TR EMERITUS

I am glad that I have chanced upon this website. Truly, I have some frightening tales to share with regards to the current employment condition in our country. Let me share abit about myself.   Armed with a local degree (even though without a fantastic grade), I thought that my qualifications would lead me to a decent job in Singapore. Unfortunately, I graduated during  the last economic recession and job opportunities were scarce. Eventually, after  job searching for a while,  I  settled for a contract job and some tutoring to tide over a lean period. I was disappointed to say the least and was brought down to earth literally.   Now the contract job is over and the job search is on again. There is this feeling of insecurity and depression resurfacing all over again.  I thought everything would be pretty fine – at least I have some work experience to count on  but what paints reality is that  several months may pass before I can get a full time job. I tried many ways and sent out quite a high number of application letters, but nothing comes to a fruition………… I became secretly depressed as I  understand that my parents are retired and they may wonder why this daughter of theirs’ is so useless.   Some of my peers are no better than me. Many of them settled  for jobs they don’t even like because they have to satisfy parental obligations. Some of my foreign friends gave up and decided to return to their homeland. Others continue on their contract job as a means of continuation and survival.   My years in school also supported the fact  that the fittest and elitist will survive  in our country and I am at the bottom of this pool. It looked like my future is bleak since I have no solid good grades, no proper working experience , no money and nothing. What am I supposed to do now?   Regards Sally This article is also published at http://www.transitioning.org/   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

  Corinna Lim's assertion that "Singaporean fathers are not rising to the task of child rearing, and state support for equal parenting roles is not adequate" is an accurate description of the causes of Singapore's woeful birth-rates. Singapore has seen an increasing number of women joining the workforce, but gender roles have been persistent, and continues to perpetuate. The acceptance of women into the workforce have not seen a reciprocity of the acceptance of men in equal parenting responsibilities, and the paternalistic power structure continues to dominate because of inadequate national policy to encourage a more equal society. In the last 30 years, women have entered the workplace in droves. More girls graduate from our universities than boys. However, these changes are asymmetrical. Men have not moved into the domestic sphere at the same rate. This asymmetry makes child rearing much less attractive for women. The woman who derives satisfaction from her work will not be keen to have any, or many, children if she has to bear the bulk of the childcare burden. In the meantime, her husband does not lose sleep about balancing work and family life. Traditional gender roles not only deprive men of the opportunity to play an active role in their children's lives but also create an unbalanced environment where women are discouraged from having more children. It is telling that you can, for the most part, switch the words around and the situation applies to men just as much as to women. While it may be true that Singaporean men have yet to embrace their parenting responsibility as readily as women do (or are expected to do), for some of us the same factors weigh heavily in our decision to start our own families. This is especially true in my circle of friends and co-workers. I have decided to give up a job offer that would pay more, but would not allow me to spend the time I want to spend with my newborn child who is due in August. A friend packs his shifts tightly so he can accumulate stretches of off-time in order for him to fly back to his wife and two kids in Thailand. Another co-worker sacrifices every single day of paid leave without complaint in order to spend time with, and take care of, his two-year-old son. I appreciate the expanded maternity leave benefits that my wife gets, but this just reinforces the gender roles that I want done away with conclusively. The sacrifices for men are just as real as those demanded from women. Even taking into account asymmetrical gender roles that seem ingrained in our society, parenting is just as stressful, and as physically and psychologically draining, for men as it is for women. If anything, the persistence of this asymmetry, and the enforcement of inherent gender roles, make men less likely to admit their difficulties, and result in their stubborn refusal to accept their parental responsibilities, or worse, not want to have children at all. I'm confident that at least some of us men want changes to help us play the role of fathers more fruitfully, and our efforts to do so can be constructively assisted with fair national policies. I have the flexibility of combining annual leave with off-days so I can spend more time with my family, but for fathers working the typical 9am-to-6pm, 5-days-a-week jobs, that flexibility is out of the question. Don't even get me started on jobs that require longer hours. Without adequate employment practices and policies to help fathers get there, our attempts to do so on our own is easily stymied, and gets us nothing but frustration in return for our efforts. It's not unlike trying to swim against the current with one hand tied behind your back. And some employers would also blindfold you while you're at it. So Corinna is absolutely correct when she said Singapore is still a long way from accomplishing true gender equality; true gender equality is more than just adequate rights and protection for women, it is also adequate rights and protection for both men and women. Only when this balance is achieved will we be able to say we have an equal society where both men and women are expected to contribute to society and their families in every way they can, and not just restricted to long obsolete pigeonholes of neatly packaged responsibilities dictated by gender. One more thing: I may be nit-picking, but I take issue with the statement that husbands do not "lose sleep about balancing work and family life". As a father-to-be, I lose a lot more sleep than my wife does, and foresee losing even more in the future; and my kid isn't even born yet!   Callan Tham  Read More →

