The tripartite alliance for fair and progress employment practices (TAFEP) is investigating a case of a Singaporean Indian woman being discriminated against at a frozen yoghurt shop because she couldn’t speak mandarin.
The incident involving Llao Llao happened at West Shop Mall last week and Ms Karish Kaur complained on Facebook about the issue.
Ms Kaur had gone for a walk-in interview but was told by the PRC manager that her senior manager only speaks Chinese and so she would not be able to interview Ms Kaur.
In that case, she would not be eligible for the job.
Online fury was swift at the apparent dsicrimination that Ms Kaur faced, and that has prompted TAFEP to investigate.
A Spokesperson from TAFEP explained that “According to the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, if a job entails proficiency in a particular language, employers should justify the need for the requirement. In this case, there was a potential contravention of the Guidelines,”
The country manager for Llao Llao in Singapore, Edwin Ferroa, explained that their own internal investigations have revealed that the woman who had dismissed Ms Kaur was actually not a staff of Llao Llao.
She was the wife of a franchisee of that Westmall outlet.
“We started our investigations last Saturday (Jan 10) and found out that the person who turned Karish away was just the wife of one of the franchise owners (of the Westmall outlet). What the wife did is totally wrong. She should have referred Karish to the franchise owners instead of turning her away,” explained Mr Ferroa.
Llao Llao has warned all franchisees that they must not allow unauthorised persons into their kitchens.
