at e recruitment of my jc senior, i took up a 13-day assignment... nothin much... just to help an exhibition company (shall not name em!) set up Singex for e ongoin BroadcastAsia n CommunicAsia 2007...
these were e details i received before it began... accordin to his experience from his last stint, or sld i add, e norms of labour, we'll get a standard wage every weekday, x1.5 if OT, n x2 for weekend... guess wat... they refused to give us details of our pay, because they wanted to gather e whole crew before such a briefin... when e 3rd day came, this was wat they told us... weekday is as usual, but saturdays follow weekday pay, n sundays will only x2 if e worker works on e 2 flankin days of saturday n monday...
at 1st, our grp of 10+ ppl had already committed ourselves, so we chose not to voice out n took e tabled offer... inside, i noe most of us are brewin... in e 1st place, e standard wage is already a (undisclosed) low amount... now they take away our saturdays n threatens us w e sunday weekend pay... we believed their stance is to force out labour from their usual crew of 17, 18 yr-old kids who are easily intimidated, take low pay, n noe nothin to retaliate (not forgettin this is a fairly big public-listed company)... but they must not have expected such a large grp of ORDed adults, rangin from 21-25, includin a SAF officer, a police inspector, n numerous SAF Specialists, all undergrads or grads, to come under their wings...
this was wat happend at work... e jc senior who roped us in for e job, had a small talk w some of e rest, n started flamin e system... e fire was stoked n it just got stronger... in half a day of discussn, we had gone from zero to decidin to confront e management w e agenda already planned n research done... e kids wld not walk-out, fearin a suspension of wages... but on our side (thanks to e wonderful education spore gave us) we noe if they refused payment we can take em to MOM... so realistically, this was a scenario where a walk-out might happen, 1st time i'll see it, n im actually involved... so coincidentally, half of our grp are NUS' Buildin n Real Estate students, n they noe a thing or two about e issue at hand... some had studied a little on law, others on labour... 1 has a contact who's a MOM employee, another has a close fren who studies labour laws n e Labour Act... we did our research at lunch n received positive feedback tt e company is indeed wayward...
we consolidated n sent e SAF officer n police inspector to negotiate... e management actually cut work n agreed to meet our representatives... our guys went for e showdown brimmin w confidence, knowin it was reason n facts against e reputation of a well-known company... they related to us how e company had again planned to throw their weight around, by sendin not just e whole bunch of rugged blue-collar supervisors, but also a grp of never-before-seen white-collar higher management... it was 2 guys against a whole board... lucky our guys are men of fortitude who have seen much adversity... at 1st e supervisor in charge of personnel n wages was decent n diplomatic, but did not make concessions, creatin an impressn on our guys of mostly lip service... so they pushed for tangible results, explainin tt we're just seekin a reasonable end, at e same time provin to em e knowledge we have on e issue... all labour is given extra for work on saturdays, n e threat of e sunday x2 pay is pure insane... why threaten us when our grp can do everythin nicely for u? n if sundays arnt x2, who wld want to work? n if tt's e case, who loses out more? e next interestin turn came... e white-collar company accountant, apparently a notorious Alice Ma, spoke n started throwin industry jargons at our guys, claimin our argument for fair treatment of part-timers is flawed, as we don't fall under part-timers, but something called "casual workers"... our guys then whipped out an sms tt indicated e exact chapters n sections to counter this errant management, n began displayin a harsher tone against this woman... in e next few moments, she lost e argument n left e room defeated... e previous supervisor was now also taken aback... they decided to relent... sundays will definitely be x2, w no bindin conditions... n for work on saturdays they will pay an extra day-wage... n btw, we heard from our 2 direct supervisors, 1 of em a 63 yr-old veteran, tt e Alice Ma is not 1 to be trifled w among e full-timers... n it became a big hoo-hah, both shockin n exhilaratin, tt 2 part-timers managed to shut her up...
we've succeeded in rightin a wrong, n in people's power... nothin unpleasant came out of it... we are currently still continuin work... n i dare say we're doin 1 hell of a job, n they'll be pleased to have us...
