11 August, 2015
On 13 July 2015, the Employment (Amendment) Bill (Bill No. 23/2015) (“the Bill”) was tabled and read for the first time in Parliament. According to the Explanatory Statement in the Bill, the Bill seeks to amend the Employment Act (“the Act”) for five main purposes, namely:
1.To require employers to make and keep records of employees (in place of a register of employees and record of workmen), and give a written record of key employment terms and pay slips to employees;
2.To empower authorised officers to impose administrative penalties for civil contraventions by employers and provide for the enforcement of the payment of administrative penalties by the court;
3.To allow for disposal of exhibits that are seized during investigations;
4.To enhance the Minister’s power to prescribe penalties for contraventions of regulations; and
5.To make miscellaneous changes for the better administration of the Act.
This article provides a brief overview of some of the key proposed amendments to the Act as mentioned above.
1.Records of employees, key employment terms and pay slips
Records of employees Currently, s 95(1) of the Act requires employers to prepare and keep a register showing, amongst others, the name, address, the basic rate of pay and allowances, the amount earned, and the amount of deductions made from the earnings of each employee. The existing s 95 of the Act will be repealed and under the proposed new s 95, employers will have a wider obligation to make and keep employee records containing the prescribed particulars not only for current employees, but also for former ones.
If the employer makes or keeps an employee record that is incomplete or inaccurate, he is taken to have failed to comply with the s 95 obligation, even if he did not know that the record was incomplete or inaccurate. Such employee records should also be readily accessible to current and former employees during the period prescribed for keeping the records.
Key employment terms
In December 2014, the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”), National Trades Union Congress (“NTUC”) and Singapore National Employers Federation (“SNEF”) jointly released the tripartite guidelines on the issuance of key employment terms in writing (“KETs Tripartite Guidelines”). These guidelines were introduced as a first step to support good workplace practices. Now, the Bill seeks to make this practice a statutory obligation for employers.
Under the proposed new s 95A, an employer must give to an employee a written record of the employee’s key employment terms not later than 14 days of commencement of employment. Such a record may be given to the employee electronically, via the Internet or by any other way e.g. in an employee handbook.
“Key employment term” is defined under the proposed new s 95A(7) to mean, “for an employee, … any type of term of employment contained in a contract of service between an employer and the employee that is prescribed to be a key employment term”. On the other hand, the KETs Tripartite Guidelines provide a detailed list as follows:
1.Name of employer
2.Name of employee
3.Job title and main duties and responsibilities
4.Date of commencing employment
5.(Only for employees on fixed-term contract) Duration of employment
6.Daily working hours, number of working days per week and rest day(s)
7.Salary period
8.Basic salary per salary period
9.Fixed allowances per salary period
10.Fixed deductions per salary period
11.(Only if different from salary period) Overtime payment period
12.Overtime rate of pay
13.Other salary-related components (e.g. bonuses, incentives)
14.Leave entitlements (e.g. annual leave, outpatient sick leave, hospitalisation leave, maternity leave, childcare leave)15.Other medical benefits (e.g. insurance, medical, dental benefits)
16.Probation period
17.Notice period for termination of employment initiated by either party
Pay slips
Earlier in January 2014, the MOM, NTUC and SNEF had jointly released the tripartite guidelines on the issuance of itemised pay slips (“Pay Slips Tripartite Guidelines”). Under the Pay Slips Tripartite Guidelines, an employer should issue itemised pay slips at least once a month and for a salary period ending in a particular month, pay slips should be issued within 7 days after the last day of that month. Now, the Bill seeks to make the issuance of pay slips a statutory obligation for employers.
Under the proposed new s 96, an employer must give a complete and accurate pay slip to every employee within the time prescribed for giving pay slips. An employer would be in breach of s 96 if he provided an incomplete or inaccurate pay slip to an employee, whether or not the employer knew that the pay slip was incomplete or inaccurate.
2.Administrative penalties for civil contraventions
Under the proposed new s 126A of the Act, a failure by an employer to comply with the above-mentioned obligations in ss 95, 95A or 96 would be considered a “civil contravention”. A new regime on administrative penalties in Part XVA of the Act is proposed, which would empower an authorised officer to issue a contravention notice to an employer for each civil contravention relating to a current or former employee. An employer who is issued with such a contravention notice is required to pay an administrative penalty as prescribed in the regulations made under the Act, but he has an avenue to request an internal reconsideration of the contravention notice by another authorised officer, or to appeal to the High Court.
The proposed amended s 139 of the Act provides for the administrative penalties for civil contraventions under Part XVA of the Act not to exceed S$1,000 for each occasion of a civil contravention, and S$2,000 in the case of a second or subsequent occasion of the civil contravention.
3. Disposal of exhibits seized during investigations
The proposed new s 106A of the Act provides for the disposal of documents, articles or things which the Commissioner for Labour (“the Commissioner”) or an inspecting officer takes possession of under Part XIII of the Act. Part XIII contains provisions on the powers of the Commissioner and inspecting officers relating to inspection and enquiry.
Such exhibits may be disposed pursuant to an order made by the Court during or at the conclusion of any inquiry or trial under the Criminal Procedure Code, or otherwise returned to the owner or reported to a Magistrate.
4. Minister’s enhanced power to prescribe penalties
Currently, s 139(2)(h) of the Act allows the Minister to prescribe certain penalties for any contravention of the regulations made under s 139 only. The proposed new s 139(2A) will replace the existing s 139(2)(h) and seeks to extend the scope of the Minister’s power to prescribe penalties for contravention or failure to comply with all regulations, including any regulations made under the Act.
No changes have been proposed to the maximum limit of the fine under the existing s 139(2)(h) i.e. S$5,000 in the case of a first conviction and S$10,000 for a second or subsequent conviction within one year after the immediately preceding conviction.
Other proposed amendments
The Bill also proposes other amendments to the Act, which include the following:
(a)Section 13(2) of the Act will be amended to clarify that an employee is deemed to have broken the employee’s contract of service if the employee is absent from work for more than 2 days continuously without prior leave from the employer and:
i.the employee has no reasonable excuse for the absence; or
ii.the employee does not inform and does not attempt to inform the employer of the excuse for the absence.
(b)Section 76 of the Act will be amended to provide that a female employee who has served her employer for a period of at least 3 months before, but need not be immediately before, her delivery will be entitled to pay during maternity leave. Section 77 of the Act will be amended to provide that such payment does not include any day during that period on which she takes no-pay leave.
(c)Section 87A of the Act will be amended to provide that an employee is not entitled to take paid childcare leave on a day that the employee takes no-pay leave. Conclusion It is envisaged that the Second Reading of the Bill will provide more information on the reasons for the various proposed amendments to the Act, so as to allow employers and employees to better understand the scope of the new statutory obligations of employers and the accompanying regime on administrative penalties.
Kaylee Kwok, Partner, RHTLaw Taylor Wessing
