95% of salary-related claims resolved last year

SINGAPORE — More than nine in 10 salary claims that the Manpower Ministry (MOM) received were resolved last year, while nearly all workers with work-injury compensation claims received compensation, Manpower Minister Lim Swee Say said in Parliament yesterday.

Of last year’s 9,000-odd salary-related claims, which involved about 4,500 employers, more than 95 per cent were resolved through the ministry’s mediation and adjudication by the Labour Court.

The remainder were unresolved because a “vast majority” of the employers with unresolved claims — 199 out of 208 — had either stopped operations or faced an impending shutdown of their business owing to financial troubles.

One firm’s case is with the High Court after it appealed against a Labour Court order. The remaining eight companies, which are still in business, have not complied with the court’s orders yet and are being investigated, since failing to pay wages is an offence under the Employment Act.

These companies have been prohibited from hiring foreign workers until they comply with the orders, with the debarment also applying to “culpable directors” even if they were to start new firms, said Mr Lim.

Mr Lim was responding to questions by Jalan Besar GRC Member of Parliament Denise Phua and Nominated MP Kuik Shiao-Yin, who had asked how the MOM can better protect workers against errant employers who owe salaries or fail to compensate or insure them for injuries, and the number of employers prosecuted in the Labour Court for failing to compensate injured workers over the years, among other things.

Mr Lim revealed that in the last three years, 158 employers have been prosecuted and convicted for salary-related offences, which carry a fine of between S$3,000 and S$15,000 per charge or jail of up to six months, or both.

Meanwhile, more than 99.9 per cent of the 16,000-odd injured workers had their cases resolved, said Mr Lim.

Only five workers did not because their employers failed to buy work-injury compensation (WIC) insurance and could not pay up because of financial difficulties.

Mr Lim said the ministry prosecutes such errant employers under the Work Injury Compensation Act, and debars firms and directors from hiring foreign workers until injured workers are compensated.

These offences carry a S$10,000 maximum penalty or jail of up to a year, or both. Fourteen employers have been prosecuted over the past five years for failing to insure or compensate workers for work injuries.

Asked by Ms Phua if the MOM could do more to ensure local and foreign workers receive WIC insurance coverage, Mr Lim said that the ministry could not ensure 100-per-cent coverage since companies buy group insurance, which is renewed every year.

As workers leave and others join during the year, the onus was on employers to ensure each worker was covered and it was “not possible” for the MOM to comb through every WIC insurance policy and “cross-check (that) with the movement of staff”.