Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

TL;DR – Retrenchment is real, guys.

So we talked about Double Negative yesterday.

And as if that wasn’t enough, there are these too. Both news are recent, the CIMB announcement was, in fact, just yesterday.

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(Jobs cut at ANZ Bank)

BT

(Jobs cut at CIMB)

As you probably already know, the two industries you should go into if you can’t wait to get retrenched will be banking & finance as well as the oil & gas industry.

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(Jobs cut in Oil & Gas industry)

Ruzianah, 32, was a document controller who was retrenched from her company in the Oil & Gas sector. She was given only two months of her basic salary as retrenchment benefit. Having worked more than six years in the company, and hearing from friends that the norm for retrenchment benefit is pegged to the length of service, she decided to approach the Union of Power and Gas Employees (UPAGE) to highlight the case.

Wondering what the norm for retrenchment benefits is?

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(Tripartite Guidelines to Managing Excess Manpower)

 As it turns out, the company did not have a collective agreement with the union then but had signed an agreement to provide a fair compensation that was in line with the industry.

Eventually, after a few months of discussions and negotiations with the company, UPAGE managed to help the affected union members who had at least three years of service with the company get a compensation based on 0.75 month’s salary per year of service. UPAGE contacted union members who  were affected – even those who have returned to their home countries – and got an additional payout of more than $20,000 for these workers.

This means that Ruzianah then obtained an additional 2.5 months’ compensation.

As she has been unable to find a permanent job that paid similar to what she was getting since being retrenched, she was very happy with this payout to help her tide over the initial months of job search.

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shadow-of-woman

Today, Ruzianah is employed on a contract basis and hopes to be able to find a good job. (By the way, talking about contract employees, new guidelines on leave has JUST been spelt out for term contract workers to help ensure the interests of such workers are protected.)

As for the company, the union has since signed a Collective Agreement with them and employees with at least 2 years of service now qualify for retrenchment benefit based on 0.75 months per year of service.

Of course we do not wish retrenchment upon anybody, but I guess things can be a little better for some people sometimes.

(Cover image via)

Related links
Double Negative’s Sudden Closure and What it Means for Singaporeans
Unemployment insurance, but at what cost?

 

By Zahra

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