Dear Gilbert,
Just to share with your readers my two cents.
I used to work with a local company. One of the departments were filled with employees from China. The Chinese employees stayed in the office until 10-11pm everyday (I’m not sure but I don’t think they got any OT pay).
Once I was chatting with my Chinese colleagues. I asked them what time they usually left the office.
Their response was that they usually left the office between 10-11pm everyday, coz:
1) They had nothing to do if they go back to their rented room (which they share with one or two others) – no television, relatives, etc;
2) They had nowhere else to go since they did not want to spend money;
3) They were bored. They would rather spend time in the office with their Chinese colleagues to kill time.
The truth is, they spent most of their time in the office chatting with one another.
Is it any wonder that Singapore’s productivity is among the lowest in the world?
My (former) boss was very unhappy that most of the time I left the office at 6pm, even though I made sure that I finished my work before leaving the office.
Have you heard of the “Maslow’s hierarchy of needs”?
It’s unrealistic to expect Singaporeans to compete for jobs with foreigners who are at the lowest level of the hierarchy.
Working long hours means that we would not have time for our families (wife and children)and friends. It affects our relationship with our family members and we are unable to spend quality time with our children. How then are Singaporeans going to have more babies?
I don’t blame the employers or foreign workers.
The root of the problem lies with the government’s liberal immigration policy.
Some people ask what the government can do to help us?
Instead of trying to help us, I believe we would all be better off if the government would simply stop doing things to harm us, native Singaporeans.
Every time the govt does something to help us, we end up working longer and harder, and paying more for everything else.
Best Regards,
Chee Keong
NB: Reader gave us the permission to post this mail here.
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- Foreign workers: Figures can be so deceptive
- Eight Reasons Why Foreign Workers Are Preferred Over Local Ones
- Foreign workers lied about their abilities
- Response to PM’s report on hiring another 100,000 foreign workers
- Singaporeans can also be foreign talent
This towkay mentality runs deep in Asian countries. Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indian bosses love to see their staffs work late especially, if you are not paid any OT.
In fact most bosses even knew that those who stay longer may not turn into productivity as some just drag their feet during daytime to please the boss that they are working longer.
Some of these bosses are even quite well educated with degrees, but their mentality are still very entrenched in the feudal time. Asians employers before the WWII typical owns and not employ employees and there are no laws to protect the working class.
Just look at the recent labor unrest in China and those in the most trouble are the Japanese and Chinese companies. Exploitation is deem as privilege to these Asian businessmen and they are not ashamed of it.
Within the circle of these businessmen, they would sneer the western model of balance in work and life as plain stupid and useless and upheld their exploitation as ‘smart’.
Most SMEs in Singapore typical falls into such business practice and it is no wonder why they always could no get bright staffs who would prefer to work for MNCs.
Many of my friends working in MNCs did not want to work for SMEs were not solely because of pay and job prospect but the unhealthy work culture of the ‘supreme boss’ system.
Like one of my friends said, “they pay peanuts, but expect you to work like slave, suck up the boss and still thank them if they wants to retrench you.”
The other trait of the towkay mentality is the so call ‘loyalty’ that they expect from employees. Employees who obeyed every command and maintained the slave/master relationship or knows how to please the boss and readily accepts the lowest possible pay and not asking for increment is consider as good and ‘loyal’.
Most of these ‘towkays’ always boast about their ‘kindness’ that they do not retrench their employees in crisis and those working for MNCs are stupid because they will face the knife in future. But when these ‘towkays’ are faced with the slightest crisis, they would not even had a second thought of retrenchment.
Even if there is no crisis, these ‘towkays’ will still replace their ‘loyal’ staffs for cheap foreign alternatives. No amount of hard-work, pleasing the boss and sticking with the company to overcoming crisis in the past will spare you the knife.
The only exception to this may be in Japan, but this only strictly applies to Japanese employees in Japan. It is still a taboo to fire a Japanese employee over a foreign one in Japan and the control of foreign labor is very strict and tight.
Exploitation is also a very common screen in Singapore. Looking at the condition of the maids and we can tell. Even the well heeled and educated employers exploits them and so is the whole Asia.
Like one of my friend working for an MNC had said,”Even if I am to face the knife be it in an SME or a MNC, it is still better to enjoy the better pay and benefits of the MNC before the kill!”