Strike Three - You're Out!

The four bus drivers from China who stood up to the discriminating practices of SMRT management were hauled up to court by the police yesterday and charged with instigating an illegal strike on Monday and Tuesday.

Problem is, since the strike was recognised only on Tuesday, Monday's activity being vicariously labelled as sit-down, refusal to show up for work and other euphemisms, the charge is wrongly framed. One of the Fantastic Four faces another charge of inciting workers to strike in relation to a statement posted on Chinese website Baidu. The words "instigating" and "inciting" are probably plucked from the same dictionary which, at least on Monday, did not list "strike".  It is very possible that the freedom of expression was misconstrued by the authorities, thanks to their corrupted lexicon. J B Jeyaratnam once waved a copy of a police report at a election rally, and he was promptly sued for libel.

Read the "incriminating" extract and try to find the "instigating" and "inciting" elements:

"But why don't we think of it the other way round, if a few hundred Chinese nationals take the lead, I am afraid the management of SMRT will fired instead. Not that we do not know the traffic situation in Singapore, a few hundred bus drivers do not report for work  for a few days, there will be public outcry in Singapore. Lianhe Zaoba, My Paper and the English papers will all wait on us, trying to find out the reasons for the action.  Land Transport Authority will have to start questioning the SMRT."

If the well meaning ("They were just asking for better pay and living conditions", an anonymous source who braved the SMRT forbidding the Chinese drivers from talking to the media) were intent on inciting anything, it was to nudge the mainstream media and LTA to do their bloody job in the first place. The last public outcry about the mismanagement at SMRT was initiated by a train stuck in a dark tunnel. Which is a preferable incubator of public outcry, a sit-down at a dormitory, or commuters seated in an airless, unlitted train coach?

Minister of State for Manpower Amy Khor enthusiastically "welcomed the swift action of the police" but downplayed the lethargy of the SMRT management, best exemplified by the newly appointed CEO who is still conveniently out of town, mobile phone presumably switched off. The caped crusader buffoon, that defacto defender of industrial workers, is still MIA. Meanwhile the loser at Hougang, deputy executive secretary of the National Transport Workers' Union (NTWU) Desmond Choo, surfaced suddenly as the one "who helped to mediate at the strike". Or rather, the one who failed miserably at the mediation, resulting in the brutal police response. He admitted his personal failure in getting the SMRT bus drivers to join his union, leaving them with no recourse except to exercise their human rights to protest.

China, who has been observing Singapore's model of governance, was quick to learn from the use of force. Taking a cue from Amy Khor's praise of swift police action,  it is empowering its border police to take tougher action against foreign ships entering contested waters in the South China Sea, specifically "to board, seize and expel foreign ships illegally entering the province's sea areas." It remains to be seen if the boys in blue will next board the dormitories, seize and expel the foreigners. More likely they will park their shiny new red vans nearby and await political motivation.

No Country For Old Men

For moment, it read like Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong finally got the message. In the context of the disruption 117 bus drivers can inflict on our public transportation, anyone else would experience an epiphany of sorts.

Instead, he was was using Bloomberg's editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler to peddle his "population growth is connected to immigration and economic growth" poison. Winkler had asked if there was anything Lee would have done differently since he took charge of the Government in 2004. His answer - should have addressed the ageing population issues earlier. Somehow he missed out on the other developments in the human race. People also get married, have kids, grandchildren, all in the natural order of things. Except when the cycle of life is disrupted by unnatural eugenic theories of social engineering that turn a nation on its head.

First we were told the foreigners were transient workers, they would go home after the infrastructure was built. Unknown to us, foreigners were encouraged to take up citizenships, straining the existing capacities of housing and transportation systems. All too soon, one out of three walking on our streets is an alien face.

Something is more frightening than Singapore turning into "a retirement home and not a vibrant city". The palpable fear is that our birthright, the stake holding in our land which young men in uniform have sworn to protect, is being diluted by the outsiders. The Joel and Ethan Coen movie "No Country For Old Men" must have been made with Singapore in mind.

Putting economic growth ahead of the concerns of the indigenous population could result in a Dubai, where 71% of the population consists of foreigners and expatriates. The expatriate population in the entire UAE makes up 91.5% of the working population. Already Singapore is marketed like Dubai, an exciting destination both for travelers seeking thrills and adventure and for expatriates seeking a healthy employment climate and a tax free lifestyle.

Emigrates in Dubai mostly include Asians, mainly from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Filipino. 16% of the population is not being identified either by ethnicity or by nationality but believed to be chiefly Asians. They are not identified by nationals mainly because they live in combined labor accommodation, not unlike the Woodlands Dormitory housing the bus drivers from China. The average age of total Dubai population is about 27 years. Is this what the government has in mind?

Strike Two

It's official. For the second day running, the strike is on. After SMRT's packet of lies (the strikers on Monday numbered 171, not 102), 88 drivers from China stood their ground for their right of protest.

While the ex-army officer (Desmond Kuek was the 6th Chief of Defence Force of the Singapore Armed Forces) they hired to run SMRT is taking cover in his bunker, another ex-general tried to explain why it took him so long to understand the meaning of the word "strike".  He probably had to ask permission from the boss first. "Sir! Permission to think, Sir!"

