Being a Loser in the Free Market Open Door System Made Me Detest Anti-Immigrant Populism

 I make no secret that I detest Donald Trump. I was instantly turned off when he started going on about Mexicans coming across the border being “rapist” and how there was a need to build a wall to prevent horrible people from Mexico coming across to steal jobs from innocent Americans (read – the White variety), I wanted to vomit because, well that’s not true. I hated it when I saw people lap it up and what was particularly distressing was when you had people of colour in Singapore think of this as “speaking the truth,” (read if only we Singapore Chinese had a champion like Trump). 

I’m a “loser” of the open market system in as much as I had to take a blue-collar job in my late thirties so that I could pay my bill. My colleagues were predominantly Indian and Pilipino and I developed a good deal of affection for them. 

Maybe it’s just me but I can’t understand this belief that your job is being stolen. Whenever I’d hear “my people” complain about dark skinned Asians stealing our jobs and how Trump was really a great guy for proposing what he did with regards to the Mexicans, I’d look at the Kitchen Thambis and Pinoy waiters and ask myself planet these people were living in. The Kitchen Thambis and Pinoy waiters were the guys who had my back and yet the so called “concerned citizens” were supporting the idea that these guys were somehow my enemy.” 

Birthday with the Kitchen Thambis and Bruno’s Bistrot on Telok Kurau Road.

The same transpired when in my insolvency work. I was involved in a liquidation of a construction company. We had to sack or transfer over 30 workers who had not been paid. The receivables came in but somehow the bureaucracy was all about being fair to all creditors including financial institutions and so on (and to be fair to “my people,” the contact point in the financial institution we were dealing with told me privately that whenever a company went into liquidation, he’d always advise his side to write it off – his word were “You’ll pay me 10 cents on the dollar at most. It’s money that can’t interest me – get it to the people who need it the most). Somehow, paying the workers become less and less of a priority.

In that time, I broke the “rules” of working for an insolvency practitioner and extended money I didn’t exactly have to some of the workers. I remember a colleague telling me that I was breaking the “rules” as if this was the worst thing I could do. I was, as they say, “unprofessional.” It was even explained to me that “Indian and Bangladeshi” workers cannot be trusted.

I didn’t know how to explain to people who knew what I was doing that this was the right thing to do. Firstly, I wasn’t giving a handout but an advance on what they had claimed in their Proof of Debt form. Secondly, I also reasoned that although it was money that I couldn’t afford to toss about, it was money that I could make back by sitting in an airconditioned office for a few hours a day while these guys had to slog it out in the sun for the better part of a day so that they could provide “cheap” infrastructure to people like me and profits to slave traders like some of the creditors in this case.

Sure, I was open to accusations of being “unprofessional” and acting against the rules. How do you explain to people that if it’s a choice of being “human” or “professional,” its always better to be human?

I’m glad to say that when we did get round to distributing the dividends, I got paid most of my money and got to see the gratitude on the faces of these guys. One of them even felt that I was important enough to be the first guy outside his family to know his wife was pregnant with twins. He took me out for dinner the day he flew back to India.

Today, if you ask me about the moments, I feel most successful, I will inevitably tell you its when one of these guys remembers me. It makes my day when they send greeting cards or as one of them recently did, called me from India just to wish me well.

So, I detest anti-immigrant populist because from what I’ve experienced, they’re going after the people who I know to be for the most part, hard working and decent. Its like this, when a group of skin heads walk around town chanting “Jews will not replace us,” they make the case for why they need t be replaced. When someone like Sebastian Gorka gets on TV and talks about how the Proud Boys were started as a “Joke,” I’m tempted to think that Mr. Gorka should be placed at the wrong end of the Proud Boys activities and let’s see how funny he thinks it is.

Sure, I know these communities have their bad eggs but for the most part they are comprised of hard-working people trying to make a living. They are stealing jobs from the natives by doing the jobs that the natives won’t do.  Sure, I’m genuinely against the use of violence, however, when it comes to the nut jobs who chant “Jews (or any other ethnic group) will not replace us and think its OK to intimidate, I’m all for using whatever means necessary to eliminate the problem.

