TL;DR – The other side of the story which the original article did not tell you.
Last week (Nov 10), alternative news media website MustShareNews published an article titled, “S’pore HR Staff Claims She Was Unjustly Sacked, Compensated $1,125 After Mediation”.
The article reported that Wong, a 47-year-old human resource (HR) assistant, was wrongly dismissed without a due reason stated in May during the circuit breaker period.
She was reportedly replaced by another non-citizen, who was the sibling of a senior HR executive at the company the day after she left.
Wong also claimed that she was asked to write a resignation letter during a mediation session after the case was reported to the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM).
Allegedly, she was asked to settle for $1,125 as compensation instead of $13,500 which she had asked for.
MOM and TADM responded
In response to the article, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and TADM released a statement saying that the article contained “inaccurate statements”.
HR Staff unable to provide documents to support her claims
While it is true that Wong had lodged a wrongful dismissal claim with TADM, however, it was revealed in the statement that Wong was not able to provide any reasons to support her allegation.
In subsequent phone interviews carried out by TADM, Wong had alleged that when she requested to be excused from certain work that caused her eye problems, the company was not responsive and was discriminatory towards her. But when asked to produce the doctor’s medical recommendation, she was unable to furnish it.
$1,125 was an amount agreed upon by both parties
Yes, including Wong herself.
According to the statement, during the process of the mediation, the company had offered her an ex-gratia payment of half a month’s salary ($1,125), which Wong accepted.
In case you didn’t know, Wong is not compelled to accept the company’s offer. In other words, she is entitled to turn down the offer if she’s not satisfied with it.
Wong was reminded by the mediator that she had the option of pursuing her case at the Tribunal if she did not accept the company’s offer. She was also advised that by accepting the offer, she would not be able to continue to litigate her case at the Tribunal.
Having acknowledged that, both parties then signed the settlement agreement.
HR staff requested to be allowed to convert the termination to a resignation
As part of the settlement, Wong had requested that the company allows her to convert the termination into a resignation. She also requested for the company to provide her a letter of service.
The company complied.
Wong then provided a handwritten copy of the resignation letter to the company on her own accord. The mediator was not involved in the preparation and drafting of this letter.
From what we’ve gathered, the allegations made by Wong have been disputed by her employer, who explained that Wong’s dismissal from the company was due to performance issues.
You may read the full statement here.