Bus Drivers Are Workers Too

I am a worker, I work for an employer who pays me a monthly wage to do a job that value-adds in some way. I don't produce a physical product for sale, but I perform a service which the public may need from time to time.

Bus drivers perform such a service, and a bus service is a definite value-added public good because everything depends on transportation of people. Your entire economy would grind to a halt if millions of people were unable to go to work on a given day.

So I don't understand why so many people are throwing up their hands in self-righteous condemnation when a hundred or so bus-drivers decided not to call-in for work one day because they felt that they had been unfairly remunerated compared to their Malaysian or Singaporean counterparts who did the SAME job as they did. Would the reaction have been different if the strikers had been Singaporean or Malaysian?

We wouldn't be able to say. But I suspect the uproar would have been more tempered. But then again, it is very unlike Singaporeans to go to such "drastic" measures which, in some highly-developed countries, counts as the norm where industrial action is concerned.

It came as an even bigger surprise to me when I heard on last evening's news that the acting Manpower Minister had said that a legal manner in which to have staged a protest would have been to give the bus company, SMRT, 14 days' notice.

You mean to say there is a legally-sanctioned recourse for workers who want to go on strike?! I hope the children in school are listening to this.

I agree fully with the position that there are alternatives to bring a worker's grievance to his employer before a strike is called. Do we know if the Chinese bus drivers had already done this and exhausted this possibility?

We do not, because the press and the government spokespeople have so far obsessed on how ILLEGAL the action was. And how zero the state's tolerance is for such action.

Do we know from the mainstream media if there is any veracity to the bus drivers' claims of unequitable remuneration? We do not, because SMRT, the employer at the center of the maelstrom, has kept silent on the crux of the matter -- its wage package. And if you look at the table I've borrowed from the Online Citizen, your first conclusion would not be that the bus drivers are greedy, subversive and criminal.

As a principle of ethics, it is wrong to treat any group differently be they a different nationality, gender, ethnicity or pregnant. People have a right to have their concerns heard and rectified to their satisfaction. Barring that, they are free to leave. But what if they are NOT free to leave? What if they want to do their jobs but they just want a fairer deal? Is it not their right to pursue that? Yes, within the limits of the law, but the common worker has not a legally-trained professional. He does what he can within his means and understanding. I would let the employer and the authorities decide if the striking bus drivers had any legitimate claims and if they had breached any laws in taking the action they had on Monday. But I would not rush in to judge or demand for their termination, as so many rabid netizens have done.

Who will drive the buses? Isn't it patently clear from the numbers in the table that few Singaporeans would do this job for the amount they get? It is taxing, exhausting work to ply Singapore's busy roads with its lunatic and inconsiderate drivers.

There are 3 things happening here: one, the government is trying to contain the political fall-out from the strike action by thundering on about its illegitimacy and criminality. It has to send a clear and present message to any other group (local or otherwise) that they should not even think about doing this.

Two, SMRT is trying to resolve the dispute with a large group of disgruntled employees while keeping the lid on its pay policies tightly clamped lest they are forced into the awkward spotlight to explain what looks to everyone as discrimination.

Third, the elephant in the room is the fact that SMRT had to employ this many foreign nationals to drive their buses. What is responsible for the dearth? Dismal wages that put off Singaporeans from the job? Higher profit margins from depressing wages of certain bus-drivers?

I don't have the answers, but the picture would surely look much clearer than the murky sludge it now resembles if we had those answers. But to the ignorant, xenophobic person, everything naturally looks crystal clear. 

I'll end with an anecdote. I was in Germany during the summer and 3 days before we were to fly home from Frankfurt, the news reported of an impending strike by Lufthansa cabin crew. They had been in week-long negotiations by then with their carrier about salary increments. I was furious, I remembered, at the thought of a bunch of air-stewardesses who could barely provide proper service holding me hostage with their belief in their entitlements. Anyway, the news would broadcast developments in the negotiations each day, and the interesting thing was: we were all told that if negotiations broke down, that the strike would take place on Friday from 1am to 12 noon. (This was announced on Wednesday). In addition, only the short-haul flights within Europe would be affected first.

So as expected, talks reached an impasse, the workers striked, and Lufthansa did their damage control. By Friday evening, when we arrived at Frankfurt, the airport looked normal. Talks had resumed, we heard, and the crew had gone back to work. Our flight proceeded as normal. This episode showed me that even strikes can be carried out to a certain degree of normality, that it is within the right of the worker to demand something, as long as he acted within legal and fair limits. The dispute was between Lufthansa and its workers, and to some degree, the union and workers were cognisant that it would do nobody any good to inconvenience the very customers that contributed to their salaries.

There has been no real union or recourse for workers with grievances in Singapore since this was wiped out in the 80s. We are a workforce that runs on compliance, no matter how resentful or involuntary that is. Is it any wonder that we are the unhappiest, unkindest and most unemotional nation in the world?