Saturday, April 6

How more than 170 bus drivers ended up going on a two-day strike against their employer in Singapore (perhaps islanders mindset)?.


Picked up at yahoo news:

“I personally asked the company three times for permission... and they rejected me all three times, telling me that our (Chinese) contracts were different from the Malaysian ones — ours were two-year contracts while theirs were long-term ones — and those on two-year contracts cannot join the union,” he said.

Conversely, labour chief Lim Swee Say said in the wake of the strike that foreign workers are allowed to join the unions here, and are in fact encouraged to, except that the membership take-up rate for the
National Transport Workers’ Union was much lower with SMRT bus drivers than it was at SBS Transit.

Long before He even started work in Singapore, in fact, the
Ministry of Manpower (MOM) was aware of the concerns raised by the SMRT bus drivers, he said, citing a petition submitted to the ministry in 2010 by a group of Chinese bus drivers, two of whom were among the group of four (including He) who were first arrested and charged for their involvement in the strike.

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