Amid Agoda retrenchments, Leong Mun Wai calls for better protection for affected workers

SINGAPORE: News broke earlier this week that the travel company Agoda had recently laid off employees in customer support roles in Singapore, Shanghai, and Budapest and would be hiring workers for the same roles in Foshan, China; Gurgaon, India; and Cairo, Egypt.

Around 50 employees in Singapore were affected by these retrenchments, which took place in an unannounced town hall on Aug 4. What made matters worse is that for Agoda’s retrenched employees to receive a severance package, they were told that they could not file reports with government agencies, including the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).

The severance document has been seen by several local media outlets.

Agoda denies allegations

A representative from Agoda, however, has denied warning the employees affected by the retrenchments against reporting the company to government agencies.

According to a report in Mothership, the spokesman said that “employees were free to seek alternative legal options or engage with local authorities if they so wished”.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM), as well as the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and Singapore Industrial and Services Employees’ Union (SISEU), have all spoken up on the matter. The joint statement from NTUC and SISEU was published on the social media pages of NTUC chief Ng Chee Meng and SISEU Executive Secretary Desmond Tan.

Statement from PSP Chief

For former Non-constituency Member of Parliament Leong Mun Wai, it appears that the government’s response is not enough.

Mr Leong, the secretary-general of Progress Singapore Party (PSP), wrote in a social media post that the time has come to implement legally binding retrenchment benefits.

“I was shocked to learn that Agoda allegedly [instructed] retrenched staff not to report the retrenchment to government agencies, statutory bodies, and trade unions and [threatened] to revoke the severance benefits of those who do so,” he wrote in a Sep 17 post.

Mr Leong added that for the government and the NTUC to express concern and look into “Agoda’s egregious conduct” is “not enough” and that more should be done for the protection of retrenched workers’ rights.

He wrote: “In our GE2025 manifesto, PSP called for the creation of statutory retrenchment benefits that are legally binding. This would be a stronger legal protection for retrenched workers than the current Tripartite Advisory on Managing Excess Manpower and Responsible Retrenchment.”

Given that the Manpower Ministry has said that it will be reviewing the Employment Act, “I call on MOM to include legally binding retrenchment benefits in the Employment Act, to better protect all Singaporean workers,” added Mr Leong in his post.

Last month, the Tripartite Workgroup held its first meeting to develop recommendations for the review of the Employment Act, Singapore’s main labour law. The act provides for the basic terms and working conditions for nearly all employees in the city-state. /TISG

Read also: ‘This is terrible,’ S’poreans condemn Agoda’s dismissal of SG employees, told not to report to gov’t agencies