TR EMERITUS

Mr Philip Yeo (Photo: ST) I just want to briefly share my thoughts on 2 issues. In the recent massive mrt disruptions, Ong Ye Kung apologised to the public for the inconveniences caused and also briefly explained what went wrong. I ask why was it the Transport Minister himself who apologised and not the Chief Executive Officer of SMRT who ought to have risen up to the occasion promptly and apologise to the affected commuters, never mind whether SMRT is a public or private company. I have been observing and until this day, none, not even one among the senior management of SMRT has stepped forward and apologise. I am not baying for blood but I feel that when things screwed up and corporate chieftains shy away from publicly acknowledging and accept responsibility on behalf of their organisations and most unfortunately, the Singaporean public suckingly keep quiet and unaware of any adverse implications whatsoever, then a very unhealthy precedent is set and becomes an acceptable norm in our country. That is not a good thing. Next, in the face of C19 pandemic, its fast deteriorating developments in Europe, the soaring unemployment, waves of businesses scaling back and closing down back home, I worry for my country, the survival my fellow citizens and many families. Our Ministries of Trade and Industry and Manpower are 'heavyweight ministries'. I believe that Chan Chun Sing is a decent man, a patriot and his heart beats with Singapore but I have great reservations about his ability to helm MTI competently. There is no doubt that he is doing his best but I worry that his best isn't good enough because he was a military man for the better part of his working life but tackling the very many different and difficult economic challenges and issues especially in a time like this demands a different kind of person. The one person whom I have in mind is Mr Philip Yeo. It is a life and death issue that we are confronting and not a on-the-job training type for Chan Chun Sing and Josephine Teo. I sincerely hope that Mr Philip Yeo can step-up to this challenge in our country's hour of need. Think.   Simon lim      Read More →

Acquitted of all 10 charges by the High Court? Wow. Another fail by the AGC. If you bring 10 charges against a person, I would think you'd have quite good evidence to prove them. And these are criminal charges, mind you. So, for all 10 charges to be dismissed tells me your work is sloppy. It is also especially worrying that the domestic worker was originally sentenced to 12 months jail by the District Court in the trial. Whatever it is, congrats to Eugene Thuraisingam and Suang Wijaya and team! And again, HOME'S lending its crucial expertise and assistance to the defence. Great stuff, guys. Sloppy work by the police as well? "Sometime in April 2017, without advance notice, Portela was suddenly asked to pack up and go to a maid agency. She was not told why. At the maid agency, and to Portela’s shock, police officers showed up to interrogate her regarding allegations of theft. Statements were taken without a Tagalog interpreter present. Portela’s own handwritten statements show that she had poor command of English."   Andrew Loh      Read More →

We have to be clear why wages are low for low-wage workers. Businesses are profit maximizing entities. The people who own these businesses, the managers who run them, spend all their time thinking how to make more profits, including trying to reduce wages, which form the bulk of the cost of most businesses. Managers who can’t do that, or won’t do that, will be replaced by someone who can and will. Before the 1980s, businesses here, including foreign MNCs, employed mainly locals, paying wages that were sufficient to maintain a decent livelihood, or they would not be able to find enough workers. They could try to bring in workers from other countries but it was not easy because the notion of a huge pool of foreign workers was unpalatable to the population and therefore there wasn’t a political will, except for Malaysians, who could blend in. In the late 1970s, big business in the US and the U.K. managed to get Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher respectively, to do their bidding. These two heads of state proceeded to repeal or water down laws that restricted businesses in their pursuit of profits, as well as undermine labour unions, which were a major impediment to greater profits. They also privatized many state-owned entities. This empowering of big business is commonly called neoliberalism. Governments in other countries quickly followed suit, or else companies from their countries would not be able to compete with the US and UK companies. So, neoliberalism spread very quickly from the US and UK to other western and western-aligned countries. Countries that hosted foreign MNCs found themselves having to give in to the demands of big business, including lowering of tax rates, offering more investment incentives, liberalize immigration for workers, or else these MNCs would not invest, or take their investments elsewhere. Singapore, being an open economy that is very dependent on trade, and being host to many big foreign MNCs, found itself very susceptible to this form of arm-twisting. This was not helped by ministers who are book-smart but not street-smart and could not parry them off. In the early 1990s, the Singapore government embarked on a campaign to convince Singaporeans that foreign talents can help us to become world class, and thus started infusing FTs into the table-tennis, badminton, football teams, to try to get buy-in that we should welcome more foreigners to work in our midst. The idea was that they would uplift the economy and create more and better jobs for Singaporeans. The government also liberalized the banks and other businesses as well as privatized many statutory boards and government linked entities, which quickly joined in the call for more foreign workers. Thus, the tap for foreign workers was turned on. Businesses not only had a wider choice of workers, but wages became stagnant or decreased. And while all this was happening, the labour unions stood by quietly as they were controlled by the government. The root cause of low wages is because workers here do not have independent labour unions to resist the increasing powers of big business, who could elbow the government to help them bring in foreign workers. Even now, the government is not willing to address the root cause, instead is trying to deflect by introducing Progress Wage Models and setting up tripartite groups to raise wages of low-wage workers, when the solution is simply to reduce the number of foreign workers, and, as a long term solution, empower the labour unions and restore their independence which will result in a more balanced equilibrium between employers and employees.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →