4/07/2015

TAFEP – No job discrimination against PMETs, only misunderstanding


In the Today paper today there is an article ‘Allegations of bias against S’poreans top list of workers complaints’. But read the content of the article you will find the title misleading. All or most of the complaints about job discrimination against Singaporean PMETs are just alleged, not true. It is all a misunderstanding. The foreigners were employed and promoted because they were better and more suitable than the Singaporean PMETs according to Roslyn Ten, the general manager of TAFEP. ‘..many stem from misunderstanding and not from genuine bias’, and she urged the employers to explain to job seekers why they were not hired and not promoted.
 
This is in line with the findings by NTUC that confirmed Singaporeans really lacked the skills sets that the foreigners have. Singaporean PMETs should not complain anymore and should make serious efforts to learn from the PRC Chinese, India Indians, the Pinoys, Myanmese and all the foreigners why they have all the qualifications and skills sets that Singaporeans did not have.
 
Now that the truth is out, PMETs, please do not anyhow complain and spread lies. NTUC and TAFEP have confirmed you are NG. And please do not mislead Chuan Jin and MOM and make them run around like fools, even setting up Jobs Bank and FCF that are totally unnecessary and a waste of time and resources. Ok Chuan Jin, you can close down these two set ups. They are irrelevant. You have been misled.
 
Just to double confirm what this Roslyn said, and I quote the Today paper, ‘Reiterating that many unfair employment practices were largely due to miscommunication, she said clear cut cases of discrimination against Singaporeans are rare. “It’s really more of …perception,”’ What more can you say? No more arguments.
 
OK case close. No discrimination and please do not raise the issue of discrimination anymore. Two powerful pro Singaporean agencies and Singaporeans, one Patrick Tay, an Asst Secretary General of NTUC/Director of PME Unit and another, Roslyn Ten, a general manager of TAFEP said so. These are authoritative statements of truth, not misunderstanding or opinions.
 
Listen all PMETs, you deserved to be taxi drivers and security guards and stop complaining. As to our education system, how they failed to produce Singaporeans without the right skills sets is puzzling but not my problem. I am not paid millions to give you the answer. Thank you very much.
 
Singaporean PMETs are so lucky that the truth is out and now they know the real reason why foreigners are employed and promoted and preferred by employers. It is your fault. No more lame excuses.
 
PS. TAFEP stands for Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices. And when TAFEP said it is fair it must be fair. And when NTUC said you did not have the skills sets, you do not have the skills sets. Period.
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Hark ye hear the angel sings…


A new king born today, and in a corner across the world, another Lee Kuan Yew is born. His full name shall be Jeyaprakash Lee Kuan Yew, son of a bus driver.
Tamil Nadu is blessed with a new savior. Soon the three wise men from the East will visit him and shower him with gold and incense and kneel in front of him to pray for hope to his people.
 
And in the same town, a huge statue will be built in his name. Hope they will get the face of the picture right this time and not that of Tony. Someone please send them the right picture before it is too late.

PS. As an afterthought, the Singapore govt should copyright his name world wide to prevent it from being misused or abused. What do you think?
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From a country to a hotel – LKY’s legacy?


Refreshing the memories and speeches of LKY on the TV channels for one week, the central theme of LKY’s younger days was all about building a Singapore for Singaporeans. Today it is very clear that Singapore is more or less a hotel for all. Foreigners are unloaded like rubbish into the island as the celebrated foreign talents, qualifications and integrity unquestioned, to take over many good jobs in the island.
Some even said this island belonged to everyone, all and sundry of the world. Everyone is welcomed except the daft Sinkies who are told to get lost if they did not like it. Daft Sinkies are good at two things, be security guards and drive taxis. The more glorified security guards are the NS boys, but minus the money in everything, and getting pittance for their contributions to the hotel. Oops, to the NSmen they are serving their country, a country you know.
 
And when they have completed serving their country, they would have to compete with foreigners with no duties and obligations to serve a country that they only know as a hotel, for their benefits. Foreigners will come and go, making their piles, while the daft Sinkies will stay to pay the taxes and dues to keep the hotel in working condition and to maintain peace and order for the foreigners.
 
Now the big question. Is this what LKY wanted? Is this a legacy of LKY? Did he change his vision for Singapore, from a country to a hotel, from a country for Singaporean to a hotel for the rest of the world? Can anyone enlighten me on this legacy? Or it is not LKY’s legacy? He was around when the transition and transformation took place, from a country to a hotel.
 
