if our forward looking govt that have always been able to plan years ahead, the change would not be painful & sudden. just like their leadership renewal, no where near drastic, smooth, largely predictable. compare that to the change people are being forced into this past few months, through job losses, reduction in salaries with a change of job.

everytime there is a change (“recession”) common folks are made to swallow bitter pills like wage freeze, CPF cuts, rising cost of limits. the biggest change is the status quo of PMETs who made up the large middle (low, mid to high) income earners. this group is being pushed to the low income group with all the retraining for new industries that pay much less. how to keep their (&heir family’s) heads above troubled waters?

Some need to go see psychristry to take depression pill and the psychristry are so happy that their business had increase during this time!

Singaporean never reliase that Change is Only Constant and even during unemployment they just refused to change!

What a pity! Singaporean bless you to the grave!

I believe there must be some rules to protect Singaporen worker. Can anyone list out all ?
Can anyone tell me how the other first world country protect their citizen workers ? Or they do not?
.

i know, Aware is different. but they do not have internet to spread their cause. this is the online comunity’s advantage. not sure about Aware’s fundings in their early years.

i am not saying this also will take that long, i am saying it takes a determined group of core “founders” who believe in it & work towards a common goal, without the certainty of knowing when “success” will come.

i also hope its well under 20 years. lol… -.-”

I will be back in October and if there is a meeting at that time I will turn up.

Sure as hell.

Are sing people dead scared and scared that ISD and all the other are taking photographs of the crowd.
.
Let us catch these spooks.

You know when I was at uni in Auckland the white students caught a spy for the gahmen and they really fixed him and they punched him hard and so he begged God for mercy.

Other civil society awareness blogs exists on the virtual cyberspace.
‘Members’ are real but many are readers without a face identified by nicknames.

Other civil society internet ‘establishments’ does not have the kind of funding to advertise to reach critical mass.

The process may take another 20 years to mature? I hope not as too many would have given up.

social issues are not fashion fads, where a sudden surge reaches a plateau then sees a rapid decline in interest wan. maybe it’s 99% who may have turned up dun even know of it?

anyway civil society movements do not always have things going smoothly in the early stages. just look at Aware, after 20+ years still got so much room for improvement, those gritty women never gave up their cause. that is the spirit mah.

I mean its fair to assume ‘they’ have sent people there to observe. If so, does the low turnout give an impression of APATHY on issue that is BREAD AND BUTTER? Or could it have given the signal that the People are not facing job security problem related to FT in a time like this? People not affected by Age Discrimination? People not jobless and cannot pay and pay the arrears as they are now hardly able to eat Pork and Pork ?

Could this sent a signal to citizens that People are 99.9% not bothered about voicing up for this issue as there is no such serious problem? Could this Dissuade the youths from participating? Could they have gotten a wrong message.

Could the messages not have reached the Youths and Adult workers?

regrads
Pork and Pork

other than publicity, i think some jobless people who may have known about (or not) the event may not want to spend the if they stay far & for a talk that they may feel sceptical that it will change their plight.

& yes i dun stay that far away…

Singaporeans are like that lah. Much as I appreciate your intention, the fact is this will not help them one bit in securing a job!

Also please do not be too fixated with big turnouts lah. Remember those opposition rallies during elections? They were huge, much bigger than those of the PAP. What was the voting result?

Also more recently Tan Kin Lian’s Minibond fiasco rallies. What was the positive impact to those investors who lose money? Almost none. They still have to fight their legal battles with the banks if they want to get back their money.

It is true that the turn out was disappointing. We expect at least 200 to come for such a relevant event.

Maybe we need to publicise and give more thoughts to marketing it in future.

I am sure that we will do this again sometime in future. That is for sure.

Such events need a concerted effort by all to publicise it. Bring your friends and help us to be your mouthpiece.

Thanks again for those die-hard who turn up yesterday.

Everything starts from the first time and I am sure the second one will be much better.

TOC or some other NGO should hold another event on the same.

