My New Job Location I started in my new job as a Security Officer on 4 March 2008 at a nursing home in the Sengkang area of Singapore. It is a one man station so I don’t get out of the Guard House but only a few times during the day.
So why post about my job? It is my first time at a location like this where there are workers from other countries I can talk with and get a feel for how they find working in Singapore.
Work is divided up into 3 rotating shifts so from week to week the times they works vary, remember this for later on in the story.
Being an old folks home it has a lot of helps for them and yes you guessed right, most are from the girls are from Philippines with the rest being from Myanmar and 90% are females between the ages of 20 and 27,over all there are about 40 working here.
The rules at the home for them is that they have to sign out before they depart so I get to meet all of them as they come and go. Other rules on them are that they can not leave before 7am and have to return by 11pm unless they have special permission from their supervisor, so not a lot of free time for them really. Any relationship between the workers is highly discouraged from the management which I can understand but has we all know anytime you have men and women working and living in the same location relations are going to form between a few of them. One of the worker a Filipino guy told me that the girls from Myanmar tend to stick with the guys from their home country and that a few are couple but have to keep it very quiet. Any activities between the two have be done out side of the nursing home.
Before I mentioned about the shift work so with that in mind it would be a matter of time before the work schedule will separate the couple so while one is working the other is either sleeping or starting/ending their shift.
Pay? Only S$300 a month for the Healthcare Assistants which are the lowest level workers. They sign a 2 year contract with the company and live on the premises. When talking with one of the Filipinos he told me that when his agent offered him the job in the Philippines he was told he would be make a lot more then he was but the reality of it was that the pay is about the same. He went on to say that if he had known the pay in Singapore was going to be so low it would not have taken it while on the good side the job did give him a chance to travel to a different country.
Now I always like to give a person the benefit of the dough but making only S$300 a month dose not go very far even if room and board are included. But the time you add up the bare items needed each month that will take about $50 to $100, items like hygiene items, phone cars, MRT card fares added. If they are a smoker well there is a big chunk of change gone. So how much is left over each month to save or send home, not a lot I would I have to say.
Like the 100,000+ maids working in the country the story is the same but for them the pay can get higher then the $300 stated above but keep in mind they are working much longer hours each day.
Now I don’t know if any of the girls are working on the side but I can understand if they are. I mean if I offered one of them $100 each week for a short time I’m sure she would think really hard on it before giving me her answer. It is said by some to stop corruption you need to pay wages that are high enough to remove the temptation so let’s take this to a lower level, the worker on the street. But when you speak of corruption doesn’t that really cover everything that has to do with any illegal activities a person would be tempted to undertake to make extra money? If you keep that thought in mind and think about it you will see my point.
In 2007 a man was arrested for selling illegal cigarettes when asked why he was doing it he said to help support his family because what he made in his day job was not enough to make ends meet and he had no other choice. There is not 1 location I have worked where I didn’t hear for someone that came around selling cigarettes or DVD’s. Each of these people are just trying to make some extra money since the profit margin is nothing great.
You may be asking what the 2 have in common, the healthcare workers and the local man selling cigarettes. Well low wages is what they both have in common. While most people are honest and find ways no matter how hard to do the right thing it is still very tempting not to do the right thing even on the smallest level such has buying that $6 DVD for your children because you can not afford the $30 original but still what to make your kids happy in their lives. What would you do is the question?
Singapore is small, very small. Nothing happens here without some form of law-enforcement knowing about it that I truly believe! So why do I still illegal things happening? To say these activities are tolerated to a certain level would be true because they are happening in plan site so isn’t this adding to the corruption problem for the man on the street?
Now I don’t pretend to have all the answers but like everyone I do have my own ideas which I will keep to my self since there is no point telling them here, but I am sure there is an answer to these problems.
Everything has a snowball effect, if you change one thing it will cause changes in many other areas. Let us take the Red light area of Geylang for example. If you got ride of all the girls on the street what would happen?
First off the legal houses in the area could not handle the increase in customers. So you would need to add more house but where, the area is pretty fully now so new places would be needed to be build and more girls would have to be registered to work in the sex trade. Since the houses only operate between say 1pm and 2am what would the guys do who are not able to go during that time due to work or other reasons. Would this cause an increase in sexual assaults in the country, maybe? Do you make the houses stay open 24 hours with the girls working in shifts?
Most of the girls in the house come from Malaysia or Thailand, do you add other countries from where the girls can also work from like China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Spain, Russia, Nigeria, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Sri Lanka since these girls can be found on the Lorongs (streets) of in the area.
The big question would be would the women be willing to work in house? On the street a China girl can get up to S$100 for a short time with a customer. While in a house the price can range from $40 to $150 depending on the house. Are the girls also willing to work in that kind of establishment where they will have to give some of their earning to the manager of the house, pay for medical checks and other items? If not would these same girls move to other areas of the country like have before, most likely, yes! So is this why the Geylang area has been allowed to operate for so long in the same manner it has for all these years, most likely, yes! To put it another way, "it's like holding a bull by the horns, you don't like but you don't dare let go either"! Should the area be changed is a question asked by many. Well there is nothing wrong with the area the question is should the law be changed on prostitution and removing the in the houses only ruling and extending it to cover the area as a whole. Now if that was done what would happen with the health checks for the girls would it just apply to those registered in the house or freelancers too? Another snowball of questions has started as you can see.
Like every other country in the world no place is perfect, they do what they can the best they can for their giving situations, laws and culture. Knowledge is power and the more you know the more you understand and can fairly access the place. While I write my thoughts and opinions that is just what they are, something to think about and make your own opinion on.
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Warren's Singapore 2008 