The Worker’s Pledge
On this May Day, I pledge to:
1. Work faster and smarter, train and re-train at the Devan Nair Institute of Employment and Employability to ramp up Singapore’s productivity.
2. Pray that my company will not be a victim of the current economic restructuring which is leading to an “inching up’’ of unemployment.
3. Hope that my work will not be outsourced by my boss or passed to a robot.
- Move to a HR job so that I can retrench other people and not myself
5. Achieve work-life balance while assuring my boss that I am still as hardworking as ever.
6. Be the good customer that Lim Swee Say wants me to be.
7. Bone up on changes to the employment laws to protect my rights and turn to the new tribunal if my boss docks my pay when I complain. .
8. Report my employer to MOM if he doesn’t pay my CPF on time so that one of its 5,000 inspectors will go through his books
9. Keep fit and join in the company’s annual runs – just like the Manpower Minister
10. Do as the Prime Minister says and work hard to emulate the Pioneer Generation. (So that I can be eligible for the same benefits package when I hit 65 ?).
11. Learn to read unemployment statistics and figure out when to use percentages, month-on-month, year-on-year, consecutive quarters and the difference between resident population and citizens, annualised and seasonal.
12. Make sure I am better and cheaper than the foreign talent my company is eyeing.
13. If not, report my employer to Fair Employment panel for discrimination.
14. Know who is Gilbert Goh. Or maybe not.
15. Eat, sleep, make babies and hope that the MRT takes me to work and home on time.
The Bosses’ Pledge
On this day after May Day, I pledge to
- Work my workers to the bone, to squeeze out every ounce of productivity juice and therefore help the economy.
- Monitor MCs and warn those who take too many about contributing to the rise of healthcare costs
- Persecute those who took TODAY off work, because they’re enjoying the long holiday that I can’t.
- Get my workers to train and re-train, provided I can get enough subsidies to cover the cost of having them elsewhere
- Promote my workers to a higher pay scale on the progressive wage ladder system, even though their training hasn’t made them more productive
- Hire pregnant women provided they agree to use their maternity leave to work from home
- Treat over-time work as pro bono contributions to the economy
- Give all workers fancy titles and call them executives so that I don’t have to pay them for working on their day-off
- Hire more Singaporeans, so that I can hire proportionately more foreigners
- Give low basic pay but promise big bonuses, which will never happen because the company will never do well if I can help it
- Pay myself 10 times more than my average worker, because that is the trend on Wall Street
- Be a good corporate citizen and give to charity, so that I can get tax deductions and get my name in the media
- Re-hire those above 65, but only if they are willing to accept a 50 per cent pay cut
- Hire people on contract terms so that I don’t have to pay CPF.
- Hire a good lawyer.
An ex-journalist who can't get enough of the news after being in the business for 26 years
