SMRT Strike - Populist Politics

Long before the SMRT strike, I started noticing Singapore-based PRC citizens on Sina Weibo commenting and mocking our political scene as moving increasingly towards populism (民粹主义), especially when the government introduced measures that they believed harmed their ability to exploit Singapore's liberal immigration policies.

Now that all the major opposition parties have stated their positions on the strike, we can see that the PRC immigrants and migrant workers have correctly read our political situation and that the strike instigators have managed to manipulate Singaporean public opinion to side with them to a large extent.

The fact that the WP, NSP and SDP leaderships have all failed to distinguish between the need to uphold the rule of law and the perceived unequal treatment of the PRC drivers but have conflated the two to undermine regard for our laws shows this trend towards greater populism.

Can we trust any of the major political parties to support unpopular policies if they prove necessary, especially in the next decade of disturbances and crisis?

SMRT strike - NSP's shameless political opportunism

The National Solidarity Party issued a statement on Nov 28 regarding the illegal strike.  While paying lip service to the rule of law, much of the statement appeared to be an attempt to throw stones at SMRT management and to try to justify the actions taken by the errant bus drivers.

Painting the issue as a 'breakdown in our labour relations' shows the narrowness of the thinking of the NSP leadership in trying to blame the PAP establishment for the problem (a usual opposition tactic, I might add). As I was advised by a Singaporean who is an experienced China hand, the issue was in large part due to cultural differences between Singapore's style of running things and the mindset of the PRC workers.  Would that really qualify as a 'breakdown in our labour relations'?  While I can understand the need for Singapore companies to adapt to foreign practices when operating overseas, the case of the Singapore management bending backwards on a core principle like the freedom to set wages locally is much weaker.  Why should a local company operating within Singapore adopt the standard PRC practice of '同工同酬‘, especially since there are valid HR reasons for paying Malaysian workers more?

Besides this, there is also evidence to suggest that the PRC drivers did not attempt to engage SMRT management regarding their issues, as can be see from a news report carried by Yahoo! Singapore:

One Malaysian bus driver who spoke to Yahoo! Singapore was visibly annoyed at Monday's strike, saying the move to do so was "irresponsible and uncalled for".

"First of all, they should have approached the management first to discuss things," he said. "Going on strike is illegal and we all understand that."

So, was there really a 'breakdown in our labour relations'?

The more disturbing thing about the NSP statement is that by citing allegations by poor pay and living conditions, the party appears to be trying to use 'moral' arguments to justify the breaking of the law.  Aside from the fact that this is factually incorrect, since the unhappiness was about alleged unequal treatment relative to Malaysian drivers, the NSP has failed to realise that such arguments open up a can of worms, since 'moral' grounds are ill-defined and everyone can then argue that they have valid reasons for breaking the law.  Where do we then draw the line so that we can unequivocally condemn those who break the law?

Of course, I'd expect that the NSP cite the first paragraph of its statement to show that it respects the rule of law. But as far as I am concerned, its statement on the matter shows the typical politician's 'gift' of talking out of both sides of one's mouth.

And if I may add, the NSP seems to be a shadow of its old self since the departure of Goh Meng Seng.