Alas,,Final Chapter,,
Chapter Five: The Gavel Falls
On Thursday, Nov. 29, two days after a strike by Chinese bus drivers captured public attention in Singapore, prosecutors charged four men – He Junling, Liu Xiangying, Gao Yueqiang and Wang Xianjie – with engaging in a conspiracy to instigate others to participate in a strike.
Mr. He faced an additional count of incitement, related to an Internet essay he wrote to spur on his co-workers.
At least an additional 50 drivers were picked up on that day for questioning, according to drivers who were part of that investigation. Police released them within hours, according to the drivers. Police have not commented on the drivers’ specific accounts.
Police detained a fifth man a day later. Bao Fengshan, a 38-year-old who joined joined Singaporean transport operator SMRT Corp. in 2008, was charged with participating in the strike.
Prosecutors said in a court submission that he made “threatening comments” during a meeting with
SMRTS53.SG -0.38% officials on the first day of the strike. Prosecutors said he suggested that a further strike might happen if the drivers’ demands weren’t met within a week.
He later pleaded guilty without engaging a lawyer, was sentenced to six weeks in jail, and then returned to China, according to court documents. He could not be located.
By then, the drama in Singapore had caught the attention of Beijing. In a statement, China’s Commerce Ministry said it hoped “all relevant parties can treat the requests of the Chinese drivers fairly, respond to their requests actively and take care of them reasonably to defend [their] legitimate rights.”
***
As public debate over the strike intensified, the Singapore government
pressed SMRT to
address its drivers’ grievances.
But it also stressed that the protesters could have sought help through official channels, noting that many of their recent objections—such as perceived discrimination—hadn’t been reported to the authorities prior to the strike.
In the days after the strike, SMRT executives started visiting the mainland Chinese drivers, promising to
review their salary requests and address their
concerns over lodging, according to SMRT statements at the time.
Contractors were brought in to repair defects and broken fittings in the dormitories, while pest-control firms arrived to kill bedbugs, according to SMRT statements. Alternative accommodations were arranged for drivers who asked to move out of their current quarters, the statements said.
SMRT Chief Executive Desmond Kuek, who was on holiday in the U.S. when the strike occurred, also met personally with drivers from China after the strike ended. He assured them of a S$25-per-month (US$19.50) wage increase, backdated to July, that would bring their monthly pay to S$1,100 (US$859), which SMRT said it had already planned to implement in December.
But he told the drivers that no pay raise beyond that would be made, according to a transcript of his comments provided by SMRT.
Mr. Kuek and other SMRT officials explained that the company was paying the Chinese drivers lower basic salaries than their Malaysian colleagues to make up for the costs of subsidizing accommodation for the mainland Chinese drivers, according to SMRT statements.
“It is unfortunate that this incident has happened,” Mr. Kuek said in a Nov. 30
statement.
“It shows that more needs to be done by management to proactively manage and engage” the drivers.
Even as SMRT mopped up the strike’s aftermath, the government was preparing a response of its own.
***
<dl class="wp-caption aligncenter caption-centered " style="width: 359px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt">
</dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd wp-cite-dd" style="text-align: right;">Wang Yong</dd><dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="text-align: left;">The strike put bus driver Wang Yong in a quandary.</dd></dl>
Wang Yong, a driver at the Serangoon-district workers’ complex, said he and other workers returned to their jobs on Wednesday, his backing of the strike cooled by the government’s tough rhetoric.
He spent several hours on Thursday speaking to police investigators, he recalled later, cooperating with their queries and arguing that he had received legitimate medical leave.
That, he hoped, would be the end of it.
In the wee hours of Saturday morning, after Mr. Wang pulled a late-night shift, his supervisor rang him up, he said in an interview.
“The police need you to go back for further investigation,” the supervisor said, Mr. Wang recalled. “They’ll pick you up in the morning.”
He said he roused before 8 a.m., had breakfast and waited.
An SMRT bus arrived soon after, he said. The vehicle meandered through the streets then took an unfamiliar route, making Mr. Wang nervous, he said.
The bus pulled up at Admiralty West Prison, a remote facility near Singapore’s northern coastline, according to Mr. Wang, as well as another driver.
Other vehicles also arrived, ferrying drivers from the Woodlands-district dormitory. Dozens of police and immigration officers awaited the 29 drivers who were brought in, the drivers said.
