If anyone was surprised that 102 PRC bus drivers got themselves in a 14 hour stand off with their employers over pay issues, they hadn't seen enough. In the construction line, I experienced PRC sub contractors 'negotiating' with me for better terms during the crunch time of my projects, else I would not see them turning up.
Well. This is what you get if you become over reliant on foreign workers. Sure, we can tell them "Piss off, I'll get somebody else." Or can we? Not always. Yeah. We think we can always replace people like economic numbers. Try doing that when a foreigner dentist pisses you off during a molar replacement. Try doing that when that your steel truss hoisted in mid air by a 200 ton crane which cost you 800 bucks an hour as your foreign workers walk off. Try asking the foreigners to go to war with us.
Yeah. Singaporeans are unwilling to wash plates, to wait at tables or clean the floor we were told time and again by the media. OooOooh, suddenly Singaporeans seem unwillnig to work as managers and professionals too. So we need foreigners to fill those gaps as well. Nothing against the foreigners. They come to work and make money. Willing buyer, willing seller. No hard feelings.
We let them. We voted for people who insisted on these policies. We gave the mandate to people who do not have any other ideas to keep Singapore afloat other than remaining attractive by being cheap. That is something we need to think about hard and clear the next time we cast a vote. Does it matter really? Voting out incapable people does not even serve a purpose anymore. The millions have been earned. They can retire, buy land, buy factories in 3rd world countries where they can access to the cheap labour to service their addiction. Their lives go on. For Singapore? The damage has been done. It will take years to reverse our wrong direction. We may not even recover again. Beyond our golden age, lies a long endless journey into the darkness.
All those yrs or decades, the govt has been sleeping running on auto-pilot mode. They didn't bother to train a core group of local professional construction workers. Relying on cheap foreign imports to solve their short term demand for workers. They keep giving excuses that locals don't want to work in construction. If the pay is very good, who doesn't want?
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ReplyDeletewww.sbs.com.au/news/article/1714143/Millionaires-to-jump-visa-queue/
www.immi.gov.au/skilled/business/_pdf/significant-investor.pdf
I admire PRC driver for their guts. Perhaps they had earn enough to get what they want. Time to be sent back without breaking the contract. Anyway is a bloody good lesson for the SG govt. All these years, the true born has been very silence on the way we were treated till the bloody bugger jump in to rock the boat. Rock it man so that the Elite will be awaken to the reality. How easy their job has been.
ReplyDeleteI am so disappointed that you are not continuing to write anymore.. Please tell me that you are still reading new comments because I really want to tell you how much I like your writing! :) You are putting in words eloquently what I've been pondering on recently. It doesn't matter what happens in the GE2015 because in these 4 years, they can amass as much as they want and abandon ship and leave it to the opposition to pick up the pieces. Maybe one day they will come back and "save Singapore" from the opposition's rule.. but a divided country is just divided.
ReplyDeleteLove the paragraph:
Voting out incapable people does not even serve a purpose anymore. The millions have been earned. They can retire, buy land, buy factories in 3rd world countries where they can access to the cheap labour to service their addiction. Their lives go on. For Singapore? The damage has been done. It will take years to reverse our wrong direction. We may not even recover again. Beyond our golden age, lies a long endless journey into the darkness.
Hi Jasmine. I'm reading.
ReplyDeleteThank you for dropping by to tell me this, it's a good birthday gift for me today.