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SMRT Corp is 54-percent owned by Temasek Holdings, the government’s investment vehicle.
The government has also said, repeatedly, that workers should have “discussed” their issues with management. Knowing Chinese workers, I am sure they have, many times and loudly. It’s in their nature. The problem is that the system is stacked against them. It’s a very Singaporean system: where lower-rank people don’t have rights to justice, but can only plead for better treatment. It’s a microcosm of the political system this government has created. Citizens have no substantive rights; they can only plead for their wishes to be taken into account. There’s a term for this: The petitionary state.
Wage bargaining everywhere else is conducted between unions and employers. Employers hold the nuclear option of termination. Unions hold the nuclear option of calling a mass walk-out. The bargaining that results may be robust, but is, at least, meaningful.
As some commentators have already pointed out, this SMRT incident is forcing Singapore to address the issue of unionising foreign workers. Left unsaid is whether the government-linked union NTUC is the right vehicle. Of course it is not. For half a century, it has served as a whip helping the government keep Singaporean workers in line; it would be even more useless for foreign workers.
All workers, foreign and local, need independent unions. Far from what the mainstream rhetoric will no doubt try to convince us, they will be good for Singapore. It is a truism that systems must have safety valves. There must be ways to negotiate and rebalance rather than try to keep the screws on so tight till the whole shebang blows apart. Especially in times of rising income inequality, the stresses are growing.
To keep insisting that the old ways of command and control must continue, that the law and media must serve the supremacy of executive government and its related companies, and workers must work and behave, is a sure recipe for a day when things really blow apart.
- http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2...ike-government-messaging-goes-into-overdrive/
The government has also said, repeatedly, that workers should have “discussed” their issues with management. Knowing Chinese workers, I am sure they have, many times and loudly. It’s in their nature. The problem is that the system is stacked against them. It’s a very Singaporean system: where lower-rank people don’t have rights to justice, but can only plead for better treatment. It’s a microcosm of the political system this government has created. Citizens have no substantive rights; they can only plead for their wishes to be taken into account. There’s a term for this: The petitionary state.
Wage bargaining everywhere else is conducted between unions and employers. Employers hold the nuclear option of termination. Unions hold the nuclear option of calling a mass walk-out. The bargaining that results may be robust, but is, at least, meaningful.
As some commentators have already pointed out, this SMRT incident is forcing Singapore to address the issue of unionising foreign workers. Left unsaid is whether the government-linked union NTUC is the right vehicle. Of course it is not. For half a century, it has served as a whip helping the government keep Singaporean workers in line; it would be even more useless for foreign workers.
All workers, foreign and local, need independent unions. Far from what the mainstream rhetoric will no doubt try to convince us, they will be good for Singapore. It is a truism that systems must have safety valves. There must be ways to negotiate and rebalance rather than try to keep the screws on so tight till the whole shebang blows apart. Especially in times of rising income inequality, the stresses are growing.
To keep insisting that the old ways of command and control must continue, that the law and media must serve the supremacy of executive government and its related companies, and workers must work and behave, is a sure recipe for a day when things really blow apart.
- http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2...ike-government-messaging-goes-into-overdrive/