<dl class="wp-caption aligncenter caption-centered " style="width: 359px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt">
</dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd wp-cite-dd" style="text-align: right;">Agence France-Presse/Getty Images</dd><dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="text-align: left;">An SMRT bus leaves the Admiralty West prison after taking mainland Chinese bus drivers to the prison in Singapore on Dec. 1, 2012.</dd></dl>
An official stepped forward. “We’re repatriating all of you back to China,” Mr. Wang recalled him saying in Mandarin.
The drivers insisted they didn’t do anything wrong, according to some of the drivers present, including Mr. Wang.
The official was unmoved, they said.
Another driver came forward. “Tell me. What offense have I committed?” he asked, Mr. Wang recalled.
The official said the drivers had committed an offense by participating in the strike, and that repatriation was the penalty, according to Mr. Wang and another driver.
“The decision has been made,” the official said firmly, according to Mr. Wang. “There is no room for negotiation.”
Government officers proceeded to revoke the men’s work permits and driving licenses, and booked them on flights to their home provinces in China, according to drivers present and a government
statement issued that day, Dec. 1.
SMRT officials terminated the drivers’ contracts and made arrangements to settle outstanding salaries, according to an SMRT statement and drivers.
“You are being issued a warning, but none of you will be charged,” a police officer told Mr. Wang, according to the driver.
The 29 drivers were made to change into prison garb and ushered into cells, where they were given dinner, according to drivers.
They had no access to lawyers and were barred from making phone calls, drivers said. But they were allowed to speak to visiting Chinese embassy officials.
“Some drivers were shouting continuously from their cells, hurling abuse,” Mr. Wang recalled. “But I realized it was pointless. The Singapore government had made up its mind, and we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Under Singapore labor regulations, authorities have the right to revoke foreigners’ work permits and deport them if they violate local laws and certain employment conditions.
All 29 drivers were dispatched for home late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, according to a government
statement.
SMRT did not comment on the specifics of how the deportation was handled.
In a joint Dec. 1 statement, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Manpower said the 29 drivers had “disrupted our public transport which is an essential service, and posed a threat to public order.” They were “blatant and persistent in their unlawful acts,” the ministries said.
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The men accused of being the strike’s ringleaders, meanwhile, faced trial in Singapore’s justice system.
On Dec. 6, He Junling, Liu Xiangying, Gao Yueqiang and Wang Xianjie were brought back to court.
According to Mr. He and Mr. Liu, police investigators had tried to discourage them from engaging lawyers, saying such a move could result in heavier punishment than if they pleaded guilty immediately. The police didn’t respond to queries about this claim.
The drivers told the court they wanted to engage lawyers, and the judge set bail at S$10,000 each for Messrs. Liu, Gao and Wang, and S$20,000 for Mr. He, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors.
Activists and migrant-worker advocacy groups helped the four men post bail and provided them with meals and accommodation, according to drivers and activists involved.
Support also came from as far afield as Hong Kong, where local unionists staged a protest, calling on Singaporean authorities to drop charges against the drivers, according to a
statement from the unionists and media reports in the
Straits Times and
other publications.
In February, the four men decided to take the case to trial, rejecting an offer from prosecutors to amend their charges from instigating the strike to mere participation in return for guilty pleas, according to state prosecutors, defense lawyers and Messrs. He and Liu.
Although both offenses were punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine, participation is typically considered to be a lesser crime than instigating a strike.
But as the process wore on, the men changed their minds, according to Messrs. He and Liu, as well as lawyers representing Messrs. Gao and Wang.
“All of us also have families back home to feed,” said Mr. He in an interview, adding that the men didn’t want to make matters difficult for some colleagues who were still being asked to assist police investigations. “So we decided to speed up the process,” he said.
Mr. He told his lawyers that he would plead guilty in return for a seven-week jail term, while the others said they would accept six weeks, Mr. He, defense lawyers and prosecutors said.
Messrs. He, Liu, Gao and Wang all pleaded guilty to instigating a strike when they reappeared in court on Feb. 25, while Mr. He pleaded guilty to the additional charge of incitement.
Before sentencing, their lawyers asked the court to consider lighter sentences, according to court documents.
“It was never Jun Ling’s intention to startle or alarm the public, nor was it a calculated plan of his to unsettle labor relations in Singapore for personal gain,” Peter Low and Choo Zhengxi, counsels to Mr. He, wrote in their court submissions.