 

“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.  

When You’re Poor, what’s due to you is a cost

I Got Scammed by a Media Masterstroke.

After expressing my delight that Singapore’s Sunday Times published a news snippet stating that eight out of ten Singaporeans were willing to pay more for essential services if it meant giving the workers more money, I’m now disturbed.

You could say that after a decade of dealing with the news media, I’m getting my just deserts. It’s just dawned upon me that my delight in thinking that my fellow citizens were more kind hearted than I gave them credit for, was in fact a total distraction from the reality. Call it an endorphin shot that distracts you from the fact that you have cancer. It is a PR master stroke that stops you from asking hard questions.

Background to this started in April 2020, when Covid-19 cases started exploding in foreign worker dormitories. Singapore, which before then, had been basking in the international spotlight for its management of the virus, suddenly saw its reputation for basic competence tarnished. Instead of focusing on the “brilliant” job that the government was doing, the focus shifted to the fact that Singapore had an underclass that was being royally screwed.

In fairness to the government, it did act quickly to shut down the dorms and it offered assistance to the migrant workers, who had been screwed by the disease and the ensuring confinement. Instead of focusing on their plight, a good portion of the workers were suddenly given a reason to be grateful to the government. While the government did upset the more extreme elements who felt the government was spending too much tax payer money on ungrateful foreigners, it did take away a motive from the foreign worker population to cause any civil unrest.

The second stroke of genius was to focus on one simple question. This question was “Would you be willing to pay more for services if the wages of the poor and needy were to be increased?” This was done very subtly and it slid in between all the noise about the need to improve conditions for foreign workers and so on.

At the lowest end of the scale you had the likes of the Fawning Follower, who argued that poor living conditions for Singapore’s underclass were in fact good for Singapore (despite the evidence brought by Covid-19). At the more intelligent end of the scale, you had the likes of the CEO of Centurion Corp, who replied to my forum letter on his profit margins. He appeared reasonable, did not “hide” from the obvious, explained that he was doing this and that to make things better and then somehow it was going to costs money and the tax payer would have to pay for it.

This question frames the issue into one of self-interested costs. Think of the various ways in which this has been framed:

1. Yes, we understand that living conditions for Indian and Bangladeshi workers need to be improved – but you do know that it’s going to costs the employers more and they’ll raise prices so your road tax and building maintenance fees will go up; or
2. Yes, poor aunty carrying the trays at the food court only earns $7 an hour for a 12-hour day – but you know,, if you raised her salary to $10 an hour and reduce working hours to 10 hours a day, the stall owners will need to recoup their costs and are you willing to pay $7 for your noodles instead of $4?

When you frame the issue in this manner, even the most well-intentioned person, will think twice. This is especially true if your own wages are barely keeping up with inflation and rising costs. Think about it – nobody wants aunty to slave at the food court of the Thambis to come home to a slum after a day in the hot sun – but it means that I have to pay more …… Sure, its inspiring that people will say that their willing to pay more if it goes to the workers but the counter to that is that is inevitably – since we don’t know the money will go to the workers, why should we risk paying more.

The second problem with framing the debate this way is that it distracts people from the real issue, which is why is the cost structured the way it is.

In my earlier posting “Lucrative Problems,” I made the point that in the case of foreign labour in Singapore, foreign labour is not cheap and the labourer gets paid badly because there are too many parties taking a cut in between the employer and employee. The biggest cut goes into foreign worker levy to the government. This increases the employer’s costs but does not benefit the worker at all.

I’ve also argued in my piece "The Obvious Answer to Cheaper Hawker Food" that the government has the capacity to reduce rents on land that it controls so that businesses keep more of the money they earn. 

If you look at the way the question is phrased, you think it’s just an employer-vs-employee issue. It makes you look at your own pocket without looking at the real issues. Imagine if we took the examples provided and said the following instead:

1. Since foreign workers live in awful conditions, why don’t we reduce the levy and regulate agent fees more, so that the employers and workers have more to spend on better accommodation; or
2. Why don’t reduce the rents at the food court so that the stall owners have more money to pay the cleaning aunties more?

