TR EMERITUS

A lot of media attention has been focused on the low wages of Singaporeans recently and how many are finding it hard to keep up with the cost of living. A recent survey by JobStreet.com found that only 31% of Singaporeans said their salary can cover only their basic needs and some non-essential luxuries while 42% said it is only sufficient to meet their basic needs. A shocking 23% said they were still struggling to make ends meet and from this last group, 70% earn less than $3000/month. Only 4% were comfortable with their salaries. A similar survey by CIMB revealed “about 43% reckon thatthe dollar amount they spend on groceries and utilities has increased by25-50% while 42% estimate that their bills have gone up by 1-25%.” The latest figures from the Central Provident Fund also showed that more than half of active CPF members who turn 55 have less than the Minimum Sum in their accounts. The newly retired have insufficient CPF for retirement and struggle daily for their survival. It is even more troubling to learn that many elderly citizens, people who have worked all their lives to contribute to the wealth of our country, are still eking out a living working as cleaners of toilets and hawker centres and doing other menial tasks. What is worse, is that they are paid very little wages. Local economists have also warned that the widening gap between the haves and have-nots has reached alarming proportions. Singapore suffers from one of the world’s highest Gini coefficients, which measures income inequality. Although the co-efficient have decreased from 0.463 to 0.412 from 2012 to 2013, it still remains amongst the highest in the world. We urge the government to institute a minimum wage system for workers across all sectors so that would allow the bottom twenty percent to catch up with the rest of the country. We also support the chairman of the National Wage Council Professor Lim Chong Yah’s proposal to include a compulsory element in future NWC recommendations that would raise the wages of the low and very low-income earners. But the government continues to reject calls for a minimum wage and when most of the less skilled local have inadequate wages to provide decent living conditions for their families. It is not just the breadwinner who suffers in such cases, it is also the children and aged who bear the burden of poverty. These burdens mark children at a very young age, depriving them of the resources to help them compete in school and prevent them from breaking out of the poverty trap. Such lack of social mobility in turn exacerbates the problem of income inequality, as subsequent generations from poorer backgrounds will find it increasingly harder to break away from the clutches of poverty. What is even more inexcusable is the reluctance of the government to even draw a poverty line so that the problem can be measured and managed. Denying the problems will not make it go away, it just gives an impression that they are shirking from responsibility. Without acknowledging that there is a problem, no national resources will be channeled to solving it. It is shocking that Singaporean workers in the 20th percentile have experienced no increase in real income from 2001 to 2010. This is happening in a nation that boasts one of the highest percentages of millionaires in the world. More must be done by the government in the redistribution of the country’s wealth to ameliorate the widening income gap of its citizens. Although it tried to reduce personal income tax from 28% in 2002 to 20% 2007, the Goods and Service Tax has increased from the initial 3% to 7% today. This form of taxation is regressive in nature as it affects the poor more than the rich. Whatever temporary offset the government gave are not sufficient to overcome the permanent burden of such a tax on the low wage earners. Many Singaporean workers have little bargaining power and do not have the capacity to deal with unreasonable employers. There are still many who continue to seek help from the Ministry of Manpower about their poor working conditions and non-contribution of CPF by errant employers even today. Irresponsible employers exploit them through depressed wages, unreasonable work hours, discrimination and unfair dismissals oppress them. The brazenness of the authorities is so stark that they disregard international standards and insists on going it on their own. The country has only ratified 5 out of the 8 core conventions enumerated in the 1998 ILO declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The government continues to resist ratifying conventions 87, 105 and 111, depriving workers in Singapore the protection they deserve and exposing them to exploitations from unscrupulous employers. It is a prerequisite for the Employers to ensure that the "Term of Employment" offered to all workers is respectful of the Employment Act that must include decent working standards, fair living wages, and the ILO Declarations on fundamental principles and rights at work. The ILO International Core Labour Standards (CLS) are put in place for the very purpose of protecting all workers must be incorporated into national laws like the Employment Act of Singapore. Without such a comprehensive and coherent labour framework, local and migrant workers will continue to be pitted against each other benefiting only the employers as they languish without adequate social and labour rights protections. Lastly, we urge the government to sign the forthcoming ASEAN instrument on the promotion and protection of the rights of migrant workers. This would help raise the level of protection and promotion of migrant worker’s rights to international standards in 2015. Singapore needs to harmonize its labour, environmental laws and human right’s standards to internationally acceptable legal standards to practically actualize the sustainable development agenda of ASEAN.   Think Centre * Think Centre (http://www.thinkcentre.org) is an absolutely independent non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Singapore. First registered as a business (RCB) on 16 Jul 1999 and later as a society (under ROS) on 20 Oct 2001, it aims to critically examine issues related to political development, democracy, rule of law, human rights and civil society. Our activities include research, publishing, organising events and networking.    Read More →