“His actions came from a place of deep desperation and despair at his living conditions, discriminatory pay, and a lack of an outlet to express his grievances.”
Mark Goh, the lawyer who represented Messrs. Liu and Gao, told the court that the drivers had chosen to avoid work by taking medical leave, as opposed to “an outright defiant refusal to go to work,” according to court submissions reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
This showed that the men “were still mindful and respectful of the parameters of their employment terms” and couldn’t have planned to cripple the public-transport network, as their plan was dependent upon the discretion of third-party doctors, Mr. Goh wrote in court submissions.
Prosecutors, however, in their court submissions pressed the judge to impose more than “a mere fine or a nominal imprisonment term.”
<dl class="wp-caption alignleft caption-alignleft " style="width: 553px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt">
</dt><dd class="wp-caption-dd wp-cite-dd" style="text-align: right;">Ministry of Manpower</dd><dd class="wp-caption-dd" style="text-align: left;">Above, Singapore’s historical strike data from 1946 to 2009. In this chart, man-days lost refer to the total number of working days lost annually due to industrial action. It is calculated by multiplying the duration of industrial actions (in days) with the number of workers that were affected. </dd></dl>
“The actions of the four accused persons played an undoubted part in precipitating a situation that had an adverse impact on our public transport services,” Francis Ng and Peggy Pao-Keerthi, both deputy public prosecutors, said in their submission.
“It is thus vital that a deterrent signal be sent to dissuade others from committing similar offenses to obtain concessions from their employers, lest such conduct ultimately prove inimical to the well-being of the public,” they said.
Judge See Kee Oon sentenced Mr. He to seven weeks in jail. Messrs. Liu, Gao and Wang each received a six-week sentence.
Neither SMRT nor the government commented on the sentencing.
***
After serving their sentences, all four drivers returned to China. In total, 34 drivers were deported for their roles in the strike.
In the months since, some of them have secured new work while others were still searching when contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
Several of the men said they were trying to put the past behind them, but the sting from their experiences lingered.
“I do feel that I was treated unfairly,” said Wang Yong, the driver who said he was deported even though he only stayed away from work for one day. But “I can understand why the Singapore government chose to do what it did, acting quickly to discourage more labor unrest.”
He has since found work as a machinist at a Chinese construction company in Angola.
“What has happened has happened, it’s time to move on,” He Junling, the writer of an online essay encouraging the strike, said in an interview from his home in Henan province, where he found a new job in what he described as a “managerial-type role” at a factory.
But Singapore, he said, could do more for its foreign labor, a group that he felt was underappreciated by its hosts.
“Migrant workers contribute so much to Singapore’s success, doing dirty and menial jobs that Singaporeans don’t want to do,” Mr. He said. “They deserve respect.”
Still, for drivers that remained in Singapore – and for new drivers who arrived since – the work environment has improved a bit as a result of what happened, according to SMRT statements and drivers who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. In some ways, the protest worked.
Drivers hired from China on two-year contracts now receive the same performance incentives as drivers of other nationalities, according to an
SMRT statement. They also get a 13th-month bonus and a year-end variable bonus. SMRT said it took steps to improve dormitory conditions, including moving some drivers to better facilities and reorganizing work schedules to allow adequate rest.
The company also revamped its human-resources department, disciplined under-performing supervisors and improved communication channels with its workers, it said.
The National Transport Workers’ Union has been actively encouraging foreign workers to become members, an official at the union’s parent entity—the National Trades Union Congress—said in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal.
The NTWU now counts about 86% of SMRT’s mainland Chinese bus drivers – or about 380 people – as associate members, though contract workers like those from China remain excluded from full membership under the terms of the union’s collective agreement with SMRT.
Associate members can seek union help to engage management on workplace grievances, although they remain excluded from collective-bargaining processes that determine pay and other working conditions.
On the government’s part, the Manpower Ministry has pledged to step up protections for vulnerable workers and encourage companies to improve mechanisms for handling employees’ grievances, Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin
told Parliament in February.
“No matter how we painstakingly manage industrial relations, problems will emerge and disputes will occur,”
Prime Minister Lee said in his
May Day speech, making his first public comments on the SMRT strike.
“The government’s position is clear: We cannot tolerate any party taking illegal action, or deliberately damaging our harmonious industrial relations,” Mr. Lee said. “This is the Singapore way – we must preserve this fine spirit.”