The Malaysian Insider, 24 May 2010 Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong agreed today to relocate to Woodlands the 78-year-old Tanjong Pagar railway station operated by Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad (KTMB). The relocation, to take place on July 1 next year, marks a major step in resolving a number of outstanding bilateral issues between the two countries, as first reported by The Malaysian Insider last September 29. According to a statement released after a meeting between Najib and Lee here today, the two governments will also form a company to jointly develop parcels of land now owned by KTMB. The two leaders agreed that Malaysia would co-locate its railway and Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex to the Woodlands train checkpoint. Singapore would facilitate the relocation to the Woodlands train checkpoint, and ensure bus service connectivity from the KTMB station at Woodlands to a nearby MRT station for the convenience of train passengers. Both countries also announced that a company, known as MS Pte Ltd, will be established no later than Dec 31 this year to jointly develop the parcels of land. Malaysia is to hold a 60 per cent stake in this company under Khazanah Nasional Berhad, while Singapore will have a 40 per cent share held by Temasek Holdings. The three parcels of land in Tanjong Pagar, Kranji and Woodlands, along with another three pieces of land in Bukit Timah, will be vested by MS Pte Ltd for joint development, which in turn could be swapped on the basis of equivalent value for pieces of land in Marina South and/or Ophir-Rochor. The joint statement said both sides would conduct their respective valuations. Lee will visit Kuala Lumpur within a month with a proposal for the land swap with Malaysia. The transfer of the land parcel to MS Pte Ltd will take effect at the time when KTMB vacates the Tanjong Pagar Railway Station. Singapore’s land swap proposal involves valuable parcels near the island state’s first casino in Marina South, instead of scattered pieces across the tiny republic. Singapore had submitted a proposal to Wisma Putra last year for the joint-venture company that will develop the new piece of land. It is understood that Malaysia has already appointed private valuers to ascertain the exact land value of the site, which is in lieu of the 217 hectares that KTM now owns in Singapore. The site is near the Marina Bay Sands, which was recently opened. It also overlooks the Singapore F1 race track comprising streets in the republic’s priciest commercial zones. The land swap has been contentious since the Malaysia-Singapore Points of Agreement (POA) was signed in 1990 over the issue of the future of the railway land. The POA was signed between former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and former Malaysian Finance Minister Tun Daim Zanuddin. Under the agreement, KTM was to vacate its historic station at Tanjong Pagar and move to Bukit Timah while all of KTM’s land between Bukit Timah and Tanjong Pagar would revert to Singapore. The land at Tanjong Pagar would be handed over to a private limited company for joint development — of which its equity would be split 60 per cent to Malaysia and 40 per cent to Singapore — as it is in the latest agreement. But the key contention was the interpretation of the agreement as Singapore insisted the agreement meant KTM had to move its terminal from Tanjong Pagar to Bukit Timah within five years of its construction, when the republic moved its railway immigration in August 1998. But Putrajaya said it would only be effective once it decided to move the station. The railway land was acquired under a 1918 colonial ordinance specifically for use by Malayan Railway (Keretapi Tanah Melayu or KTM) for a period of 999 years. That same ordinance limits the use of this land. The land, which the main railway station is situated on, is considered prime land. The 1990 POA states that the KTM railway station would be moved either to Bukit Timah first, or directly to Woodlands. In exchange, under the 1990 POA, three parcels of railway land — at Tanjong Pagar, Kranji, and Woodlands — would be jointly developed on a 60/40 basis with the Malaysian Government holding the larger share. However, three years later, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad expressed his displeasure with the POA as it failed to include a piece of railway land in Bukit Timah for joint development. In September 2001, both neighbours reached a comprehensive agreement with an understanding that the Malaysian immigration checkpoint on the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore railway line will be moved from Tanjong Pagar to Kranji. - The Malaysian Insider  Read More →