Interesting Sammyboy forum reply to a ST forum letter on being terminated.
This Miss Boon recently wrote to the ST Forum about her Notice of Termination:
Is it common for companies to sack older workersI had been a loyal employee of McDonald's Singapore for the past 22 years and had risen from a Trainee Manager to Senior Restaurateur.
I had a reasonably good performance record over these years. In the past 12 months, my performance rating was excellent.
Recently, I was shocked to find myself given a Notice of Termination and was told to leave the company immediately without being given any reason...
Which prompted lambaste from Sammyboy's forum to write his own reply to her:
Dear Ms BoonSo sorry to hear that you have lost your job after 22 years with MacDonalds. It must have come as a bit of a shock for you, but the truth is that termination of service contract is common practice in the market place. You will understand that you are considered a junior managment staff. And as such ,you are proabably not protected by the labour laws that protect ordinary workers.
Even so there is really not much protection for the ordinary worker here. Singapore is very much an "employer advantaged market" compared to many places. In Malaysia for example to sack someone you literally have to be certain of the grounds or you face a lot of problems from the authorities.
You were probably expecting and/or hoping that the company would "retrench" rather than terminate your employment. This is exactly why many managerial staff slog on for their companies in the hope of getting that package with a golden handshake after decades of service.Ms Boon — the realism is that such practises common in the 1970's 1980s and 1990's with multinationals and also at some later stages copied by some government related type companies-are no longer the order of the day especially so with many multi-nationals. (Although I am told some GLCs and government-related companies still continue this archaic practise — if that is true I don't know why!)
Retrenchment is not the preferred form of parting ways for employers these days simply because it is costly! A more pragmatic approach is "termination of the employment contract". ie simply to say" you are hereby informed that as of (date) your services are no longer required... in accordance with your employment contract , hence your last day shall be..."
Neat and tidy and inexpensive!
So for those who think they are entitled to some compensation for decades of loyal service — please drop that notion, less you suffer from cognitive dissonance and disappointment followed by depression when you finally get your "parting of ways" letter i.e. termination of service!
Ms Boon perhaps you should offer your services to Delifrance or Burger King... or smaller outlets like Coffee Club and Dome whereby the work enivronment may be less stressful — BUT remember don't expect to be retrenched with a windfall- those days are over except for some who maybe are in glcs.
But really!... the least MacDonalds could have done was to give you a good MacDonalds send off party and free vouchers for free MacDonald meals to last you the next 22 months. It's a small token to give, for 22 years of loyal service.
In another thread on the same topic, Sam Leong himself says:
I fail to understand why so many here are taking McDonald's to task when the company has done nothing wrong whatsoever.In fact, they paid her a salary for almost a quarter of a century! Assuming she was paid an average monthly salary of $1800 during that period, she would have earned a whopping grand total of $514,800!!!! (excluding employer's CPF contribution and any bonuses beyond the standard 13 month component) a huge sum by any measure.
Had she invested just 30% of her monthly salary wisely, she'd now be sitting on a small fortune courtesy of McDonald's.
I hate it when people blame everyone except themselves whenever some misfortune befalls them. If Singaporeans could learn to take control of their lives instead of living in a fool's paradise, the country wouldn't be the shithole that it is today.
