Singapore Turns 58.

The way we treat our migrant workers is a blight on our first world infrastructure. Our third world attitude towards them is terrible. We place profits and the interests of businesses above worker safety and comfort. Our government agencies are complicit in this elitist and classist attitude. We owe migrant workers a basic duty of care. During the pandemic, we treated them like pariah. And we still do. 

Any move to eliminate the transportation of workers on the backs of lorries for safety reasons involves "real, practical and operational complexities", a total of 25 business bodies said in a joint statement on Tuesday (Aug 1).

This joint statement above issued on 2 August, 2023, is utter garbage. Worker safety isn't important to companies because your profits and bottomline are at risk. You'd prefer to transport them like livestock at the back of lorries, without seats or seatbelts. It's amazing how your statement is also filled with threats and self-righteousness while justifying the treatment of foreign workers. I'm not even asking you to be compassionate. You don't have a heart. I'm asking for basic commonsense safeguards to their lives while transporting them to and fro work sites.

The joint ministerial response issued on the same day is equally cowardly and full of excuses. The government ministries simply adhered to what the business groups insist on; they make appropriate sympathetic clucks and will never step up to outright ban the transportation of workers in the back of lorries, unsecured. The ministries came up with all sorts of regulations that are completely not enhancing worker safety, and pretty much said that they're okay with companies transporting workers like livestock at the back lorries. IT IS SO LAME. 

In recognition of the challenges and trade-offs, the Ministry of Transport and the Land Transport Authority, the Ministry of Manpower, the Ministry of National Development and the Building and Construction Authority, the Ministry of Trade & Industry and Enterprise Singapore, have encouraged companies and industry associations to work towards alternative transport arrangements for their workers, without removing the exception under the Road Traffic Act.

We see workers in the back of lorries every morning, and evening. We're comfortable in our own cars, or cabs and buses. How do you feel pulling up next to a packed lorry like this? Do you look away? Do you look down and pretend that they don't exist? Do you feel upset or do you feel like it's befitting of their social status? Or are you simply apathetic? "Too bad lor."

Would you put your relatives and children at the back of lorries like cargo or livestock? Would you want to be treated like this if you work in another country? Our voices are nowhere as stronger or even stronger than the business groups put together. People in power aren't saying it loudly enough. Professor Tommy Koh summed it up best in his Facebook post on 2 August, 2023, 

Singapore has the dubious distinction of being the only wealthy country which allows the employers of foreign workers to transport them in lorries without seats and seat belts. I am not surprised that 20 business groups have issued a joint statement opposing any change to the status quo. They are resorting to scare tactics to support their cause, warning about delays in the completion of projects and traffic congestion. The real reason for their opposition is money. It will increase their costs of doing business if they are required to transport their foreign workers in vehicles with seats and seat belts. We should not be misled by their campaign. First, the lives of foreign workers are as precious as our own. Second, they should be treated in the same way as we treat ourselves. We require all persons to have seats and seat belts. This should be extended to our foreign workers. Third, as a First World country, we should abolish practices from the past which are incompatible with our status and reputation.

Singapore is wealthy, snobbish and sheltered. We're petty and not particularly inclusive. We have our own economic bubble. You're a nobody without a citizenship. If you're a migrant worker in this country, you're negligible, non-important and you have no rights. Our government has officially sanctioned that. Manpower and labor laws don't protect employees or migrant workers enough. It's a classist and elitist approach to dealing with the desired 'migrant' workers we want to have in Singapore.  

This National Day, ask yourself what does it mean to be Singaporean? If we can't comment on political matters, surely we can criticize social policies?! Surely we can have bigger hearts and check in with the migrant workers who build our homes and offices? We claim to be charitable, we donate money to various causes, we collect funds and old clothes and stuff for earthquake and typhoon victims. We're enthusiastic about vulnerable children, animals and the elderly. Have we looked closer home to see who needs help? Or are they invisible to us? If we are left with no voice in this country, why the fuck am I voting? What am I voting for?

"Onward as One" this National Day 2023. Only for residents and citizens. Everyone else who's a guest here without money is negligible and unwanted. You're not one of us. This country is not for you. We will leave you behind. And this is what I remember this August as Singapore turns 58. No fireworks or glitzy community celebrations can gloss over our treatment of migrant workers in our midst.