A netizen’s father recently tested positive for Covid and as a result, had to isolate at home. But the father’s (who is working as a cleaner) boss then told him that he will deduct 5 days from his sick leave.
Here is the story:
my father works as a cleaner and I think his boss has been exploiting him.
Recently he was sick and given 5 days MC. On the same day he found out that he was tested positive for Covid. The boss told him that 5 days will be deducted from his MC even though 2 of those days fell on the weekend.
After that his boss called him again and said that if he doesn’t recover after the 5 days he has to see a doctor again to get more MC.
From what I understand, people with covid do not need MC to stay home and those days should be deducted from their hospitalization leave, but my father is too afraid to argue with his boss.
In fact initially he was afraid to even tell his boss that he has covid and cannot go to work on Monday. This is because historically the boss had forbidden my father from taking MCs on Mondays and Fridays and would accuse him of trying to take a long weekend even when he is genuinely sick.
The boss kept saying that all the other employees are trying to pull the same trick and I cannot understand what’s happening.
If he forbids everyone to take leave/MC on Mondays and Fridays, why would he have manpower shortage on those days.
If he did not impose this rule uniformly, does that mean he is targeting my father because he is a pushover?
Besides that, there were other things too like recently he told my father he had ran out of leaves when my father still had 5 days remaining. My father only started taking note of the days he took leave and that’s how he know he should have more days left. Previously he did not and we believe that over the years the boss may have cheated him of many leave days.
While my father’s weak personality is a big reason for all these, I also feel that blue collar worker tends to put up with more BS from their boss because they may be less aware of their rights/are more afraid to lose their job/more used to being taken advantage of. I told my father that we should follow MOM for all the leave issues and that he should stop working for this company but he wouldn’t listen.
Netizens’ comments
- You need to consider that if you bring this to to MOM it may make your father’s job in this company harder. So best would be to find another job, leave and THEN go to MOM.
- Bring this up to Tafep and see what they say.
- I will suggest he leave, we have such a shortage of manpower in our local cleaning industry he won’t have an issue going elsewhere
Disclaimer: This post was first posted on the NUS Whispers Facebook page.