If you go and ask any of the Singaporean Professionals, Managers & Executives (PMEs), especially those aged 40 above, they will most probably tell you 1) they worry about their “rice bowls” 2) they worry that their jobs will be snatched by foreigners.
All these are very valid concerns because we have heard stories of many chao kuan companies who purposely give very unfair and shitty employment terms to Singaporeans and pray that Singaporeans won’t accept the job so that they can go and hire their own people.
And even with the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) which Gahmen put in place to make sure that companies consider Singaporeans for all job openings fairly, there are still a lot of very smelly companies who will try to find loopholes – geh geh (fake) put up advertisements for show niah, when they already have a foreign candidate in mind whom they want to hire.
All these sly and underhand tactics hor, they really think nobody know meh???
In a recent session of Parliament, Labour MP Patrick Tay jitao say in his speech that 人在做,天在看 (Whatever you do, God is watching you). Ok lah, he never say that, is lao niang say one. But you know one lah, sama-sama meaning.
In his Parliament speech, the labour MP shared a few examples he heard from the PMEs on the ground, which includes stories of Singaporean PMEs being discriminated by their companies, and how these workers have seen roles they can do being taken up by foreign PMEs with their own eyes.
Sibei bad sia.
As a labour MP who fights for the workers, of course, cannot take this lying down right? Some more is Singaporeans kena bully leh. So hor, he went on and put out three suggestions to protect locals from being unfairly discriminated.
1. Enhance fair hiring practices
Essentially is to educate all the companies and make sure they know the employment legislation and up their HR standards and practices.
He also suggests imposing heavier penalties on companies with discriminatory hiring practices. This one lao niang like! Because if say liao you don’t listen, then punishment lor? See you listen or not!
2. Review the EP application process even more
Instead of just look at individual applicant’s educational qualification and salary, Patrick Tay suggests that the person approving the EP application should dig even deeper into the company. Do something like a background check to see if this company got purposely only hire someone from a specific nationality or not, and whether the company got invest in hiring and developing local workers or not.
Aiya, the best is to check the company’s 祖宗十八代 (ancestors to the 18th generation)!
3. Make sure Singaporeans got fair access to PME roles and progression opportunities
Firstly hor, when the Gahmen allow companies to bring in foreign talent to Singapore is so that these foreigners can transfer knowledge to Singaporeans while they balik kampong. So if the foreign talent never do that, then hire the foreign talent got what use leh?
Therefore, the labour MP is saying that there must be an SOP, a checklist, WHATEVER, to make sure that these skills and knowledge got kena transferred to our local PMEs within a certain period of time that has been agreed upon lah.
If you prefer to read his speech in Queen’s English, you can see his Facebook post below:
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickTayTG/posts/4079220055446378
Good leh this Patrick Tay.
At least we know he got listen to the feedback on the ground and got bring them to Parliament, and not just keep inside his pocket!
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