Zorro Lim became the Union Chief not by merit or credibility nor ability but by by being the very active mouthpeice of LKY and later PM Lee. Echoing and supporting all their policies without fail every time.
Heng Chee How the Deputy General-Secretary of NTUC was once a popular union leaders with many of his own supporters. He was also a rival to Zorro Lim for the post of Union Chief. Unfortunately the labor MP spoke out for the workers in Parliaments for higher wages when LKY was present. LKY deliberately walked out of Heng Chee How in the middle of his pro workers speech.
Taking the cue from LKY, the ex-union Chief Lim Boon Heng and the government went out of their way to promote Zorro Lim as the General Secretary of NTUC and ensured that Zorro Lim was elected the next union Chief. Heng Chee How faded into oblivion after this and was less active in the NTUC until recently.
The ex-union Chief Lim was just as pathetic as Zorro Lim as far as older workers complaints of age discrimination was concerned. When older local ladies selling Tiger beers complained that they were being replaced by younger women from China Lim Boon Heng sided with the coffee-shop towkay.
Lim Boon Heng’s logic was foreigners selling more beers was good business for the coffee-shop owner and will helped our local Tiger ladies keep their jobs. The reality was eventually all our local lady beer sellers were replaced because the greedy towkay could sensed that customers only wanted more young and pretty foreigner ladies beer sellers to serve them. Therefore the coffee-shop towkays see no need to retain the local old hags but instead employed more foreigners as beer sellers.
These two union chiefs are responsible for suppressing, denying and ignoring worker’s right for many years and must now share the blame for the discrimination in our workplace.
Nathan
* Comment first appeared in: ‘Zorro Lim’: Proposed anti-discrimination labour law needs to be balanced