One of the most prominent moments in Barak Obama’s Presidency
was when he suggested that people who felt that people living on low wages didn’t
have it that bad was “Try it.” I often think of this phrase whenever I read
comments about workers dormitories and how foreign workers should be grateful
for their lot in life because it's apparently much worse elsewhere.
The most recent character who should try it is a character
called “Michael Petraeus,” a Polish national who has reinvented himself as a blogger
called “Critical Spectator.” Mr. Petraeus like all good foreigners at
the “expat” end of the scale is a devoted fan of the Singapore Government and
while he is a spectator, he is not critical of the situation in Singapore.
To be fair, Singapore stacks up pretty well in most
aspects of life. We remain for the most part a
rich, clean and green city. The
government machinery for the most part remains pretty good. Our Prime Minister,
for example, gets the world’s most generous political salary but unlike his
previous counter part across the causeway, nobody has found a criminal and unaccountable
sum of money in his bank account. In this era of Covid 19, we’ve also done a
reasonable job. If you look at the statistics, we’ve not done as well as we
could have when compared to say Taiwan or New Zealand but it's not the disaster
of say, the USA, where there’s a national leader undermining safety measures.
Mr. Petraeus is also a foreigner, who is getting a good deal
from Singapore. It might be natural that he takes the view that he should “educate”
the locals and show them that Singapore is not as bad as they think it is and
as a “guest,” he might feel that its not his place to be critical.
Having said that, Singapore is not perfect. As PN Balji,
former editor of the Today Newspaper used to say, “They’ve got about 75 to 80
percent right but you need to harp on the 20 to 25 percent that isn’t right
because it’s the only way they’ll stay on their toes.”
Unfortunately, the one area that most glaring errors in the
Singapore system is in the area of dealing with the poor and neglected. Our so
called “Asian-Values” society that respects elders, for example, sees nothing wrong
with old folks going through the trash so that they can pick out drinks cans to
sell for a few pennies because they need the money.
We are also a society that doesn’t seem to have a problem with
“slave labour,” and “race-based” pay scales, particularly when it comes to
dealing with people who happen to be darker than a shade of pink. Only the blind
would argue otherwise.
Unfortunately, Mr. Petraeus is blind spot to the obvious and
this causes him to be anything but a “Critical” spectator. His most recent post
was to rush the defense of the workers dormitories after the outbreak of Covid-19
cases. His post can be found at:
Mr. Petraeus argues that far from being a failure that the
NGO crowd have made them out to be, the dorms are a sign of success. His arguments
can be summed up as follows:
1. Singapore has built cheap and good infrastructure by using cheap labour from elsewhere;
2. The foreign workers are not complaining because what they get here is better than what they get at home;
3. Singapore is short of land and the dormitories are the most cost-effective way of housing them; and
4. This is not exploitation because everyone benefits.
Mr. Petraeus is correct. The dorms are a
sign of success. If you are an owner of a dormitory for example, you are bound
to be very successful
Take a look at the Centurion Corporation, which owns and
runs the Westlite Toh Guan, the dormitory that has become one of the main
covid-19 clusters. In the year ending 31 December 2019, Centurion Corporation had revenue of SG$ 133,353,000 and after-tax profits of SG$103,788,000. The joint
non-executive chairmen of the board, Mr. Han Seng Juan and Mr. David Loh Kim
Kang from Potong Pasir CCC are appreciated by their shareholders.
Mr. Petraeus is also right in as much as the workers
generally don’t complain about their lot because they are earning more than what
they could earn back home and from what I could see of Westlite Toh Guan from
the outside, it does not look unpleasant.
As to how much we’ve benefited in terms of cheap and
affordable infrastructure, it’s a question of debate. What is certain is that
the trade in labourers has built a few fortunes. In addition to helping the
construction companies earn good money from cheaper labour, there is an
industry called labour supply. In July 2019, one of the largest labour
suppliers in Singapore sold his company for 40 odd million Singapore dollars.
Mr. Petraeus also uses another defense of the system, which
is – migrant labourers are always at the bottom of the social heap wherever you
go.
However, what Mr. Petraeus seems to forget is that just
because a situation exists everywhere in the world or the fact that people don’t
complain about it doesn’t make it right.
Everyone knows that the foreign workers are where they are
because they want to earn money to help families get out of poverty. They’re
willing to work longer hours and for less money than the locals. Nothing wrong
with that. However, the real beneficiaries of this business are not the workers
themselves but a host of intermediaries like labour suppliers, agents and
incidentally, in the case of Singapore, the government, which collects a levy
on every foreign worker (which ranges from $600 to $900 per person per month).
While Mr. Petraeus’s point that Singapore benefits from
cheap labour might be up for debate, the government definitely benefits from it
in the form of the levy. If you take the low-end figure of $600 per person and
the fact that there are 284,300 construction workers as at June 2019, that amounts
to some S$170,580,000 a month in revenue from the workers levy alone.
While the intention of the levy is supposed to be to reduce
the cost differential between the foreign labourer and a local Singaporean, the
result is that its encouraged employers to look for further cost savings
elsewhere, particularly from the workers.
Some locals have complained that the Singapore government is
“wasting” resources on the labourers and that we’re doing more for them than
their own governments. However, let’s look at the other side of the equation.
The mere presence of the labourers is contributing to the government’s coffers in
return for no benefit at all. Call what the government is doing for the labourers
a form of investment to ensure the system can sustain itself rather than
benevolence. Whatever benefits the government gets from contractors using cheap
labour, the one that is clearly measurable is the returns from the levy.
Mr. Petraeus also forgets that the government has admitted
that standards for worker accommodation are also not what they should be.
Minister for Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo has said that standards need to be
raised and it is clear that current conditions of accommodation are not
healthy. While the recent outbreaks of covid-19 have attracted media attention
because of their sheer number, this is not the first-time workers have died in
Singapore because of an outbreak of disease in their accommodation.
It must be nice for Mr. Petraeus has so much faith in the
Singapore government. However, blind faith is not healthy for any organization including
the Singapore government. It’s the likes of Mr. Petraeus’s efforts to defend
glaring flaws that leads to complacency, which leads to something like the case
that we currently have
Perhaps the solution for Mr. Petraeus to celebrate the
success that our dorm represent, would be for him to try living in one of them.
Perhaps he really would be a “Critical Spectator” rather than a “Fawning Follower.”
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