It’s not going to happen because too many powerful parties have an interest in keeping things this way. These parties consider the reduction of the profit margin (take 50 percent instead of 80) as asking them to make a loss. Thus, they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep things the way they are.

However, there is a case to self-interest to be made. If the government took less from businesses and people through hidden levies and rents, it would create higher spending, which in turn would lead to more business activity and tax revenue.

While I’m happy that my fellow citizens are open to having more compassion for the less fortunate, we shouldn’t get distracted from asking real questions and addressing the real issues.

Lucrative Problems

I got to admit that I love Bollywood and being forced to stay at home and having access to Netflix has allowed me to catch up on a few Bollywood movies. The smattering of Hindi I’ve been able to pick have come from watching Bollywood movies.

Anyway, I watched Aiyaary, where there was a scene about an incident in Kashmir (the long-disputed sore in Indian-Pakistan relations). In this scene, the younger character asks his mentor, “There are intelligent and capable people on both sides. Why is it that we can’t solve the problem?” The reply of the older character replies, “Kashmir is an industry,” and he goes onto explain that too many people on both sides are making money from the problem. He then let’s his protégé understand that, “When you’re making money from a problem, you safeguard the problem instead of solving it.” The dialogue can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-we3SC-NzA

This section of the movie caught my attention because the world is going through a lot of problems. We have a global pandemic, the depletion of natural resources, climate change and now there’s racism in much of the Western world. Old conflicts like Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine issue seem set to get worse.

None of these problems are new. These problems were highlighted in the global media some thirty years ago and if you followed the news in that time, you’d get the impression that these were insolvable problems.

However, if you look at the technological advances that have been made in that period, a sane mind would have to ask, “Why can’t we solve these problems?” Why, for example does South East Asia and the South America get covered in a haze every so often? The annual bout of regional choking haze comes from the burning of forest, which is meant to clear land for cash crops.

When environmentalist complained about the ecological devastation, the standard reply in Southeast Asia (and is now being loudly used by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro) was that “the poor world needed to feed people,” and the subtext was “even if it pissed off Western environmentalist,” who were merely imperialist trying to keep us poor.” While this might have been the case in the 1960s, why does this have to be the case in 2020? You’d imagine that we’d have found a way to substitute palm oil in certain products or found a way for farmers to clear land that didn’t kill off the rest of us.

Unfortunately, it’s not been in anyone’s (or at least the people who count) interest to find a solution. The plantation owners keep poor people busy and politicians have been convinced that its in their interest to keep the plantation owners happy.

Here in Singapore, there’s the issue of foreign labour, which has become an issue now that Covid-19 has exploded in foreign worker dormitories. Suddenly, Singapore’s media has shifted its focus on the condition of foreign workers and there have been letters galore about the need to rely less on foreign workers.

True to form, the industry has hit back and there have been a number of letters from “industry” groups, which called for any cut to the supply of foreign labour to be “short-sighted” and detrimental to the economy. One of the most prominent forum letters can be found at:

 https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/forum-call-to-cut-number-of-foreign-workers-here-is-short-sighted

The argument against having more foreign workers is unfortunately the same as it is the same argument against any basic improvement to the welfare of foreign workers – namely less foreign workers like better foreign worker welfare will increase the costs for employers who will then have to charge more and make everything more expensive for us, the consumers.

This argument has been used very effectively to dodge solving the actual problem, which is the fact that employing a foreign worker is not actually cheap for employers nor does it give foreign workers the money they thought they’d have but the system benefits a host of other parties like labour suppliers, dormitory operators, labour agents and repatriation companies. Any disruption to the system will inevitably upset a host of other people. Nobody explains the problem better than Alex Au, who works at TWC2, an NGO for migrant workers:

http://twc2.org.sg/2020/05/01/the-dorms-are-not-the-problem/?fbclid=IwAR1nhYuPYZ_hYyigLs3VbUrfO4CLtEXz9XuTbB20EOFyKNU6aOInlRGp5GQ

Crudely put, every foreign worker is a money spinner for a host of parties. The government, despite its generous support for the migrant workers in this pandemic, is in fact one of the guilty culprits. The revenue from the foreign worker levy is a major money spinner (average of $750 per worker per month – the stress of this being an average) for the government. However, in addition to that, there is a quota system, which limits the number of foreign labourers that a company can hire.