And I remember him saying, ‘This is my country, this is my people’.
 
Which is which?
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Singapore and Democracy: A Love-Hate Partnership?

 
Perspectives on Donald Low’s Rebuttal of Calvin Cheng

Democracy is a slippery political concept. Many definitions abound, none particularly helpful in furthering our understanding. Many advocates of democracy attempt to define democracy in real life; dressing it up with civil liberties, popular elections, free press, free speech, right to bear arms … etc.  It seems natural that Donald and Calvin, together with many others, have difficulty grasping the nature of democracy in Singapore.  

Donald Low’s Rebuttal @ TREmeritus here.

First, Calvin is right: for Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), there is no “trade-offs” between freedom, development and democracy. Donald’s rebuttal misunderstood his own 1986 quote of LKY: “What are our priorities? First, the welfare, the survival of the people. Then, democratic norms and processes which from time to time we have to suspend.” LKY was not referring to trade-offs between democracy and development; for him, it is about prioritization or program sequencing of his government action agenda. For LKY, Democracy and democratic processes must and should facilitate development or face irrelevance, even oblivion.  

Always mindful of the electorate as his primary and only political accountability, LKY chose to “trade-up” the survival and welfare of the people who elected him and his PAP government repeatedly in every general election. He did not “trade-away” democratic norms and procedures; otherwise the PAP would not have held regular general elections as often and whenever constitutionally mandated to do so, unless LKY is also a strong believer in the value of democratic accountability.

Second, Donald’s argument that the reason “… many countries aren’t able to provide (these) public goods is not because they are democracies, but because they lack strong, competent and effective states” is a corporatist argument, not a democratic one.  Many have argued with some merits that corporatism – advocating a strong central state - is incompatible with democracy.

Donald failed in fact to recognize the implications of his own argument; that the co-existence of democracy and a strong state could very well be mutually exclusive and fundamentally impossible.

Rather, Donald preferred to explain that “democratically elected governments may not be able to deliver high quality public goods for a variety of reasons” which he attributed again to the absence of strong state control and regulatory mechanisms, instead of the obvious limitation of democracy in the social production of the greatest good for the largest number. 

The truth is that democracy does not and has never promise the delivery of development and high quality public goods.  History is on the side of the benevolent dictator, the paternalistic autocrat, the corporatist, but not the democrat.

Third, in using the Francis Fukuyama’s model describing the problem of having all three institutions - a strong state, rule of law, and democratic accountability - that comprise Francis’ political development, Donald inadvertently also subscribed into its flawed logic and argument.

Fukuyama is wrong to consider the 3 institutions capable of independent existence. They are not. A strong state is not sustainable without popular voluntary consent (meaning democratic accountability through general elections) and the rule of law.  The rule of law is a necessary organ to the effective function of government who enact the laws to do so.  Repressive and unjust laws will fuel civil disobedience to bring about their changes, and the downfall of despotic and intolerable governments.  To the corporatist, a strong state enjoys primacy and pre-eminence (eg. Singapore); and a democrat objects ideologically to a strong state (eg. in USA).  For both, the rule of law is just a flexible political tool to regulate and produce the desirable level of popular voluntary consent.  

Fourth, quite contrary to Donald’s thesis, no evidence from history supports “a natural link between economic development and the rise of democratic demands”.  Even Donald admitted that democracy and economic development are not pre-requisite of one another.

Fifth, Donald’s prescription of “greater democratic accountability” for Singapore from here forward in the post-LKY era is inconsistent with his emphasis on state-building and on enhancing state capacity since a strong state is incompatible with stronger democracy.

Six, Donald had a fatally wrong understanding of democracy and democratic elections when he advocated “a more diverse and representative government” instead of one returned by repeated fair and clean general elections in accordance with standard democratic procedures.  There is no one best form or style of democracy.
 
Perhaps, Donald’s call for more Opposition MPs points in fact to the lackluster performance and failure of these MPs to articulate their constituents’ interests …  The effectiveness of Opposition MPs does not lie in their numbers but in the logic, presentation and vigorousness of their alternative solutions proffered as “better” than the government. This is not a failure of democracy in Singapore, just the failure of leadership and imagination on the part of the Opposition.  