Brigadier General and Acting Minister of Manpower Tan Chuan-Jin said it took a whole day for the Government to call the protest a strike because, "The labelling of industrial action such as this is not trivial.. it would then open up  a series of actions that would follow thereafter." Right, a post on the Tianya forum reminded the military men that China successfully landed a jet on their new aircraft carrier Liaoning, "That is why we need to build more aircraft carriers and send them to Singapore's footsteps." But what must really get Tan's knickers in a twist was the Chinese Embassy calling on his Ministry of Manpower to safeguard the rights and interests of Chinese workers according to local laws. (China News Service (CNS) said the embassy was monitoring the situation closely and had sent officials to take part in the mediation).

Rights and interests of workers that even Singaporeans are not aware of. Like, strikes are legal if rules are followed as stipulated in the Trade Unions Act and Trade Disputes Act. Workers can go on strike, but they must follow rules such as giving their employer 14 days of notice. Rules which are rubbished for "essential services such as transport and postal services" by the tougher provisions of the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act. We know what happened in 2002 when Singapore Airlines pilots planned their strike. Brass knuckles were brought out in a hurry.

Ignoring the query that SMRT management may have fallen short - them generals sure know how to cover each other's backside - Tan still refused to call a spade a spade, saying it would be "inappropriate at this stage for us to make any definitive proclamations(sic) either way." So when would be an appropriate time, when the strike force from Liaoning is on the way?

Gerrymander this:  J-15 landing on the Liaoning

First Strike

Lessons imported from China: Protest 101

First, the latest details available on the development. The industrial action began at the crack of dawn when 103 disgruntled SMRT bus drivers congregated illegally at their Woodlands Depot dormitory on Monday at 4 am. Lest we forget, the amended Singapore law determines that one lone standing person can constitute an illegal assembly. They steadfastly refused to board the buses provided by their employer to ferry them to their contractual work obligations. Instead of being arrested for their audacious affront to authority they were merely "given until noon by SMRT to return to work". Another 60 SMRT workers from the Serangoon dormitory arrived to join the picket, which could explain the earlier report of 200 belligerent Chinese nationals on site. The "talks" ended at 6 pm, with no agreement reached. Zorro, with or without mask or cape, was nowhere in sight.

"We're not comparing our salaries with the Singaporeans. We just wanted to be treated fairly like all the other foreigners," was the quote attributed to one of the strikers. One PRC national from Jiangsu Province told Chinese media Zaobao that the bus captains from China are paid less than those from Singapore and Malaysia.

The Straits Times initially reported the story with the heading, "200 SMRT bus drivers refuse to go to work over pay issue". The English word for that descriptive is strike, defined in the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press as "when workers refuse to continue working because of an argument with an employer about working conditions, pay levels or job losses". The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English explains: if a group of workers strike, they stop working as a protest against something relating to their work, for example how much they are paid, bad working conditions.

So why was the "s" word so studiously avoided? Simply put, there are no strikes in Singapore, period. Flooding is also a thing of the past, the politically correct term is "ponding". Both Kishore Mahbubani and Lee Kuan Yew have, on different occasions, boasted to the world that there are no beggars on Singapore streets either. The auntie asking you for a dollar for a packet of tissues is not begging, she's part of the nation's entrepreneurial force, advancing the country's GDP for the better good of all. So long as you are on the Matrix blue pill, housing is affordable and health care is subsidised.

The Mother Of Gag Orders

"Minister says cannot say", was how one Nanyang pupil presented it.

It is still amazing that 51 adults have had their lives ruined, some sent to jail, others with careers hanging in limbo, and yet not a single soul has dared leak the identity of the under aged slut who caused so much pain. The school kids are not guarding anything similar, just the name of the top scorer for this year's Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) results. It must be real stressful for a youngster to be placed with so great a responsibility. Ironically, the 48,333 Dragon Year born students who took the test aren't acting very dragonish.

The adults, especially those running the lucrative private tuition business, are taking the gag order more seriously.  The last thing they need is to be black balled by the Ministry of Education.  They probably have to whisper the information to enquiring parents on a need to know basis, they can tell you, but they will have to shoot you aftwards.

"We don't want to be seen going against the ministry's direction," was how school staffers explained their fait accompli. After all the teachers did have a surprise 8 percent increment recently, more than sufficient to ensure their compliance. And buy their silence. The odd principal may be busting with pride the hard work yielded results, but he/she knows too well what the Minister giveth, the Minister can taketh away.

So what's so scary about the Education Minister that his very utterance can strike fear into the hearts of the young and the old? Perhaps it is the unspoken atmosphere of oppression that is pervasive in our society.  Try to get too emotional, and you risk someone throwing everything at you, drag out the case, throw everything in the mud... and exposed to (adverse) media publicity.

What is approved for public dissemination is that 63.1 percent of the school leavers qualified for the Express stream, a slight improvement over last year's performance. An express ride to a society of muted adults where it is perfectly normal to be kia-su, kia-si and kia-cheng hu.