Pregnant women sacked

[Ripley]

Home > Breaking News > Singapore > Story
Nov 8, 2009
Pregnant women sacked
MOM gets record number of pregnancy- related complaints from workers

By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent
		Some women said they were sacked under the pretence of poor performance or other work-related issues. -- ST PHOTO: STEPHANIE YEOW

THE tough economic times - and more generous maternity benefits - appear to be prompting increasing numbers of firms to fire pregnant women or deny them their full entitlements. There were 119 'pregnancy- related' complaints lodged with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in the first nine months of the year - up from 72 for the whole of 2007, and 95 last year. That is the highest since records began in 2004 and represents a doubling of the rate per month compared with 2007.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Latest comments

khunying There are some MNCs who conduct regularl (yearly or half yearly) staff appraisals. Unfortunately, due to busy work schedules and sometimes the daunting task of evaluating a underperforming personnel result in nothing being done until it's too late. Posted by: JoJo2008 at Sun Nov 08 20:52:26 SGT 2009

---------------------------------------------------------------------- > There's always 2 sides to a coin. Dont take things at face value. I've met people who have always been lousy workers with bad attitude, and when they got pregnant, they sure know how to leverage on it. I think employers should assess workers' performance regularly, and fire them when they are not up to standard, instead wait until they get pregnant. Posted by: khunying at Sun Nov 08 20:30:39 SGT 2009

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ForgiveForget, > The pregnant woman will take a long leave after giving birth. The 2-3 months must pay salary but someone must cover. Then (like in the case in my office) woman comes back to work. But must pump milk once in the morning, one in the afternoon, each time 30mins to 1 hour. Like that productivity goes down. Only the unenlightened employer will think like that. For the employer who is able to think long term, he or she will be able to assess the pregnant lady's work attitude before her pregnancy. If she has always been a good worker, the money that the employer has to pay for someone to cover her during her pregnancy will be worth it. The employer will be able to retain a loyal and hardworking staff. This is much more beneficial for the company than firing the lady and hiring someone else whose work attitude and performance are not proven. The time that a woman takes to pump milk is about an hour, but she can make up for it by being efficient in her job. As long as she meets the deadlines, which is the bottomline, it shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, how many of us can confidently say that we are working every second, every minute that we are in the office? Even workers who are not pregnant take "breaks" by going off to gossip, going for tea breaks, going for smoke breaks or taking long lunches. Trying looking at it from this perspective: in the case of a new mother, she's just taking a break like everybody else, except that she is going to pump milk for her newborn. Let's try to be more broad-minded and accept her as someone who is contributing to Singapore's population by having a child. Since many Singaporeans seem to dislike having so many immigrants in our midst, I feel that we should be more understanding toward pregnant women. If we are harsh, or if employers fire women as a result of their pregnancy, as sg_employeed said, it's no wonder that Singapore's birth rates are so low that the Government has to resort to getting immigrants to make up the numbers. Posted by: khunying at Sun Nov 08 20:28:35 SGT 2009

------------------------------------------------------------------ Quote: Originally Posted by sg_unemployed There you go gahmen, now you know why sometimes, the younger generation do not want to give birth cause it means losing their job. There's always 2 sides to a coin. Dont take things at face value. I've met people who have always been lousy workers with bad attitude, and when they got pregnant, they sure know how to leverage on it. Posted by: JoJo2008 at Sun Nov 08 20:14:49 SGT 2009

sori... it should be... . ...... colleague pushed me when I was literally "standing in her way".... Posted by: JoJo2008 at Sun Nov 08 20:10:21 SGT 2009