The official reason for the levy and quota is that it reduces the price differential between foreign labour and local Singaporean labour. The reality is that it has created a very lucrative niche called Labour Supply. The basics are simple – hire a labourer on the cheap and then “rent” them out to other companies that need labour but don’t have the quota. As one former accountant for a labour supplier says, “The worker works the overtime while the labour supplier pockets the overtime pay.”

Other laws get exploited too. There is a lucrative niche for lawyers working on workman 

compensation. All you need is to find a worker involved in a workman compensation claim. You pay for the housing, flight ticket and perhaps give him a bit of pocket money and once he’s gone back, collect the workman compensation, which is inevitably higher than what you paid.

The answer to our foreign labour problems is simple. You just need to reduce the people in between the labourer and the employer. If you reduce the army of middlemen, the employers can get cheaper labour and the workers can get more money. The key parties would benefit. However, the middlemen form an industry in themselves.

I look at the situation with maids as an example. At one time, a maid in Hong Kong earnt up to $700 a month because there wasn’t a powerful middleman. In Singapore a maid would costs an employer around $700 a month but the maid would only get $400 if she was lucky. The difference between the Hong Kong and Singapore scenario is the fact that there is a levy to be paid in Singapore.

I’ve never argued against the need for middlemen. Agents and even labour suppliers have a role to facilitate the relationship between employer and employee. Dormitory owners also serve a purpose in housing workers. Nobody is saying that these businesses should not be allowed to make a profit.

What is being argued here is that the system needs to be changed so that the most important players (namely the employer and employee) get a fairer deal. The system as it is, remains a problem. It’s a choice between increased costs for employers and basic welfare for workers (which is defined as livable wages and accommodation that does not make people sick.)

Entrepreneurial thinking is needed to restructure the system and the sooner the government bites the bullet and goes through the pain (including losing the addiction to easy levy money), the better it will be for all of us.

No Need to Say Sorry – Just Do Something About It.

A few days back, Ms. Anthea Ong, a nominated member of parliament asked if the Singapore government would consider issuing an apology to Singapore’s migrant worker population for the awful conditions that they were housed in. The Minister of Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo, replied that the government saw no reason to do so and made the point that she never met a migrant worker who demanded an apology. More details on the story can be found at:

https://mothership.sg/2020/05/migrant-worker-no-apology-jo-teo/

In fairness to the Minister, the migrant workers have not demanded an apology from the government and some have even come out on social media to express the gratitude to the government for taking care of them.

One might also argue that the government has also been exceedingly generous in its support for the migrant workers who have been affected by covid-19. Some of Singapore’s keyboard warriors have even gone as far as to complain that the government is wasting resources on the workers.

However, the government, while generous in its support for the migrant workers during the outbreak, it does owe them an apology, which will never be provided for in words and one realistically will never expect to be demonstrated in action.

The issue of housing for migrant workers is not new and thanks to the efforts of NGOs like TWC2 and HOME, a problem the government was aware of. While the current outbreak of Covid-19 in workers dormitories is the largest outbreak in terms of scale, it is by no means the first time that a migrant worker has died of disease due to unsatisfactory living conditions:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/21-year-old-construction-worker-dies-from-diphtheria-in-first-confirmed-case-in?fbclid=IwAR2x77RjI6mcRtTwuFIioixAXaC0bXAuSYwDpFeVU84Mg3g64kMb_VzpSR8

Furthermore, our previous Minister for Manpower, Mr. Tan Chuan Jin, had personally led raids on foreign worker dormitories and found conditions to be unsatisfactory. Our former minister made the point that just because the conditions were better “than what they had back home,” the living conditions were still unsatisfactory. Mr. Tan also made the point that while the workers he spoke to did not complain about their employment conditions, he suspected they did so because they were worried that they might get into trouble with their employers. More on Mr. Tan’s efforts can be found at:

https://ifonlysingaporeans.blogspot.com/2011/11/minister-leads-check-on-workers-dorms.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR0fR0dsVLTQk2B71DrOMflHX9CfYn9iXjdYUJ_YnofNtzFBcV4kt58MN5k

What was Mr. Tan’s job for taking an active role in safeguarding our manpower resources? He went moved to the Social and Family Development Ministry and then made Speaker of Parliament, which involved a $500,000 pay cut and no more talk about Mr. Tan being a contender to lead the government anytime in the future.

