Work-Life Grant was launched, we have had well over a thousand companies who have signed up. They are making good progress.

Louis: I would like to ask the Minister on the second point of the study, because, really, during the dialogue sessions, a lot of people are raising that this form of discrimination does happen at the workplace. In fact, this Parliamentary Question is filed on behalf of one of the working mothers who was pregnant and faced this discrimination. So, I am just wondering whether we can launch a study about this, so that again, we can find what is happening on the ground and come up with some solutions. 

Mrs Josephine Teo: If there is a party that would like to get involved in the study, MOM is happy to work with this party to see how we can support it.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis delivered the following budget cut on Maternity Protection at Committee of Supply 2018:

Louis: Sir, there is no job protection after a mother returns from maternity leave. Mothers have experienced being treated harshly or assessed unfairly at work due to their pregnancy, and some have been dismissed subsequently upon their return from maternity leave.

In the UK, it is unfair dismissal and maternity discrimination if an employer does not allow an employee to return to the same job after maternity leave. The ILO Convention on Maternity Protection sets the international standard in guaranteeing a woman's right to return to the same position or an equivalent position paid at the same rate at the end of her maternity leave.

Can the Ministry enhance protections for mothers by giving employees the right to return to their job and prohibit any termination during an employee's pregnancy, maternity leave as well as three months after returning to work from her maternity leave?

Mrs Josephine Teo (The Second Minister for Manpower): All core employee benefits in EA, including annual leave, paid public holidays, paid sick leave and paid hospitalisation leave and other protection, such as timely payment of salary, maternity protection and childcare leave, statutory protection against wrongful dismissal and the right to preserve existing terms and conditions for employment transfer resulting from sale of business and business restructuring, all these will now be extended to all employees. And this will cover an additional 430,000 PMEs.

Louis: Chairman, I have three clarifications. First with regards to my cut on Maternity Protection, can I ask whether Singapore will consider ratifying the ILO Convention on Maternity Protection?

Mrs Josephine Teo: Mr Chairman, to the question on Maternity Protection, our women should feel secure that they can remain in work even when they get pregnant. Our laws provide sufficient protection against dismissal during pregnancy as well as Maternity Leave. We do get referrals to look into cases and we will take the errant employers to task. If Mr Louis Ng is aware of specific cases, we will certainly look into them.

It does not always require for us to sign on the ILO's Convention. We are party to the declaration that the ILO has and we have very long standing partnership with the ILO. But all of the ILO Conventions are very binary in nature. You sign on to one Convention you must accept every single clause that is specified in the Convention. The difficulty is that, sometimes, we are party to other treaties or agreements that would make it very difficult for us to adhere so strictly to all of the items specified. As a country that values very strongly our commitment whenever we sign on these international conventions, we do not take them lightly.

But let me assure the Member that the laws in Singapore already provide adequate protection to women who become pregnant as well as when they are on Maternity Leave.  

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

As part of his bill speech for Employment (Amendment) Bill, Louis spoke up on maternity protection as follow:

Louis: Section 14(1) is intended to protect employees against unfair dismissal by allowing an employee to lodge a claim with the Employment Claims Tribunal where he has been dismissed without just cause or excuse. However, there is no definition of what constitutes dismissal without just cause or excuse. Without clear definition, the protection against unfair dismissal may be ineffective because instances of unfair dismissals are often not clear cut and can be easily disguised.

Civil Society group has documented examples of such stories. In one case, a mother was told to leave when she returned from her maternity leave as the company had carried out a retrenchment exercise while she was away. However, she also reported being "nitpicked" and "mentally abused" by her superior while she was pregnant, and strongly suspected that the superior took the retrenchment exercise as a chance to "get rid" of her.

In another case, a pregnant lady was dismissed shortly after returning from hospitalisation leave for severe morning sickness. While poor work performance was cited for the reason of the dismissal, the company did not seem to have a problem with her work performance prior to her pregnancy, even praising her for being an exemplary role model. The odd actions of her employers such as locking her out of her work email account which she could only access using a temporary password and hiring a new person whose job scope and job title were similar to hers, only occurred after she returned from hospitalisation.

The hospitalisation and one incident of lateness to work, which were both caused by her pregnancy, seemed to have escalated into her dismissal. In a disability discrimination case, a stroke survivor with mobility issues was dismissed after a colleague had reported witnessing the individual slipping and falling on the way to the toilet. 