The problem in their understanding of democracy and government in people like Calvin and Donald lies in their belief in an over-rated conception of democracy.  Democracy exists in so many forms and styles to suit its respective contextual domains.

At its root, democracy does not promise the election of a “good” leader.  There are far too many supporting examples to this and needs no elaboration here.

Democracy provides a decision-making frame for making choices among who shall govern.  Democracy is not a quality management standard with a checklist of best practices and good conduct procedures.

Is a bad democracy (which is inefficient and slacken) therefore better than a benevolent dictatorship?

Singapore is better off managing democracy as a governance tool in the manner that we did in the past, with regular free and fair elections and in a political climate characterized by freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of religious beliefs and the freedom of choice.  If these were what democracy could facilitate, it would be great!  If not, democracy should get out of our way as we journey toward a better, more prosperous, fairer and equal society of one Singapore and one nation.

GoTo the Full Posts:
Rebutting Calvin Cheng’s article @ TREmeritus, 5 April 2015.

Related Democracy Posts:
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4/06/2015

The Great Singapore Train and Bus Robbery


And it’s perfectly Legal!

Commuters today hardly notice that they have been “robbed”. Each bus and MRT train trip will merely add 2 - 5 cents depending on distance.  Overall, public transport fares increase by about 2.8% from today, in accordance with the Public Transport Council (PTC) decision made on January.   

It has been argued and evident by facts and statistics that the public transport fare hikes for 2015 have no compelling rationale and basis. The PTO did not produce any justifications as to current or impending profits reduction; they could not because they actually enjoyed windfall profits due to unprecedented oil price drop last year.   

About $48 million will be taken from commuters over the next 12 months to feed highly profitable public transport operators (PTO) in 2015 and part of 2016. Serious public trust issues are raised but never fully addressed.

The generosity of commuters in acquiescing to the fare hikes, though few in fact have any alternative transport choices, will deliver the whooping additional $48.5m in revenue to the two public transport operators - SBS Transit and SMRT.  Never mind that they will have to contribute $5.5 million and $8 million respectively to the Public Transport Fund (PTF), from which $7.5 million from the Fund would provide 250,000 vouchers of $30 each to low-income households (one-time?), which act merely to postpone but did not eliminating its impact on the lowest of the low-income earners. These vouchers basically returned their PTF contributions to the PTO to retain net-neutral revenue impact

For SBS Transit, this $5.5 million represents about 25 per cent of the additional fare revenue, while for SMRT, the $8 million they are setting aside accounts for about 30 per cent.

As predicted, commuters hardly feel the mosquito-bite pinch of the transport fare hikes today.  My son reminds me that it amounts to about $2-$4 per month for regular commuters, or nearly $25-$50 per year, for no assurance of improvements in the prevalent poor customer services.  The only clear purpose of the public transport fare hikes is profiteering by the PTO.  

Singaporeans must be protected from the unequal powers of monopolistic – in the case of public transport, duopolistic – companies in the marketplace.  Every economic student knows that monopolistic and duopolistic companies are the most inefficient with respect to resource use in their operations. They furthermore generate huge profits from the captive marketplace is such disproportion to the privilege of providing a needed social service.

Both PTO have announced dividends for their private share-holders from their windfall profits. Their shares are expected to out-perform the stock market.  Currently, the shares of both PTO are the darlings of the Singapore Stock Exchange, even before the fare hikes!

Public transport commuters, mostly for middle and lower income households, have few affordable transport alternatives.   Where is the social justice when private companies are allowed to derive huge windfall profits from operating with assets largely invested by the Government ie people of Singapore? 

Granted, when considered in the totality of its entire assets, which include the transport infrastructure invested by past generations of Singaporeans, no strictly private and profit-oriented company could be profitable under the normal circumstances.  So, why are the PTO  profit-driven instead of guardians of social investments and public assets?  Why are they allowed to skimmed from the commuters a few cents here and there even though they are already highly profitable? It is because they can do so with impunity, to “rob” commuters in broad daylight and night, and to get away with it because it is NOT a crime.  It is in fact criminal to simply take from the less and lower income, basically the weak and vulnerable people, in order to enrich oneself.  In this instance, and every day for the next 12 months, day or night, when you board a public bus or MRT train, you will be “legally” robbed.  

Public transports should be managed by more socially responsible National PTOs beyond the current obsessive profit-seeker types of companies. We need Public Transport Social Enterprises that have embedded social responsibility values into its leadership and management. 


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