NTUC Assistant Secretary-General Josephine Teo is once again
urging the government to rethink its foreign workers policy in a
bid to boost productivity.
She suggested that companies that can increase their output be
allocated with more foreign workers as a reward for instance.
Currently, the quota is fixed according to industries.
In the construction sector for example, employers can hire seven
foreigners for every Singaporean employed, even if the productivity
is less than desirable.
"Right now, as long as you're in the same sector, you're
entitled to the same foreign worker quota but actually maybe his
company makes a more serious effort and somehow his productivity
level is much higher than yours so should we find way to
differentiate? If he's productive, it benefits his Singapore
workers. Why should I limit him to the same extent I limit
you?"
Mrs Teo's call for change comes just a week after Labour Chief
Lim Swee Say encouraged companies to boost their output even as
they cut costs to save jobs.
She feels, the steady decline in productivity in recent
quarters, is an unintended consequence of the foreign worker policy
which the government did not forsee when drafting the laws.
Others have become more reliant on foreign labour, instead of
thinking how they can find better ways to do the same job, for
instance, through the Job Recreation Programme or JRP.
"If indeed they can find these foreign workers who're good why
should we stop the companies. But the fact is we talked to many
people, the standards are also not there otherwise why do we need
to do JRP? So we've become abit more tolerant of poorer standards.
I mean you talk about hawker centre cleaning, we're partly culprits
right? We continue to patronise the stalls which are dirty so who's
to blame?"
To improve the quality of workers, Mrs Teo suggested tapping the
Workforce Skills Qualifications Framework to sieve out the skilled
foreign workers.
Now it's used largely to assess and acknowledge the skills of
local workers.
Mrs Teo was speaking at a National Day Observance ceremony
today.
--938Live