Madam Ramasamy Krishnama was warded in June last year at Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) following a heart attack she had had. About a month later, she was being transferred to Mount Elizabeth hospital when the staff accompanying her forgot to turn on the oxygen tank after putting her on a ventilator. According to news reports of a coroner’s inquiry, Mdm Ramasamy “became unresponsive in the three to four minutes that passed before the oxygen was turned on.” Her poor health and her critical condition at the time, plus the deprivation of oxygen to her brain “probably precipitated” her death, a coroner’s inquiry found. Mdm Ramasamy, who was 83-years old, “had been alert and comfortable before being handed over to the receiving team” during the transfer, a police investigation report submitted to the court said. It added that her vital signs had been “stable” in the hours before the incident which led to her death. According to the Straits Times, “[Shortly] after being transferred from her bed to a trolley and put on a portable ventilator on July 8 last year, Madam Ramasamy’s level of oxygen saturation was noted to be ‘unrecordable’, raising concerns that it was very low.” The transfer team then checked their equipment to find out the cause. “One of the nurses realised that a switch on the portable oxygen tank used to supply the portable ventilator had not been turned on,” the Straits Times reported. Staff then turned on the oxygen supply with the ventilator turned up to “maximum setting”, to no avail, despite cardio-pulmonary resuscitation being performed on her as well. Mdm Ramsamy was pronounced dead shortly after. A medical report submitted with the police report said Mdm Ramsamy’s heart “was the major problem.” The report said that given her “poor health” and the lack of oxygen, together with her history of diabetes, high blood pressure and “excessive levels of fatty substances in the blood’, Mdm Ramsamy “would have expired in the very near future even with the best treatment.” An internal review by Parkway Shenton, which is the parent company of Gleneagles Hospital which provided the transfer team, found that the team “had assumed that the switch was already turned on as staff had heard air gushing out when the ventilator was connected to the oxygen tank.” They thus proceeded to check the other equipment, without knowing that the cause was the switch not being turned on. Madam Ramasamy has six children and more than 10 grandchildren. The coroner’s findings will be issued on 30 July. The incident is the latest this year which involved negligence and deaths of patients. In May, a pharmacist was fined S$6,000 for causing the death of a 78-year-old women in 2010 by prescribing the woman ten times the amount of a diabetic drug she was to administer. The woman developed brain damage as a result of the overdose and died.           In June, two doctors were fined S$26,000 and S$8,000 for the death of their patient on whom they had performed a liposuction operation.They were found guilty of “not complying with the terms and conditions stipulated for conducting the procedure” in the 2009 death of their patient. In 2011, Ms Lian Huizuan collapsed in Changi Women’s Prison and died shortly after. A coroner’s inquiry found that she had been prescribed an excessive amount of medication. She was found to have19 times the therapeutic range of the drug, amitriptyline, in her blood on the day she died. Ms Lian’s father has taken legal action against the doctors from Raffles Medical Group (RMG) who were the service providers engaged by the Singapore Prisons Service then. In 2013, the Singapore Prison Service announced that Parkway Shenton, which provided the transfer team to transfer Mdm Ramsamy from TTSH to Mount Elizabeth, had taken over from RMG as its “medical service provider”.       Source:  http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2014/07/patient-dies-after-staff-forgot-to-turn-on-oxygen-tank/  Read More →

(11 Jul) - Chinese law limits individual citizens to the equivalent of US$50,000 per year in foreign exchange, meaning that anyone who wants to spend more than that overseas must look for alternative ways to move money out. For example, that amount would be far from enough to successfully acquire a US immigration green card through investment. The United States, the top destination for Chinese emigrants, requires they invest US$1 million, or at least US$500,000 in a targeted employment area, according to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. .... Family and friends Split the transfer among as many identities as possible. With 20 people, it's easy to transfer US$1 million out of the country. This has been a popular way to avoid the restrictions. It is also low in cost. Many think it's the best method for transfers of less than US$1 million. Underground money changers A client transfers funds to the money changer's mainland account first. Then the money changer will remit the equivalent in foreign currency to the customer's overseas account. However, these underground money changers usually only do business with people they know. Immigration agencies may help introduce them. Private banking Banks on the mainland help their wealthy clients open overseas accounts within the same bank. After that, they can apply for loans overseas and get foreign currency. Usually this method requires deposits of between 6 million and 10 million yuan (HK$7.5 million to HK$12.6 million). Trade After setting up offshore companies, owners on the mainland can either use fake trade contracts to transfer money or they can report high import prices and low export prices to help money flow overseas. [Read more:  South China Morning Post]  Read More →