‘Society should function on trust’ — WP MP He Ting Ru calls for rethinking of MC culture

In her Budget speech, Parliament Workers’ Party Member of Parliament He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) called for a second look at policymaking and legislature based on the perspective that people are out to game the system to their own advantage.

Such policies, she argued, place “well-meaning people up against elaborate, sometimes convoluted restrictions that become crippling.” As an example of this, she used what she termed as “MC (medical certificate) culture”.

The MP underlined the importance of building a society that functions on trust instead of mistrust.

Ms He, who is a lawyer, wrote about this in a Sunday (March 13) Facebook post, which she accompanied with a screenshot of a CNA article from March 11 entitled “Some firms rethinking MC policy, but will an honour-based sick leave system be a reality in the long run?”

In Singapore, doctors issue MCs to prove that individuals were sick and unfit to go to work for a given period of time, which assures them that they will get paid sick leave for employees covered under the Employment Act.

The Sengkang MP said that when she was working in London at her first job, her experience was quite different. Employers were only allowed to ask for “fit notes” when workers were ill for longer than 7 days.

For periods shorter than this, employees are asked to self-certify.

She added that some large companies even offered “duvet days” to their workers, giving them time off not because of sickness but in order to give them extra rest periods when they needed it.

“These are often structured in a way that works best for their firm or industry, and have been shown to actually increase productivity and the mental and physical well-being of workers,” she added, but also said that she is “not advocating a wholesale copying of these approaches.”

She called for a look at Singapore’s labour market to determine what kind of changes can be implemented to everyone’s advantage.

“We should build a society where citizens get to apply their own mind to what makes sense and is reasonable for both themselves and their fellow citizens, rather than fuss over what’s ‘legal’ or ‘allowed’,” she added. /TISG

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