“Beyond Fairness”: AWARE's advocacy for anti-discrimination in the workplace

socialservice.sg presents: "Before the Ballot"

Centred on the Singapore government's plan to enact new legislation to prohibit workplace discrimination, the Association of Women for Action and Research, or AWARE, published a position paper with recommendations to address gaps in coverage and implementation related to the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices. Today, we speak with two people who were part of the team behind the position paper, Apoorva Shukla and Daryl Yang, asking them about AWARE’s advocacy for anti-discrimination in the workplace, thoughts about the Tripartite Committee’s proposals, and various forms of workplace discrimination.

Apoorva is an Executive at AWARE's Workplace Harassment and Discrimination Advisory, or the WHDA, where she supports victim-survivors of workplace harassment and discrimination, and advocates for workers' rights in Singapore. A lawyer and activist, Daryl recently returned to Singapore after completing his Masters in Law on a Fulbright Scholarship at UC Berkeley, where he wrote his thesis on the evolution of Singapore’s approach to workplace discrimination.

Relatedly, in our last episode, we spoke to Max Soh from the Disabled People’s Association on related topics for people with disabilities, which you should check out if you’ve not already done so.

Here’s a link to AWARE’s position paper. If you have faced discrimination or harassment at your workplace, contact WHDA at 6777 0318 from Monday to Friday, 10am to 6pm, or email them at [email protected]. Follow AWARE on social media: @awaresingapore on Instagram, @awarenews on Twitter, and AWARE Singapore on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Here are some additional references: (a) A "Chicago Law Review" article; and (b) Consent as core to mediation.