Can the Minister provide examples of unfair dismissals? Would the Minister further consider providing clear definitions of what constitute dismissal without just cause or excuse under subsidiary legislation or as guidelines? Can such regulations or guidelines also include specific forms of discrimination on the basis of gender or disability? This would clarify for employees their rights on discriminatory dismissals and assist the Employment Claims Tribunal in adjudicating unfair dismissal claims. 

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): Wrongful dismissals and the compensation framework. Mr Louis Ng and Mr Dennis Tan asked for clarification on what constitutes dismissal without just cause or excuse. Assoc Prof Daniel Goh asked how the Tripartite Guidelines on Wrongful Dismissal and factors for determining compensation amounts will interact with the adjudication work of the ECT.

The dismissal is without just or sufficient cause if it was on grounds such as discrimination, denial of statutory benefits, and with the intent to punish the employees for exercising his rights. Dismissal because of poor performance, misconduct and redundancy are not considered wrongful.

As I mentioned earlier, wrongful dismissal is not a new provision in the EA and there are many cases we can draw reference from. MOM will publish a set of Tripartite Guidelines on Wrongful Dismissal which the ECT must take into account. It would not be possible to define all scenarios of what constitutes wrongful dismissal and what does not. Instead, a more feasible approach is to use illustrations and set out principles and parameters that the ECT must take into account when adjudicating cases.

An example of what constitutes wrongful dismissal is if an employer dismisses an employee to punish him or her for exercising a right, such as submitting a mediation request to MOM or reporting the company to MOM for an Employment Act offence, even though he or she has performed satisfactorily at work.

In the case reported by Dr Intan where the employee felt that she had been forced to resign, a claim can still be lodged with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management. If unresolved through mediation, the case can be escalated to the ECT and the same applies to persons who believe they had been dismissed due to discrimination.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Government has conducted a study on the gender pay gap in Singapore using fixed parameters of occupation and years of service; and (b) if so, what are the results of the study and, if not, whether it intends to conduct such a study.

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): Differences in pay can be a result of many factors. As women are more likely to exit the workforce, or have intermittent patterns of work due to childcare or elder care-giving responsibilities, these factors could affect their pay rather than gender per se.  

MOM is carrying out further analysis on pay differences between men and women to control for other factors such as educational qualifications and years in service. More findings will be shared when ready.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis asked the Minister for Manpower what are the top three factors that have led to the improvement in the gender pay gap in Singapore over the past decade.

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is currently carrying out further analysis on the factors affecting pay differences between men and women.

From our preliminary findings, three main factors have contributed to the narrowing of pay differences. First, the employment rate of women in prime-working ages has risen; they tend to be better educated and earned higher wages than older women. Second, women have moved out of lower-skilled industries more quickly than men. Third, greater access to flexible work arrangements has enabled more women to continue working and maintain their career advancement.

More findings will be shared towards the end of 2019.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will consider introducing a Tripartite Standard on Gender-Equal Workplace Practices that requires companies to adopt practices such as regular audits of employee wages to ensure gender parity and adequate female representation in key leadership positions.

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): MOM has continually adopted policies to encourage fair employment practices that support men and women in our diverse workforce. While well-intended, instituting a Tripartite Standard on Gender-Equal Workplace Practices may not lead to the desired outcomes of gender wage parity or greater representation of females in key leadership positions. Instead, there may be some unintended consequences.

For instance, audits of gender pay gaps may lead to firms hesitating to employ lower-wage women as they try to avoid widening gender pay gaps. This could then restrict opportunities for many women in rank and file jobs. Rather than impose a Standard, we need to address the underlying reasons for gender pay gaps and low female representation in leadership roles. One of the root causes lies in current social norms or gender roles. In Asian families, women typically take on the primary role of caring for their children and elderly persons. This affects the amount of time women can spend at work and the extent of their work experience, and hence it impacts their career progression and earnings.

Therefore, our policies aim to achieve a more balanced share of caregiving responsibilities by men and women. To reach this goal, we spur the adoption of flexible working arrangements, or FWAs, through the Tripartite Standard on FWAs and Work-Life Grant so that they can better manage their work responsibilities and at the same time fulfil family and personal aspirations. With FWAs, women are better supported to remain in the workforce, gain work experience, earn higher wages and assume leadership roles.