So, not only has the government been aware of the problem, it actually had a minister who was actively trying to do something about it. So, with the benefit of hindsight, one has to ask why Singapore, which is obsessed with meritocracy would remove a minister who was actively trying to do his job from contention for the top job?

I and I suspect many others, would argue that had Mr. Tan been allowed to do his job, it would have resulted in a lot of pain for a lot of businesses, thus damaging economic prospects. As the activist, Alex Au explains below:

http://twc2.org.sg/2020/05/01/the-dorms-are-not-the-problem/?fbclid=IwAR1nhYuPYZ_hYyigLs3VbUrfO4CLtEXz9XuTbB20EOFyKNU6aOInlRGp5GQ

It would be a challenge to restructure a system that so many people have a stake in and keeping foreign workers vulnerable is in the interest of certain people as can be seen through:

 https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2020/04/11/wife-of-grassroots-leader-in-workers-dorm-business-shows-their-sentosa-weekend-party-home-to-media/?fbclid=IwAR2XVJBIEW3GkrD_D1ajIH0E-Mx20-RzIHafleHQFVz8vge17Faoc95d114 ; and

https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2019/07/05/workers-dorm-under-mes-group-linked-to-grassroots-charged-2nd-time-in-3-years/?fbclid=IwAR2UZBUram6dS2yvnN-OY-_G2o6h9NPpgQxvH4CqdwvgbUYbTjpuevvItEM

So, can anything be done to change the system? With so many parties interested in keeping the system as it is, it goes without saying that radical change will be fought tooth and nail.

Another solution might be to enforce existing rules. As the current Minister for Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo admitted to Parliament:

https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/majority-of-dorm-operators-flout-licensing-conditions-each-year-says-josephine-teo?fbclid=IwAR3aCPIih8XGOuylv2Phqvy2dl5AkKfZDcUWJ1n-R3XeW1OacQJ6sGVwrqY

Nobody expects the workers to demand an apology. The balance of power between the workers and the employers is such that no worker will risk the only means of paying off agent fees and feeding families back home. Furthermore, it is unlikely for a government so used to being “right” to even admit that mistakes were made (even if it may gain more public sympathy in doing so).

What we should expect is that the existing rules are applied and enforced. We are supposed to be society that claims to be ruled by laws and so, we should be ruled by laws. We cannot have a system where half of all dormitory operators flout licensing rules. When half of anything does something, it is no longer a case of “a few bad eggs” but an accepted practice, which needs to be changed. Let’s start with ensuring the rules are followed and apply to everybody. Then, let’s move onto restructuring the system into something more sustainable.

If the explosion of Covid-19 cases has shown us anything, it is the fact that ensuring the safety and well being of migrant workers is not a case of human rights and other concepts from NGOs. It is common sense and self-preservation. Looking after their welfare is about looking after ourselves as it is as much about them. A government which has so much control over everything should get this message across No need to say sorry – just do something about it.  

Appeal Notice

It’s important to give a voice to the voiceless. As Covid-19 has shown us, it is in our interest to look after the less fortunate is in our best interest.

However, while important, helping voice concern for the less fortunate is financially challenging and in this regard, I’d be exceedingly grateful for donations to allow me to keep voicing concern for the less fortunate. Any donation, no matter how small is gratefully appreciated.

You may donate through paypal at: https://www.paypal.me/tanligotitdone or by telegraphic transfer or internet banking to:

Name: Tang Li

Bank Account No. 065-1-000768

Bank Name – DBS Bank

Swift BIC Code – DBSSSGSG

Address – 12 Marine Boulevard, DBS Asia Central, Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 3, Singapore 108982