This turnout of under 50 was appalling and illogical Representation of the situation and sentiments on the ground. This means there is a gap between organizer and the target audience. I see a need for Marketing Specialists and Advertisement Gurus to execute a solid plan for mobilization.

Youths, in time, and time passes quickly, you too will become 35 and then 40.
There is also no more iron rice bowl at least based on some reporting.
Regardless of these factors, we should still open our eyes and heart and come together to solve a Real problem.

I like many who turned up are not Against FTs. We have many FT friends, real friends. The issue is This is our country. What is inplace to give singaporeans support when employers clearly choose to favor hiring FTs and some cite the convenient but Broad and non-specific reason that singaporeans a lazy or shun this job or are too choosey or job hop a lot or ask for too high pay. EVEN IN THIS CRISIS? I do not think so their reasons are Valid anymore. Yet.

Who is really ensuring and checking the quota in all companies every month?
I think the quota is or can be different for different industries or companies.
Which of you really knows what is happening?
Oh I forgot, got Tripartism.
sigh…

Your idea seems to make the statistics look better only.

Very evil you.

regrads
Pork and Pork to you

As mentioned in #62, the quickest way to resolve these FTs and workers issues is to fast track these residents to become new citizens; so, no more arguments. Is this solution already taking place?

Don’t be discourage about the turn-up or misunderstand and make conclusion from the outcome.. I’m all for this event, however, honestly, not much people are aware of this event. Furthermore, it was such a short notice.. Me? I got to know on these on evening of 8th May. All Excuses? Nope… we need to garner support and create awareness to those that don’t frequent TOC, on the event.

Is there a way to make the event a more public one? or arrange it to in advance e.g. 3 weeks to 1 months? I’m very sure that it will have a different outcome. Send out an invitation email on the event and drawn support on the cause. You send to 10 recipients.. then each of them will send to another 10. Slowly and surely, they will reach the audiences. Get 50 committed audiences and it will create a wave… Then have another (same) event in 2 weeks time… Definitely, the number go up!

I have two daughters studying, and worry if there are jobs for them once they graduate… It’s a real concern for Singaporean…

^.^

1. tens of thousands are jobless. not even 1 percent of these turned up to listen. Why? Are these not affected? Those still holding a job could not care less? 5-6pm timing bad? people go for dinner or shopping? The news of the event did not reach out to enough people? While Aware made people realise there is some hope left in singaporeans, this event reminded me that singaporeans are truely unique to the CORE.

2. Statistics – how to ensure the people see the clear truth like how many residents vs citizens occupied what types of jobs? One of the Speaker, Miss Braema, said something like Solution requires Research data . Without clear data, how can solution be created to target the problem of why people are not getting jobs when it is reported so many jobs are available and so many people willing to accept 42% pay cut and this means even cheaper than FTs, possibly.

3. I can understand why certain types of employees dare not turn up to listen.
But I could not understand why the 99.9% of the jobless and retrenched did not show up.

4. Could the system be improved to benefit singaporeans more? If so, why are people not stepping forward to provide the solution , to discuss, to voice up?
The current policies are great for employers. They could pick from anyone in the world and easily get them here to work . Why should employers hire a singaporean who is older and asks for slightly higher pay due to living standard and CPF overhead to the employer?

5. We are all gonna grow older. If not now, we are gonna have to face this employment issue sooner or later. Why are people so passive?

6. why is Aware response different from rice bowl issue? I thought singaporeans will only voice up when they themselves pocket are hurt?

I want to migrate but its not so easy as I have to have a job 1st to complete the application form where you need to provide resume and proofs of where you have been employed and worked as what and have what skills, for skill-based migration.

Okay, there is still hope left. Wait . Wait for Nature to provide the opportunity.
Thank goodness we are all humans and all humans are mere mortals. Evil cannot prevail. Period.

locals and take over the PAP like they take Suzhou from LKY during the 90s and

according to their terms.

I don’t mind to call the next PM to be Li etc etc rather than Lee etc. One day we

will call Chinaman to be Boss! Very Very Soon!!!!