The hidden costs of cheap foreign workers.

Singapore loves slave labour. By this, I mean cheap foreign workers who will work for money that Singaporeans wouldn't even call money at all. Most Singaporean employers seem to think this is a great idea, in fact, many Singaporeans have become rich on the back of this modern day slavery. However, is there a catch with this capitalist dream?

Yes. Sometimes "cheap" is not cheap, but may turn out to be more expensive than any employer could possibly have imagined.

I shall explain. I know of a private school, in Singapore, whose Chinese owner (from the People's Republic of China, but a PR, here) likes to employ foreign workers at the lowest of low wages. He thinks this is a great way to increase his margins, painlessly. Yet, as he has recently learned, sometimes anesthetics just don't work.

In his company, most administrators are earning around a 1,000 Singapore dollars per month. Some earn more...but I don't think any is on a salary of even as much as 2,000 dollars. Now, these wages are considered high for some classes of foreign workers (who may earn only 250 dollars per month, for instance)...but these wages are still low compared to what most Singaporeans would expect for the jobs he is asking them to do. (To put these figures into perspective, 1,000 Singaporean dollars is, as of today's exchange rates, only 690 US Dollars. For scaling purposes, the rent on a two bedroom government (HDB) flat is around 1,600 dollars per month. Thus, people being paid these wages can only afford a room in someone's apartment, at most.)

For many years, it has been like this, at this particular school. The Chinese boss has never given a Christmas bonus. He has never given a Chinese New Year bonus. Some people have worked there for many years, and never received a raise. He lost his best administrator because he wouldn't give her a 12% rise - she left for another position that paid her about 70 % more. Yet, he didn't seem to mind.

Recently, however, something has come to light. One of his recent appointees (the third girl in a row, in about nine months, to do the lost administrator's accounts job), disappeared one day, back to Malaysia. She was a very chirpy, smiley Malaysian Chinese girl working on a much smaller salary than any Singaporean would, in her job. However, sometimes a smile is not what it seems.

She had disappeared because a large cheque had bounced, made out to herself, from the company. As you might have guessed, the boss didn't sign such a cheque: she had. Rather resourcefully, she had forged the two signatures required on the cheque to make it out to herself, for a five figure sum. It was not the first cheque she had so made out. The previous one - for 10,000 dollars, went through to her account without any problems. The problem this time, was that she had made out a cheque so large that it was greater than the balance in the company account that month. It bounced...and her game was up.

On her sudden departure, an investigation began. The last time I heard, up to 70,000 dollars, perhaps more, was suspected to have been embezzled. This particular girl had only been in her job for about six weeks.

Investigations have revealed that others, too, are involved in embezzling from the school. At least one sales staff member (again very lowly paid, in terms of basic salary) has been doing something rather clever, if you approve of criminal intelligence. This staff member, as yet unidentified, though it might be the person who has taken a sudden one month leave of absence, has been selling school courses for cash, to foreign students - and pocketing the money. Apparently, fake copies of the contract have been given to students, to convince them that they have been officially registered. Yet, none of these students appear on the official school books. These students have been turning up for classes, yet they don't appear on the roster, at all.

Again, large sums of money appear to be involved.

Now, some of you might think that the boss of this company deserves what he gets for paying such unattractive wages to his staff, and employing foreign workers, just so that he can pay them less than any local would work for - and, to a degree, I suppose you would be right. He shouldn't be paying such low wages. Yet, the owner is not the only victim in this. The foreign students who have paid thousands of dollars in cash for their courses may not be allowed to attend the school, since the school has actually received no money at all. These are innocent victims of this situation. In many cases, they are not from wealthy families and their parents have struggled hard to raise the money to send them overseas to study and better their lives. It isn't fair that they should have to suffer.

It is, however, very easy to understand where the motive for these crimes has come from. The company boss is paying wages that are, actually, too low to survive on, in expensive Singapore. To make ends meet, workers in such a situation are often forced to take on a second job. Yet, even a second job, at those kinds of rates, would not provide enough money for them. So, they start to get imaginative - and work out ways to get ahold of the money they need, by illegal means.

