TR EMERITUS

I’ve just come back from a night out with a colleague who had just come back from a trip in India. We decided to celebrate the evening as the “only boys” in the company and ended up at Hooters in Clark Quay to enjoy a few beers (buy two get one free). While Hooters is best known for its very politically incorrect uniform for waitresses (the place is called Hooters for a reason), what struck me about tonight’s evening was the fact that the restaurant is suffering from one of the most acute issues facing businesses today – a shortage of labour. The situation was such that they had to close their indoor section and for the first time in my life, I saw this sign on the door (pic right): While Hooters in Singapore is clearly an extreme case, its not the only place. The problem of finding staff is not limited to the blue-collar sector. I had to hold in the vomit when my current employer asked me to put documents in a file today because, well, even white-collar professional businesses are finding it a challenge to find labour. This is strange in as much as one would imagine that current conditions favour employers. Covid restrictions have loosened and along with it, borders have reopened. Prices have started rising and “leaders” around the world have been talking about a looming recession. Geopolitical tensions like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and wider economic conflict between Russia and the Western powers have made people wonder if a recession will be the mildest of our worries. So, you would imagine that with so much going on, sensible people will hang onto the jobs available for dear life (bad job being better than no job) and unemployed people would be rushing to the available jobs. However, this isn’t happening and instead of complaining about employees being spoilt and choosy, we need to ask why aren’t people choosing to work when market indicators point to a situation where people should be clinging onto whatever work they have. While I am not an economist, I believe that the answer is fairly simple. The “normal” of the pre-Covid world was not actually working. However, instead of focusing on ways of building a more sustainable, less toxic system better suited for the 21st century, everyone rushed to “return to normal.” Since my primary income comes from a white-collar professional firm, I will start with the “professional” sector of the economy. In this way, this should have been the sector to lead a revolution in creating a new normal. The information age has done for white-collar work what the industrial age did for the manufacturing sector. Things that required various departments can now be done with software and if you think about it, work can be done anywhere as long as there’s a working internet connection. Some people would call be strange but I enjoyed life as a freelance media consultant, far away from the hustle and bustle of being in an agency. Worked of the lap top at home or in cybercafes. If I needed to bash out a press release when I was out and about, I’d just go into an internet café, pay a few dollars and bash it out within an hour or so (nothing like paying a few dollars for that hour to make you focus on using that hour or two productively). I could write emails to clients and reporters, chase for money, invoice and so on as long as I had computer access. These days, life is actually simpler. I have a smart phone, which allows me to check whatever I need to check on line and the lap top is only necessary whenever I need to sit down and write something at length. I don’t need to be sitting in front of a desk staring at a screen and the only movement I get is from one cubicle to another. Sure, there may be cases where you need certain documents but the truth is, these days documents can be accessed digitally and remotely. I do get that there are times when you need to meet face-to-face but let’s be honest, how many face-to-face meetings are anything more than a session for ego maniacs to jack off over their self-importance. When you’re freed from the need to be stuck to one place for a third of your life, you also have greater choice on who you interact with. The old hierarchical model of “me employer and you employee” will change. Rather than paying someone a set wage for set hours in a day in which you are obliged to do whatever your employer ask of you, the employee and employer relationship will be more like a buyer-seller relationship. For example, an employer will pay so much for certain task, which the employee will deliver. Outside those tasks, the employee would be free to look for other people willing to pay for those said task. By freeing people from their desk, you can move the employer-employee relationship to being more like a buyer-seller relationship rather than a marriage. This is healthier for both sides. If you’re happy you stay, if not, you move on. When the relationship between employer and employee is like a marriage, you risk a situation where sides choose not to show each other love but then when it reaches the obvious conclusion, they have like jealous lovers, which is not healthy for the individuals or the organisation. This hasn’t