In addition, to increase the board representation of women, the Council for Board Diversity, started by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), actively engages Chairpersons and Board Members of private and public sector organisations to encourage the appointment of women candidates. 

We have seen encouraging results thus far. Singapore’s adjusted gender pay gap narrowed from 8.8% in 2002 to 6% in 2018. Our women's participation on the boards of the top 100 listed companies increased from 15.2% in 2018 to 16.2% last year.

As a society, adjusting social norms can also help men and women achieve greater parity in their roles at home and at work, which is key to reaching greater wage parity and more female representation in key leadership roles.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

(Supplementary Question) Louis: Thank you, Sir. I have a question for with regard to the declaration of last drawn salary. I understand that California has banned this, I think in January 2018. In a study that was published in April 2020, it showed that this ban led to a reduction in the gender wage gap in in that state. So, could I ask whether MOM has studied the extent to which this declaration of last drawn salary contributes to the gender wage gap here in Singapore?

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): Not specifically, Mr Speaker. That is my answer to Mr Ng. Although, I think there are many other contributing factors that are more prominent. We have many priorities. We have a lot of things on our plate. Useful studies, we will take a look at them. But it will not be realistic to chase down every study. We have to just be circumspect about which are the avenues that are worth pursuing.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Application for Government Paid Childcare Leave Scheme Broken Down by Gender of Employees

Louis asked the Minister for Social and Family Development for each year in the past five years under the Government-Paid Childcare Leave (GPCL) Scheme, what is the median number of days of childcare leave taken per year by (i) female employees and (ii) male employees respectively.

Mr Masagos Zulkifli B M M (MSF): Employees with Singapore Citizen children below seven years of age are entitled to six days of paid childcare leave per year under the Government-Paid Childcare Leave Scheme. Employers are responsible for the first three days of leave, while the Government reimburses employers for the fourth to sixth day of leave taken.

Employers are not required to submit information on employees who take only one to three days of leave, to avoid burdening employers and employees with excessive data submission. Hence, we only have information when leave is consumed beyond the third day. 

 From 2016 to 2019, the median number of days of leave taken by male and female employees has been the same, and it is six days. This is based on employees who consumed more than three days of childcare leave and where employers submitted claims. 

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Fair Employment and Measures on Discriminatory Hiring Practices

(Supplementary Question) Louis: Thank you, Sir. Two clarifications for the Minister. First, I think she mentioned there are 1,200 companies on the FCF Watchlist. Could I ask how many of these companies are there because of discrimination against women and on family responsibilities?

Second, on the earlier suggestion that I made this week, on whether we can legislate these guidelines on fair employment practices. I think it makes a bit of sense. If you discriminate against Singaporeans and hire foreigners, we will restrict or curtail your work pass privileges; we do not allow you to hire foreigners. That sort of makes sense. But if you discriminate against women and mothers, and the penalty is that you cannot hire foreigners, then I hope the Minister agrees with me that that does not really make sense. So, the question is whether we can legislate these guidelines, have proper penalties in place that will serve as a better deterrence against discrimination against women and mothers.

Mrs Josephine Teo (MOM): Sir, in terms of thinking and alignment of values, I feel very close to Mr Louis Ng. First, a point of clarification that the Member sought, which are the 1,200 companies that we had scrutinised over the years under FCF, what kinds of concerns did we have. As I explained, they had not made any infringements. We were doing proactive surveillance. We looked at their workforce profiles. In general, we found that there was a heavier proportion of foreigners in their PMET workforce, compared to their industry peers. So, we picked them up and tried to undersand why their workforce profiles were the way they were, and helped them to improve.

The Member has asked whether for other forms of discrimination – not nationality discrimination but for other forms of discrimination – whether legislation is the right tool and we could consider that. Perhaps, two things to point out. First, the Government is not so averse to using legislation, provided it can achieve a good effect. If I can cite the example of concerns about age discrimination. We do have the Retirement and Re-employment Act which stipulates the minimum age below which employers cannot say, "You're too old and you must retire." We also have the re-employment age legislation which compels the employers, even after his employee has reached the minimum statutory retirement age, to offer re-employment. So that we safeguard the opportunities for them to continue working – not necessarily in the same job and not necessarily holding the same pay.

Using legislative tools in order to protect the interest of workers is not so unthinkable and have been used on many different occasions.

