Whatever happened to the six finally?
  

Wednesday, 10 December 2008.

The four men who were not detained by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) went for another mediation session hosted by the Ministry of Manpower. As you may recall from my earlier articles, the group had made their first complaint in early November, and nothing had been resolved up to this point, a month later. Instead, the employer appeared to be stonewalling all issues so that the employees' time in Singapore would be exhausted and the men left with no alternative. The ministry for their part seemed to neglect its responsibilities.

At this session -- and by then, the Manpower officer A K Tan had become aware of Yawning Bread's article (more on that later) -- the employer finally offered higher amounts. 

Xue Hanming was offered an increased S$3,000 by his employer, as final settlement for three months' unpaid wages, as was Liu Xiaoping. The men still felt that the amounts offered were way below what they were rightfully due, but they agreed because they really wanted to leave, having gone through quite a lot in the previous week. In their employment contracts an average monthly salary of S$1,300 was mentioned. Moreover, in the months they were here, they also worked overtime nearly every day and seven days a week.

Yang Zhiqiang was even more unhappy, being offered just S$2,000, but eventually he signed, because the labour agent in China had called his wife to pressure her. She in turn rang him and pleaded with him to return to China. She seemed to have been given the impression that Yang was causing a lot of trouble and might be jailed.

The amounts seem quite arbitrary and neither myself nor the NGO people understand how they were arrived at.

Tian Suyun refused to accept the S$2,000 he was offered; he felt it was far short of the S$6,900 he was owed. Eventually the employer revised the amount to S$3,500, which he accepted.

The same day, Chen Yuguang and Xue Chengming were released by the ICA and given a pass to stay in Singapore for just one day to resolve their issues with their employer. (How would you like to negotiate with your employer knowing you will arrested as an illegal immigrant, jailed and caned if you didn't settle within 24 hours?)

Here is a scan of the one day Special Pass issued to Xue Chengming:

These two had been nabbed and unlawfully detained by two different repatriation companies [1] engaged by the employer and then transferred to the ICA, who seemed happy to take custody of kidnappees.

Upon their release, the two promptly went to a police station to file a report about being unlawfully detained and robbed of their handphones by their employer and its agents. At some point soon after, they got their phones back.

(I must say this -- in the saga, the police were acquitting themselves quite well.)

The same evening, Channel U and Channel 8 aired a news snippet about this group, devoting a generous 2 minutes to the story. Here is the Channel U version; I don't know whether the Channel 8 version was the same.

Liang Kaixin of Channel 8 emailed me too to provide me with a link to their webstory. The link is here.

Reporters from the Straits Times and Today also did interviews and took photographs, though nothing appeared in the papers the day after.

The first four flew back to China. From the airport, Liu called volunteer Stephanie Chok to confirm that they had received their agreed amounts and to express their thanks for all the help they have received.

Yang wanted a special document to certify that he did not cause any trouble while he was in Singapore, because as mentioned above, the agent in China had been harassing his wife. She was very anxious and he wanted something to document the fact that he was not breaking any laws. However, this was also only going to be given to him at the airport, and there are no independent witnesses to confirm that such a document was actually handed over to him.

Xue Chengming and Chen Yuguang (the two who had just been released by the ICA) went for mediation at Manpower today. Xue was offered S$3,000 and Chen Yuguang S$3,700. They settled for these amounts even though they felt these weren't altogether fair. Additionally, they wanted compensation for the distress they had gone through as a result of being seized and detained.

The Chinese embassy also called the Ministry of Manpower today. What transpired is not clear but unofficial reports indicated that the embassy wanted the ministry to settle the matter today itself.
 

Friday, 12 December 2008.

Xue and Chen went to ICA to collect their passports and their pay. They were then sent to the airport and took an evening flight home. 

* * * * *

 
A few weeks later, the volunteers who were involved with this case told me the people at the Ministry of Manpower, particularly A K Tan, the officer who was handling this case directly, were rather upset with Yawning Bread and me. They, or he, were especially annoyed because I mentioned their names.

Good. This is how it should be.

The cancer that has to be rooted out is a culture of impunity bred under a cosy cloak of anonymity. Behind anonymity, civil servants can neglect their responsibilities or abuse their powers, and get away with it.

Our civil service is particularly fond of anonymity. I've had many run-ins with government departments where they point-blank tell me that they will not reveal their names. "Because I am acting in my official capacity," they say.

"How the hell do I know you are rightfully acting in your official capacity if I cannot verify who you are?" I ask. But my riposte, I believe,  is usually too intellectual for them, because the response is typically a sullen silence.

No self-respecting private company would tolerate similar attitudes and behaviour. I know, because I have managed customer service departments. Generally, private sector customer service officers wear nametags, and when dealing with any client or member of the public, company culture would expect them to identify themselves, speak and act on record. They are held personally accountable for discharging their duties on behalf of the company.

If the civil service thinks that they deserve the same respect and pay as the private sector, they should ask themselves whether they take responsibility to the same degree.

* * * * * 

I don't think it is a coincidence that the issue was resolved a bit more to the men's satisfaction after I gave publicity to their plight. I shudder to think what these civil servants would have gotten away with if I had held my tongue.

It was gratifying to me that the mainstream media finally began publicising similar stories in the weeks following. I'm not suggesting that they were asleep all the while even as the Xuyi case was brewing; far from it. Various reporters had been interested in this case all along and had been interviewing and filming, but their editors were much more careful about letting the stories run.

What I think my story did was to kick the Manpower Ministry into finally giving some reaction to queries from the media. Why is this important? In Singapore's mainstream media, any story that involves the government is generally not allowed by editors to run until the government has given a response to reporters' questions. That way, the government will not look bad in news reports; they are always assured that their side of the story will be given prominence.

But such a media rule has a perverse effect: So long as a ministry stonewalls a reporter's query, the story is held in suspension, not reaching the public.

I believe publicising it in the blogosphere makes a difference. It makes it impossible for the government department concerned to play delaying tactics. Once it is out in cyberspace, officials have to respond to mainstream media enquiries -- for otherwise they will not get their side of the story out at all -- thus greenlighting our newspapers and broadcasters to run the story.

© Yawning Bread