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SINGAPORE \u2013 The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is investigating claims that a wheelchair assistant at Changi Airport had $5 docked from his pay for being 11 seconds late for work.<\/p>\n
In response to queries from The Straits Times, MOM said on Aug 21: \u201cWe are aware of this case and have contacted Aventa Services, the employer of the affected employee, to establish the nature and extent of the deductions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ministry said that it will take appropriate enforcement actions if the deduction is found to be unauthorised or excessive.<\/p>\n
The incident first came to light in an Aug 12 LinkedIn post by Juliet Low,<\/span><\/a> the founder of\u00a0direct hire caregiving app\u00a0Maid Without Borders Singapore.<\/p>\n In the post, she detailed her encounter with a wheelchair assistant at Changi Airport who said he had $5 docked from his pay because he was 11 seconds late a few weeks ago. The assistant was said to be earning $7 an hour.<\/p>\n \u201cHe actually showed me a picture of his payslip stating the 11-second deduction. That\u2019s almost an hour of his pay \u2013 for 11 seconds,\u201d Low wrote, adding that the deduction was \u201ccompletely disproportionate\u201d.<\/p>\n The LinkedIn post later went viral, amassing more than 700 reactions and 150 comments as at Aug 21.<\/p>\n In its statement, MOM said that employers owe their employees a duty of care and responsibility.<\/p>\n Employers can make salary deductions only for reasons authorised under the Employment Act, which include when an employee is late, it said, but added that the deduction must be proportionate to the period of absence.<\/p>\n \u201cEmployers cannot impose a larger salary deduction simply by characterising it as a \u2018penalty\u2019 or \u2018fine\u2019,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The ministry said that it would take appropriate enforcement action against employers who flout the rules, taking into account their rectification measures and the severity of the offence.<\/p>\n The punishments include a stern warning and, in severe cases, prosecution, it added.<\/p>\n MOM said that making such unauthorised or excessive deductions from employees\u2019 salaries may amount to a failure to pay salaries in accordance with the Employment Act, which is an offence.<\/p>\n It added that such breaches will also be investigated.\u00a0<\/p>\n A spokesperson for airport ground services provider SATS had said on Aug 15 that it was \u201caware of and concerned by\u201d the allegations made in the LinkedIn post.<\/p>\n The spokesperson added that Aventa Services was responding directly to queries from MOM.<\/p>\n \u201cSATS takes such matters seriously and expects all service partners to comply with applicable employment laws and regulations,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n ST has contacted the National Trades Union Congress for more information.<\/p>\n MOM urged those who face unauthorised or excessive salary deduction to file a claim with the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management, which can help workers recover their salary if lapses are found.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) is investigating claims that a wheelchair assistant at Changi Airport had $5 docked from his pay for being…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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