I understand where the Member is coming from, that in terms of legislating against discrimination for gender, should we perhaps take the next step forward. I have also responded to – I am sorry, I should have done this another way – I texted Mr Vikram Nair after he gave his speech yesterday. So, I will share with Members what I texted him. He gave the suggestion that perhaps you can provide legislative levers to allow individuals who had been aggrieved by nationality bias to seek redress from the employer. And I had texted him to say that this is not unthinkable, it is something that we can discuss, whether we want to move forward.

So, my answer to Mr Louis Ng is, yes, we always keep the options open, but we must ask ourselves what is the crux here. The crux here really is that if you speak to all the women, yes, on occasions, we have identified cases where the employers, either the questions that they asked were very biased, in terms of suggesting that their family circumstances were not welcome at the workplace, or that the very fact that they were women prevented them from doing certain roles. We know of some employers like that, but they are very much in the minority. You will also see that there are many women who have gotten into good positions because their employers are quite enlightened.

So, legislation is quite a blunt tool. It basically can be quite prescriptive in nature.

What else it is that we have done to promote women in employment and make sure that they get a fair deal? We have, for example, through many years of investment in their education, helped them to acquire the skills no different from men, and they can advance. I think the other one that we have always been very mindful of, and women Members of Parliament have spoken on this extensively, it has to do with how you can improve the support that they have from the family, so that does not prevent them from making progress in their careers.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis delivered his budget cut on Disallow Questions on Salary History at Committee of Supply 2021.

Louis: Many employees feel they are paid lower than they deserve because their employer mandated them to disclose their salary history. Last year, I shared in this House that a ban on salary history disclosures has helped close the gender wage gap in California. Minister Josephine said that MOM would look at this study.

I am happy to share that new research further supports that earlier study. In June 2020, researchers at Boston University found that salary history bans in the US led to employers increasing wages for all workers, but especially for women and some racial minorities. I quote, “Salary histories appear to account for much of the persistence of residual wage gaps.”

Has the Ministry reviewed these studies and whether the declaration of last drawn salary contributes to the gender wage gap here in Singapore? Will MOM consider banning questions on salary histories?

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Ms Gan Siow Huang (The Minister of State for Manpower): Mr Louis Ng asked if the practice of declaring the last drawn salary contributed to the gender pay gap. He referred to a Boston University study on the impact of salary history on gender pay gap. The United States introduced a salary history ban in 2016.

In Singapore, the adjusted gender pay gap is about 6%, which is lower than that in the United States. According to a 2018 study by Assoc Prof Jessica Pan from NUS, occupational segregation was a key contributor to the gender wage gap here. 

In Singapore, jobseekers do not have to comply with requests for their last drawn salary and employers cannot insist on it either. If a jobseeker chooses to provide salary information, employers should use it carefully.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)

Louis asked the Minister for Manpower (a) whether the Ministry has conducted local studies on the impact of allowing working from home in (i) reducing gender inequality (ii) reducing gender stereotypes (iii) reducing gender wage gap and (iv) increasing the female labour force participation rate respectively; (b) if so, what are the results of the respective studies; and (c) if not, whether the Ministry intends to do so.

Dr Tan See Leng (MOM): We have not commissioned any local studies described by the Member. Nevertheless, we welcome interested stakeholders to conduct robust studies on these issues, and to share the findings to enrich the discussion.

Even without such studies, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), unions, and many progressive employers, both locally and globally, already firmly believe in the benefits of flexible work arrangements (FWAs), of which working from home is but one type. FWAs are key enablers in helping workers balance work and personal responsibilities, such as caregiving. As women tend to still play the primary caregiving roles in families, FWAs will certainly help them. But we also need society’s mindsets to shift, and encourage more men to also tap on FWAs and more equally share in caregiving responsibilities.

The White Paper on Singapore Women’s Development has laid out our action plans to better support women in the workplace, and will positively impact some of the indicators the Member has mentioned. For example, a joint study published in 2020 by MOM and Associate Professor Jessica Pan from the National University of Singapore found that a large proportion of Singapore’s gender pay gap was attributable to occupational segregation where men tend to be better represented in higher paying occupations. This can occur in part when women either choose not to enter or leave these occupations mid-career to manage personal responsibilities such as caregiving. As such, FWAs, such as flexi-time and flexi-place arrangements, could enable women to remain and progress in the workforce and help reduce the gender pay gap.

Source: Hansard (Parliament of Singapore)