Marine firm penalised for replacing local with foreign workers

Singapore

SINGAPORE'S Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has, for the first time, penalised a Singapore company for retrenching Singaporean workers and replacing them with foreign ones.

Prime Gold International Pte Ltd will, as a result, be banned from hiring new foreign employees on all types of employment passes for two years, MOM said on Monday.

No full description was provided about Prime Gold International, but an online check indicated that the firm's business includes barge operations.

Prime Gold's former Singaporean employees, listed by MOM as including captains, chief officers, chief engineers, greasers and able-bodied seamen, had filed a complaint with the ministry in June.

Investigations by the ministry found that Prime Gold had retrenched 13 Singaporean workers in phases, and had their positions filled with new foreign workers, MOM said.

"Prime Gold claimed that the Singaporean employees were retrenched due to job redundancy and that the company was running losses. Prime Gold also pointed to their unsatisfactory work performance and their lack of relevant qualifications as reasons," MOM said.

It added, however, that the charges that these former employees turned in poor work performances and were insufficiently qualified were not substantiated.

The company had thus breached the Fair Consideration Framework, aimed at ensuring that all firms consider Singaporeans fairly for job vacancies, MOM said. The framework was implemented in August.

"MOM assessed that by unfairly replacing Singaporeans with foreigners, Prime Gold has denied Singaporeans fair opportunities for employment and career development."

It added that the actions of Prime Gold affected the livelihood of Singaporeans already in employment.

MOM has taken action against about 100 companies for posting discriminatory job advertisements. The businesses could not provide "valid justifications for restricting their recruitment to exclusive groups", it said. In some cases, these businesses were instructed by MOM to put up online public apologies for 30 days. They were also barred from hiring new foreign workers for six months.