Anyone been retrenched and didnt get paid correct amount?

[mbjs514]

Im a Spore PR holder who has lived here for almost 15 years. I joined a firm Jan 08 and on March 27th this yr was told that i was being made redundant due to insufficient business, etc. 2 other colleagues were let go as well.

Both founders of the company and the CFO came down to tell us and break the news. (this was round 2 of retrenchments). We were told we would be paid the march salary and that The April salary would be the 1mth salary given.

More than one month later, after a lot of reminder emails, we finally got paid on May 5th and it seems that we were NOT paid a full month.

The CFO calculated 27th March as one month's notice of termination,

27 March - 26 April and he has calculated a daily work rate and come up with 18 days of work!!!!

I was not a daily rated worker, and one month's pay is one FULL month's pay that they should pay me, isnt it?

I earn less than 4 k per month and I cant believe they are trying to rob me of a few hundred dollars which means a lot to me right now.

Has anyone else gone through a similar situation? Is there anyone who knows if this is legal (short of being unethical).

I wrote to MOM but got a reply saying if i earn more than 2,500 i am not entitled to MOM's assistance.

[jesse.armand]

Welcome to the "didn't get paid the correct amount club".

I know another guy, Singaporean I believe, that had experienced this too.

I'll tell you, your situation is better than mine, as I was an EP Q1 holder. It's like they promise me a fixed amount of salary, and they stripped most of my savings from my country of origin to spent it on Singapore's services.

I made a basic iPhone library using Objective-C for them, write some proper documentation, and they don't even know what to do with it, or how to improve it, totally stupid.

And they still think my work is not enough ? Can you imagine that ?

I know this typical library on other products, and it's done by more than one people (a team), and there are some team who make it open source, but I'm alone ? I just can't believe I got fooled.

If you got retrenched, and since you're a PR, why not look for another job ?

Yes, you will not get assistance from MOM, but you could read some of their rules, that if you're covered by the employment act and didn't get paid at all for 7 days late, you could just leave the damn company.

Why waste time ? Unless you really love them.

There, I'm talking too much.

[jpatokal]

Both founders of the company and the CFO came down to tell us and break the news. (this was round 2 of retrenchments). We were told we would be paid the march salary and that The April salary would be the 1mth salary given.

What you were told verbally is irrelevant. What do you have in writing? (Employment contract, e-mails, etc.)

I wrote to MOM but got a reply saying if i earn more than 2,500 i am not entitled to MOM's assistance.

Yup, and employment disputes are outside the Small Claims Tribunal's jurisdiction as well. However, if if you have ironclad proof in writing that what they were supposed pay you does not match what they actually paid you, you might want to go talk to a lawyer -- just a sharp legal notice may be enough to prod the company into action. As you're a PR, they can't even just fob you off while they wait for your visa to expire...