happened. Throughout the pandemic we got bombarded with all sorts of articles about the benefits of being a certain location for a set number of hours. You get organisations that think it’s a sign of intelligence to insist that people only have lunch from 12 to two. So, we’re back to traffic congestion, pointless meetings that are akin to masturbation sessions and unless you count greater pollution, stress, gossip, petty power plays and obvious limitations of the public transport system as positive, very little actually gets done. Instead of more productivity, you get more people masturbating over their self-importance. How is this beneficial to anyone? Things are a little different in the blue-collar sector. Unlike the professionals, you actually need to be present to do the job on hand. Technology has not reached the stage where rubbish collection cannot be done remotely. However, we’ve also failed to move beyond our “normal” thinking of shoving the people who do these jobs into a dark hole and then complaining about how ungrateful they are when they complain about getting diseases as the reactions to the following story from the Financial Times indicates: [LINK] If the dorms are so safe – why does the Minister of Manpower feel obliged to be in a hazmat suite when visiting? If the people running the white-collar section of the economy are too fond of masturbating over their self-importance, the people running the blue-collar sector have lost their ability to feel human urges and thus their humanity. Let’s look at the constant debate on the minimum wage. Singapore, a nation which thinks nothing of paying its ministers more than their global counterparts, has a problem even considering looking at what is the minimum a worker needs in order to survive. Apparently, there’s a fear that this will scare away foreign investors and cause inflation, which would negate the benefits of such a consideration. The government, instead, prefers to point to the occasional hand out as being beneficial to the poor (which they usually give just before raising taxes that have the largest impact on the poor). The answer to the problem in this sector is twofold. The first point and the one most likely never to be implemented would be to limit the number of parties benefiting from the system of labour supply in the blue-collar sector. It’s unlikely because the government has a stake here in the shape of foreign levy, which is in theory meant to disincentivise discriminating against the locals (as one MD of a shipping company says – “foreign workers are not cheap”) but is in practice a protection racket collected by the government on those that need to hire foreign workers. The system, as it stands, ensures that the cost of the employers is high and the wages actually received by the workers are low. While employer and employee get screwed, a host of other parties like dormitory owners (a business that members of the ruling party do enter) benefit. The second point would be to give workers greater freedom to change employer. As things stand, permission to stay in Singapore is tied to the employer, which means the worker is at the mercy of the employer. The problem is most visible in a liquidation scenario where the employer goes bankrupt and can’t pay the wages. However, the non-payment of wages has usually started six months prior. Unlike the professional employees who can move to a new employer the moment the current employer starts defaulting on wages, the foreign worker cannot. I’ve been involved in a liquidation of a construction company, which had left equipment on the site until plants were growing on the equipment, left the workers on a site with no running water, barely enough fuel for a generator, no wages and no food, while the directors sat in a private clubhouse drinking cognac on a daily basis. Normal was not normal and the opportunity to restructure that was provided by Covid was wasted. Going back to normal will only lead to stagnation on an economic and social front. It’s too bad the pandemic didn’t bite harder.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

Come december, a chapter will close on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) for the S$1.33 billion Singapore Sports Hub (SSH). SSH was officially opened in 2015 and under the PPP arrangements, a private sector consortium would finance, build, operate and then transfer SSH to the pap government after 21 years but yesterday's announcement bring forward the transfer date by 13 years. Looking back, the SSH PPP was destined for failure from the beginning. Both partners were strange bedfellows. One has put in large amount of investments and were resolute to drive profits while the other has many social missions to fulfil with mostly charging very modestly. It had over the years scored both hits and misses and it will be too lengthy for me to mention them in this commentary. In this commentary, I will list 2 highly visible embarrassing misses. In an international football match between Japan and Brazil in 2014, the poor condition of the pitch drew flaks from the Brazilian coach and even our own SG Sports CEO Lim Teck Yin criticised the 'sub-standard