TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent Shin Min Daily published a sensational report more than a week ago about a Singaporean seeking job at Bread Talk being told outright by its Malaysian HR manager that they prefer to recruit their "own kind." The news sparked widespread outrage in cyberspace with many netizens calling for a boycott of Bread Talk. One of them has written to the Bread Talk management seeking clarifications for its discriminatory hiring policies against locals. Below is the reply from Bread Talk's manager Clara Lee:   As expected, the answer is both vague and evasive. Like other employers such as Resorts World Sentosa before it, Bread Talk dared not reveal the exact percentage of Singapore citizens on its payroll and used fudgy statistics to obfuscate the matter. Ms Lee claimed that Bread Talk employs "70% Singaporeans/PRs to 30% foreign staff." What is the percentage of Singaporeans among the 70 percent Singaporeans/PRs? Judging from the evasiveness of Bread Talk, did it employ less Singapore citizens than foreigners inclusive of PRs? For some inexplicable reasons, the Manpower Ministry and almost all companies lump PRs and citizens together in one single category as "locals" in all their official statistics which is misleading because PRs are ultimately foreigners after all and should not be counted as employment for Singaporeans. Though there is a dependency quota in place to restrict the number of foreigners a company can employ, the rule is easily circumvented by getting earlier arrivals to convert into PRs. Bread Talk should reveal the percentage of PRs on its payroll and the time they took to obtain Singapore PRs. It is incredibly easy for a foreigner to qualify for Singapore PR. There is no language requirements and neither do they need to reside in Singapore for a number of years as is the usual practice in many countries. According to the Home Affairs Ministry, two out of every three PR applicants are successful, an astonishingly high success rate for a developed country. The state media reported last year of a China National working as a language teacher in Singapore who obtained her Singapore PR within two months of application! Technically speaking, it is therefore possible for a company to employ 100% foreigners (PRs) and still fulfill MOM's dependency quota. Why should Bread Talk be hiring so many foreigners when many of its jobs such as counter service staff can easily be taken up by Singaporeans? The fault lies with the PAP government's lax immigration and labor policies which open the floodgates to allow cheap foreign workers to enter Singapore without any control or screening. The Manpower Ministry should use separate categories for citizens and PRs in its statistics and compel companies to reveal the exact percentage of citizens on its payroll. Foreigners should only be employed in sectors which are really shunned by Singaporeans such as the construction and shipyard industries. Jobs should be reserved for Singaporeans and not foreigners who have no right or business to compete with citizens for jobs. In other countries like Australia, employers are coerced to pay market rates for foreign workers to ensure that locals are not disadvantaged by their local costs. Unless Singaporeans reclaim their political rights as citizens of Singapore, they will forever be subjected to such humiliating treatment by employers with tacit support from the pro-foreigner PAP.   EDITORS’ NOTE: Please join our Facebook discussion on this article here and invite your friends to do so as well to raise awareness among fellow Singaporeans.   Related articles: >> Bread Talk: We do not wish to hire Singaporeans  Read More →

Many readers may have already noticed that we have recently given our site a complete overhaul and revamp. Although the Theme used is an off-the-shelf template, many aspect were customised to suit our needs. As with all changes, there will always be those who may or may not like the new functions, colours, layout, etc. To help us improve, we would appreciate ALL and ANY comments from our readers with regard to the new layout, be it negative or positive so that we can further improve on it. Thank you.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Dr Ng Eng Hen has welcomed the increased "visibility" of the opposition parties in the constituencies with their sights set on the next general election. A joint walkabout was conducted by the Singapore Democratic Alliance and the Reform Party at Dr Ng's constituency of Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC last Sunday led by opposition veteran Mr Chiam See Tong who has indicated an interest to contest there. With public sentiments against the PAP at an all-time high, the opposition is expected to make significant gains in the next election due to be called by 2012 including winning a GRC. Speaking on the sidelines of a community event yesterday, Dr Ng remains unfazed by the opposition's increased groundwork and said: "This is what politics is about: How do you improve people's lives, what's your programme, what do you want to do and how you are going to do it.....What does it mean? What is the cost and what is the trade-off? Because there are many good solutions, but there are always trade-offs," he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times. He even "advised" and "encouraged" the opposition to meet the residents more often as "this is healthier for Singapore rather than for the opposition to appear just before the elections and then not continue with visits" Perhaps Dr Ng is not aware of the fact that the various opposition parties have been doing their walkabouts frequently since the last general election, only that the state media did not report on their activities till recently. The opposition has not won a GRC since the scheme was introduced during the 1988 elections. The closest they came to winning one was in Eunos where the Workers' Party garnered 49.7 percent of the valid votes in the same year. It was "absorbed" into neighboring Marine Parade GRC in the 1997 elections. Critics have pointed out that the GRC system enables weak PAP candidates to piggy-back on the coat-tails of ministers into Parliament, leading to some MPs in the present batch being unempathetic, aloof and completely out of touch with the ground. Dr Ng himself has not faced a genuine electoral contest himself since entering politics in 2001 as the Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC has been uncontested after it was formed in 1997 by combining the Thomson and Toa Payoh GRCs. Though Dr Ng was never elected by Singaporeans, his C.V. on the Singapore cabinet website claimed that he was "re-elected" in 2006: It was a walkover in Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC during the 2006 elections. Not a single Singaporean has cast a vote for Dr Ng.   EDITORS’ NOTE: Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans.  Read More →