By Carl Skadian
News Editor
carl@sph.com.sg

 

WHEN my editor showed me a blog posting accusing The Straits Times of not reporting negative news on Singapore, I told him I think we should respond to the unfair charge.

We don't usually do so because we don't want to spend half our time rebutting unsubstantiated accusations against this newspaper. But in this case, I felt it was unfair, especially to the reporter who had been tracking this story.

In his posting, the blogger referred to a report by the BBC, headlined "Casino's builders strike over pay", which is being circulated widely on the Net. He repeated the assertions in the report, including how workers at the Marina Bay IR were "being subjected to oppressive conditions, forced to meet crushing deadlines while their monthly/OT pay was being withheld".

Then, he turned to The ST: There was not a single word in the paper on the "strike", he said, adding: "The claim that the The ST is 'balanced' - not just a government mouthpiece - seems to hold much less water now."

He went on: "It's a real shame and tragedy when we have to realise on (sic) a foreign news agency like the BBC to do the reporting for us. And this case isn't even about testing political OB markers (i.e. WSJ), but about basic socioeconomic conditions not being met."

The truth of the matter is that we knew about this particular case, but decided it wasn't worth running because it involved a small group of workers not being paid. It's not quite what the headline on the foreign news agency report which led to the blogger's accusation - "Casino's builders strike over pay" - made it out to be.

These are the facts:

Between March and May this year, 25 workers from a firm called Xuyi, which supplies labour to a sub-contractor working on the Marina Bay IR, approached the Ministry of Manpower and claimed that they had not been paid. Note that there's a total workforce of some 10,000 at the IR, some employed by the main contractor and others by the dozens of sub-contractors.

On May 5th, 13 of the 25 stopped work. They then lodged a complaint with the MOM.

After the MOM mediated, most accepted compensation from the ministry and left the country. Two declined, and are now awaiting a hearing into their case at the Labour Court.

ST has been aware of this development for some time, and we called the IR to check if work has been affected. It has not.

The case is also not much different from several others - some involving over 100 workers - that this newspaper has reported on from time to time, complete with picture coverage.

ST believes any worker here has rights that must be protected, and we are continuing our efforts to uncover cases where this has not been done. We've put some questions to the MOM on the Marina Bay case, and we hope to report on some developments soon.

Given these facts, perhaps the question to ask is: Was the foreign agency's story a case of making a mountain out of a molehill?

Were workers at the IR really "subjected to oppressive conditions, forced to meet crushing deadlines while their monthly/OT pay was being withheld"?

At the ST, we value constructive criticism. It drives us to keep getting better.

Sometimes, though, all we ask for is fair shake.