publichouse.sg

By Andrew Loh

The decision by the authorities to repatriate 29 of the Chinese SMRT workers is deplorable. There didn’t seem to have been consideration accorded to the mitigating factors which were present in this situation. The authorities’ deportation of the 29 smacks of highhandedness and there are serious questions which need to be asked.

But first, it is a well known fact among those who work with migrant workers that one of the fears of these lowly-paid workers is that of being repatriated. The reason is simple: many of them pay huge amounts in agency fees – money borrowed from friends and relatives, from sale of their possessions and property - to come to Singapore to work and to be repatriated means they will suffer perhaps a lifetime of debt. It is because of this fear, among others, which also prevents them from raising complaints against their employers when they are maltreated. Many do suffer in silence.

Press release by FORUM-ASIA:

Singapore: Punitive action against bus drivers on strike condemned

(Bangkok, 5 December 2012): Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) strongly condemned the detention and prosecution by the Singapore authorities against the bus drivers who went on strike over a wage dispute on 26 and 27 November 2012. The Bangkok-based regional human rights organisation, representing 47 NGOs in 16 countries across Asia, further called for their immediate release and for all charges against them to be dropped.

The five bus drivers, all of whom are Chinese nationals, have been charged under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act in relation to a strike on 26-27 November 2012 involving over 170 Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) bus drivers that is deemed illegal by the authorities. One of the five, Bao Feng Shan, pleaded guilty to charges under Section 9(1) of the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act for his involvement in the strike and was sentenced to 6 weeks in prison. He was not legally represented in remand or in court. Meanwhile, four others have been charged under Section 10(a) of the same Act, for allegedly instigating and inciting other bus drivers to participate in the strike. They are still in remand and are expected to appear in court on 6 December 2012. One from among the group has been charged with a further count of incitement for posting a notice on a website to call other workers to strike.

By Andrew Loh

Mr Gan Thiam Poh, MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, says the public transport fare review hopes to make the link between wages for public transport workers and fares clearer. This is “so people can understand there is correlationship, to make it more reflective of the cost structure."

Mr Gan, who is also a member of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Transport, was speaking at a neighbourhood public forum in Hougang on Sunday morning. He was replying to questions from this writer.

Mr Gan was asked for his views on several questions, namely: the rationale behind Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew’s recent comments that fares will have to rise in order to “improve drivers’ pay”, and why the government is saying this despite the fact that the transport operators are making healthy profits.

By Andrew Loh

In recent years, there have been instances where the Government took issue with civil society activists for allegedly having “crossed a line” from civil society activism to political activism.

The finger is pointed at those such as the former chairman of the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), Nizam Ismail, and the activists who stood up for the SMRT drivers who had gone on strike last December; not so recently, there was blogsite The Online Citizen which was gazetted in 2010, and author Catherine Lim in 1994.

The Straits Times on 4 May 2013 had a two-page report - written by Andrea Ong and Elgin Toh - on this seeming crossing of the line by activists. It is worth noting that the report highlighted activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are critical of the Government, and conspicuously left out examples of pro-Government or pro-establishment, and pro-PAP, activists and organisations which have similarly crossed the line from civil society activism to political activism.

Editorial

The Land Transport Authority must be empowered to fulfil its promises of becoming a better regulator.

The release on 3rd July of the Committee of Inquiry’s (COI) lengthy report, detailing its investigations into last December’s multiple breakdowns on the MRT lines, came as something of an anti-climax after months of heightened public scrutiny of the COI and the two main objects of its focus, SMRT (which runs most of the subway system) and its regulator, the Land Transport Authority (LTA).  Concluding that the incidents were preventable, the report mostly faulted SMRT’s maintenance regimes and crisis response procedures, with LTA culpable to a significant extent for failing to monitor SMRT closely enough.

The following story is from the website: Workfair Singapore.

The deportation was swift and some say, unexpected. Almost as soon as authorities labelled the industrial action that gripped SMRT on the 26th and 27th of November an ‘illegal strike’, 20 drivers from China were rounded up for questioning. They were taken to the Police Cantonment Complex on the 28th of November and held for at least half a day. Some only left the next morning.

Following initial investigations, 29 Chinese drivers were eventually taken into police custody between the 30th of November and the 1st of December, accused of participating in the ‘illegal strike’. The men had their work permits cancelled and were all repatriated on the 2nd of December.

Workfair managed to track down and speak to three of the 29 drivers in separate interviews. Accounts of what led to the work stoppage and what transpired during the ‘illegal strike’ differ. But all three men said they were not given an opportunity to defend themselves before being summarily dismissed from their jobs and sent home.

By Andrew Loh

The SMRT drivers who refused to go to work had complained about two things – their wages and their living conditions. Much has been said about their salaries and whether they should be paid more than Singaporeans or other nationals. Not much, however, has been said about their living conditions, besides their complaints of the presence of bed bugs and how each of them has had to share the same room with 7 other workers.

Such complaints are not uncommon. Neither are they new. They are not surprising, too. In land scarce Singapore, and with more than a million migrant workers here, finding space to house them is a challenge.

But this is also where abuse comes in.

To continue to parrot the argument that the workers did not and should not have taken things into their own hands is to be blind to the reality these workers face. And to stick our heads in the sand, while trumpeting the righteousness of dealing with illegal action swiftly, is to ignore the bigger issue here of the power imbalance between the employee and her employer.

The government's extreme pro-business attitude needs to be addressed and re-looked. It is perhaps the most important issue here, giving rise to the skewed labour landscape for employees, both local and foreign.

Read the full article by Andrew Loh on Yahoo Singapore.

The following is an open letter to the SMRT Board of Directors by the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME), on the recent SMRT strike. In her letter to the media, Ms Bridget Tan, the CEO and founder of HOME, said:

"The stand of HOME is clear - we are of the position that SMRT is responsible for the 'illegal' action taken by the Chinese bus drivers. We uphold the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' and we are against anti-labour and discriminatory practices. The State should take these circumstances as mitigatory reasons for the release of the workers so charged for an illegal strike action."

Below is the response from the SMRT to a query by publichouse.sg's editor-in-chief, Andrew Loh, on why announcements on trains are in English and Chinese only. Some have observed this apparent anomaly and have questioned if the other official languages, namely Malay and Tamil, would also be used in such announcements.

Here is SMRT's reply:

Dear Mr Loh

We refer to your feedback below.

We wish to explain that we had received public feedback and suggestions to announce station names in Mandarin. Following a review, we decided to adopt passengers’ recommendations as it is a service improvement that would benefit passengers who rely on announcements during their journey.