It seems obvious that had the company owner paid decent wages to his staff, that these crimes most likely would not have occurred. They would not have had a strong motive to steal, or embezzle, or cheat, because they would have enough money to live on. As it is, however, they may have felt they had no choice.

In a way, it is quite a darkly funny story. The owner has lost more money, in a short time, than he probably would have had to pay out, in decent wages, to have prevented this situation in the first place.

The lesson to be learnt from this story is that hiring foreign workers, on slave wages, may, actually, be a false economy. If a worker cannot meet their basic needs from the salary they are being "paid" they will do so by other means. A company that pays slave wages, is a company that will be stolen from, by its enslaved workers.

The investigation into how much has been embezzled from this particular school, has only just begun. So far, at least two thieves have been detected. There is, at this time, no telling how many are involved, nor how much may turn out to be missing. Yet, it is clear that this tale of misfortune, was unnecessary. All the owner had to do was pay a decent wage to his workers. It seems simple enough. To do otherwise, is to put the company at risk of huge and unexpected losses. If such crimes are big enough, they can bring a company down.

So: don't put your company at risk...pay a proper wage.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

On learning to be grateful.

The discourse in Singapore concerning foreign workers is not kind. Often, it is clear, that the writer or speaker thinks ill of the foreigner. In the case of foreign workers who are doing menial jobs like construction or domestic work, it is usually the case that the Singaporean is looking down on the workers, as if on a lower form of life. They are spoken of as "something" to be avoided and shunned, "something" not to be allowed to congregate in public places, "something" to be wary of. There is a depersonalization of these foreign workers by many Singaporeans: they are, it seems, seen as less than fully human. At least, that is the impression the discourse gives.

In the past week or so, I have had cause to evaluate the contributions of these foreign workers to Singapore's success and prosperity, up close. Recently, foreign workers have been busy doing a job I challenge any Singaporean to try: standing on the roof of my apartment block, cleaning the tiles with a high pressure water hose.

Think about what that job means. You are high above the comforting land far below. If you make a mistake, it could cost you your life. The water you are using to clean the roof actually makes it slippery and dangerous, increasing the risk. On top of that, the job pays a pittance, slave wages being the tradition in the construction industry for foreign workers. Would you do that job?

The answer, I would guess, is no. Yet, these foreign workers are making an invaluable contribution to Singapore by putting their lives on the line doing jobs which Singaporeans would never do - yet, without which, Singapore would not be what it is today. These foreign workers, far from being people who should be looked down upon, are an essential part of the success of Singapore. Without them, Singapore could not continue to develop in the way that it has.

So, as I looked at the foreign workers standing on the roof to my apartment block, this past week, I felt a certain gratitude that they were prepared to do jobs that no-one else would do. These jobs are necessary to the maintenance of the quality of the environment in which we live - and yet jobs which have unacceptable risks. Quite a few foreign workers die on construction sites here, in Singapore, every year. They lose their lives trying to build a better Singapore. Is it right, therefore, to look down on them? I think, in some ways, they should be looked UP to. They should be looked UP to for having the courage and resilience to take on such unenviable jobs, no doubt to help support their relatives back home. They live hard lives, so that we might live better ones. That deserves a certain respect, I think.

I did note something about the workers. I only ever saw a safety harness once, on any of the workers. On all other occasions, no such harness was visible to me - yet I am on the top floor of the apartment block, able to see out onto the roof on which they stand. I saw one worker, who appeared to be unharnessed, as far as I could see, standing on the edge of the roof, blasting water onto it. Looking at his precarious position, I rather thought I wouldn't want to be doing what he was doing. Yet, he calmly proceeded with his work, as if he stood on the ground, and not at the top of a fall which would kill him, were he to lose his footing. Now, that deserves respect.

So, far from looking down on the foreign workers in Singapore, I value their presence and contribution and respect the courage they show in their daily work. Perhaps their working lives would be a little less hard if such a welcoming attitude were universal among Singaporeans, too.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)