of the pitch'. Singapore's international image was dented. Pap government, I clap for you again. Many people must still remember this. Before the construction completion of the SSH, pap ministars were alearly boasting and telling Singaporeans that the floating platform was only a temporary NDP venue and once completed, all future NDPs will be held at the new SSH lalala... So, what happened? Why did they now changed their mind and make the Floating Platform our permanent NDP venue? SSH only hosted 1 NDP in 2016. The one and only NDP that was held there. Why only once and no more and where were those loud talking million dollars earning pap ministars such as Vivian Balakrishnan? What happened was a huge disappointment, an anti-climax and a big slap to the faces of the pap ministers and the pap government. On rehearsal and the actual NDP days, much of the audience inside the stadium were only able to hear but unable to see the Chinook helicopter with our state flag and its escort Apache attack helicopters fly past. They could again only hear but not see our fighter jets roared above too. SAF free fallers were unable to land inside the stadium due to the small roof opening, mobile columns were unable to go inside the stadium and when fireworks were displayed, there were almost a stempade of people rushing out to watch it etc...All the NDP crowd favourites were absent. To add insult to injury, about 40 million SGD of our tax money were spent. Some 3G but especially the 4G pap ministars are a very lucky lot. They survive at the polls again and again on the back of people's respect for and memories of the old guard pap leadership and a meek, indifferent, gullible, easily manipulable and also a very forgetful suckerporean electorates. It is a correct decision for the Singapore government to take back ownership of SSH except that I do not know how much financial penalty was involved. It is a business deal with their private partners and I do not believe that it is financially penalty free. I do not know who called it quits but if it is the pap government, then that is yet another of the many reasons why GST must go up. I wish SSH well. I really do. I hope that the new management has the vision and energy to make it a success for the benefit of our people. If they are merely doing more of the same activities and promotions like many other malls, community clubs and SAFRA are doing such as having more food courts, retail shops, tuition centres, fast food, bowling alleys, cinemas, child/infant care businesses etc, then they will only cannibalised other businesses and will eventually become just another bigger mall, period! It is important that our schools and our polytechnics must collectively chip in to help and support them in various possible ways. Think.   Simon Lim      Read More →

I am most probably the very First Opposition Politician who have deliberated extensively on the topic of HDB - CPF links and issues. But apparently this topic is very much technically complex that even most MPs and Ministers couldn't really understand it thoroughly. For those smarter and technically competent Ministers, they are basically not interested to "rock the boat" of their million dollar annual income as they can continue to milk the HDB political dividends for another decade or two, years before this Mega Time Bomb will implode. When it does implode in the future, it is really none of their business or responsibility anymore. No need to be accountable to the imminent mess ahead. It is just like the unbelievable PSA SICAL port operation saga. Whoever put up that bid, sign that stupid contact, are either retired or long gone! They have earned their hefty bonuses for a "job well done", some even got their promotions thereafter, who cares about the mess happening later? Same for HDB CPF mega time bomb. There is no political will to defuse this mega time bomb now because it will affect their political agendas. Recently a precinct in AMK Ave 10 has been picked for enblock redevelopment. Unlike in the 1990s or even 2000s, many residents are actually UNHAPPY! WHAT? Unhappy for getting enblock and a new flat in return? WHY? These flats are most probably over 30 years or even 40 years old. Imagine if the residents bought their flat when they are in their 20s or 30s, they would be 60 to 70 years old already! They have spent much of their CPF in their purchase of these flats. At this age, they are either in retirement or retiring. How do you expect them to fork out another $100K to purchase another similar 3 room or 4 room HDB FLAT which are in fact SMALLER in size? The only option left is for them to DOWNGRADE from 3 room HDB to 2 room HDB, 4 room to 3 room HDB which are EVEN SMALLER in size! So you see, the so call "Asset Enhancement Scheme" has eventually turned into "Asset Depletion Scheme", HDB UPGRADING turning into HDB Downgrading! Isn't it ironic? Can this be foreseen or predicted? Yes, it could. For those youngsters who think this only happens to old folks and not them, think again. You will get old one day. If you have paid over a million for your HDB flat, good luck to you.   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →