According to ILO, Asia is the biggest continent where employers often violate labour practices and laws. Abusive hiring systems exist throughout Asia, affecting both internal migrants and external migrants who move from their home country. Recruitment laws in Asia also inadequately regulate unlawful activities such as human trafficking. Also among the concern is the coercive practices that might not be explicitly against labour rights. Therefore, enforcing labour rights is important to organisations.
Labour rights or employment rights protect workers from a wrongful act done by either employer or other employees. It ensures employee’s emotional, psychological, physical, and mental wellbeing during their tenure. Without the rights given to employees, there won’t be any protection given to employees.
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Moreover, when employers do not provide protection and even violate the labour laws, there are negative effects to either employer themselves or employees. What are the consequences? Here are the four most critical effects of violating labour rights.
Employers who intentionally or unintentionally break labour rights are liable for litigation, fines, and penalties. According to the Singapore Employment Act, the cost for an employer who fails to comply with the provisions of Labour rights attracts a fine of S$5,000 of imprisonment of 6 months or both for each violation. In the case of a subsequent offence, the fine is up to S$10,000 or imprisonment up to a year or both.
You can check here for a list of the penalty when an employer violates labour acts.
As mentioned earlier, labour law is used to protect workers from wrongful acts such as harassment, discrimination, lower wages, etc. Thus, declined morale is an obvious result of labour violation because not only the negative practice affects employees’ wellbeing, but it also gives the worst impact on their emotional and psychological wellbeing. In addition, the effect will not only affect the victims but also the whole team – even society – as individuals can empathize with the victims.
That said, due to demoralised employees, a company will prone to have bad press cover their organisation news, thus, the company brand will also be damaged.
For instance, Starbucks company was accused of leaning on an unfair scheduling practice known as “clopening”, a sleep-depriving ritual where Starbuck employees are required to close the store at night only to return early the next morning to help open it, the news revealed. Due to clopening practice, public scrutiny was relentless, resulting in coverage of a bad image of the company.
The last but not least consequence is that your industry will suffer from expensive turnover. Take as an example, without proper labour practice in the company, employees feel unsafe and unprotected which results in slow progress and decrease productivity. The underappreciated employees will then suffer from lower morale and feel totally disconnected from the company. Typically, actively disengaged employees are looking for a way out. They will take every better opportunity that comes in their way.
Read also: Your Employer Violates Employment Law? Here’s What to Do
