From what PM has spoken on how to tackle income inequality, I can clearly see he has NO IDEAS at all!! Currently ALL our problems stem from ONE and only ONE issue – huge influx of cheap labour!! Let me give you one simple example. I used to love to go to this restaurant call "TASTE PARADISE". I am sure a lot of you out there have heard of them before. The owner is a 30+ millionaire entrepreneur who owns a chain of restaurants! But have u noticed that virtually all the waiter/waitresses are all from PRC or Malaysia? I mean where are the supposed Singaporeans that are supporting the employment of these foreigners? That's why I stop eating at their restaurants years ago.
If you ask me personally, I think under the PAP regime, it is promoting DISHONESTY. This is not only prevalent in the labour market BUT in many other aspects too. For instance, the revised OPC scheme. There are so many weekend car owners who boast how clever they are!! They now drive around without the PASS and will only purchase one if they happen to spot the Traffic Police. Despite the hefty fine of $500, many continue to run the risk, because what are the chances of you meeting the TP?! I think it will be easier to strike the lottery!
Some by now must be saying it’s another keyboard warrior. NO, you are wrong. I have concrete ways to re-distribute income!! ONE, make it MANDATORY for a 5-day work week. The MOM does not wish to provide your with the statistics BUT I guarantee you more than 60% of Singaporeans are currently working 5.5 or even a 6.0 week!! By making this mandatory, it will mean OT pay for those who are still required to work 5.5 or 6.0 days.
Take for instance, Daisy a 32 year old salesgirl in a local boutique. She is currently only getting $1600 but works SIX days a week. If the proposed plan goes through, she can get OT pay for the sixth day that she is working, which will easily be another $200 to $300 a month. That is already an increase of more than 10% by working the same number of hours! If her BOSS chooses not to pay the OT, then she can operate on a shorter week, which will also be good for Daisy. This is because Daisy is married and has has been trying for a baby. The stress of working 6 days has not gone well with her plan. Now that she has ONE more day off every week, she will be less stressed and may be become a mummy soon! SO, this move can kill two birds with one stone.
Step TWO, government to encourage whistle-blowing. Currently, a lot of people know their bosses are employing “GHOSTS” but they dare not say for fearing that they will be fired. BUT, if they get a reward for exposing these unscrupulous employers, then at least the money can help them ride through a few months while they look for a new job. For instance, the penalty for hiring ghosts should be the ACTUAL salary that are paid to these ghosts. Say, you claim to have 30 Singaporeans working in your company drawing only $1000 salary for the last 7 years. The penalty to this company will be $1000 x 12 months x 7 years x 30 ghosts = $2.5 million!! Out of this FINE, the whistle-blower can get 50% while the rest go to the government.
The fine here is enormous and can actually break a company. SO, in order to reverse the trend and start to encourage HONESTY in employers, MOM should allow a grace period. A SIX month grace for employers to come clean and honestly announce how many ghosts they have been hiring all this while. For those who declare during this grace period, no fines will be paid, provided the situation is remedied within the next SIX months. That means if the company has hired 30 ghosts, it is time to really hire 30 Singaporeans. If they cannot find so many Singaporeans, then they will have to start firing their foreign workers. As the demand for Singaporeans goes up during this interim period, their salary will go up too. The higher cost will mean money from their millionaire bosses will trickle down to the poor employees!
Last but not least, hugely profitable companies should be BANNED from hiring foreigners. There are certain industries that are heavily dependent on foreigners - construction workers, toilet cleaners, etc. I can understand because these manual work are dangerous or dirty, so Singaporeans tend to shun away. BUT, a cozy job like bank teller OR call centre CSOs also need to hire foreigners?! It is because the company is trying to cut cost, so they employ this cheap labour. If you are willing a pay a call centre CSO $3,000 every month, I seriously doubt there will be no takers! SO, why should we allow banks and casinos who are reporting hundreds and millions of profit to continue to employ cheap labour?!
Basically what the PAP has is “pharaoh” mentality – that is WE are here to slog to continue to build their empire into the next millennium. That is why they can spend millions to bring in sports people from PRC, so that they may win something and put their empire on the map! I mean just look at how much GIC and Temasek Holdings have grown! BUT, not a single cent has been passed on to people on the streets like us. The return they pay on our CPF is a miserable 4%. If you ask me, why should there only be employer and employee contribution to our CPF accounts? There should be a GOVERNMENT contribution to it too. Perhaps a $100 contribution for those who are earning less than $1000. The more you earn of course, the lesser the government has to contribute. Any income above $3000 should not expect the government to contribute.
Say, if the government does not wish to contribute, then at least raise the interest for those low-wage earners from 4 to 5 percent. What about those high income earners you may ask? The private bankers are helping these people grow their money at an even faster rate! BUT will private bankers come to knock on our doors? I am already happy if I do not have to take up a loan from the bank!
All the things above will go a long way to significantly re-distribute income in our economy. BUT, you think the government is interested to do so? Not this PAP government. That is why we have to change the government before we can expect any real income re-distribution to take place. I can’t wait for 2016 to come!!
Bruce Lee
TRS Conrtibutor