Industrial Relations in Singapore version 2012

Read this interesting comment on Facebook sometime today.....written by Mr Tan

What started as employment term dispute, escalated into a workers' rights issue when MOM Minister declared that the government has "zero tolerance" for industrial disharmony and decided to clean up the shit of the transgressions by a corporation. To use the weight of the law to punish workers seeking to redress their working terms undermines the fundamentals of tripartism we tried to build over the years. It is a travesty of our legal system if laws are used to maintain our "industrial harmony" record rather than to protect the vulnerable. Apparently some of the workers are charged under a temporary legislation passed in 1955 - a law constructed primarily to deal with gangsterism back then - this is rubbing salt into the wound. The negativities the case has generated is instructive that the government cannot continue to use an old template of governance that is quickly becoming irrelevant.

The root cause of the problem is the perturbingly poor working conditions of lower rung migrant workers, who are employed in construction sector so that we have our nice million dollar condo and flats, cleaning our streets and estates so that we are a beautiful clean and green city, driving our public transport so that we can transit from place to place safely and conveniently, tending our children and aged while we focus on creating wealth for our family, in short an integral part of the national economic achievement we are so proud of. Migrant workers are economic participants not economic digit to dispense off when they become a social burden.