Ex-SMRT bus driver's claims ‘unfounded’, ‘untrue’: MOM

The Ministry of Manpower on Saturday refuted recent claims made by former SMRT bus driver He Jun Ling, calling them “unfounded, irresponsible and contrary to public interest”.

In a recent wide-ranging interview with Yahoo! Singapore published earlier this month, He -- one of the leaders of last November's mass strike involving 170 SMRT bus drivers  -- made several claims about the events that unfolded in the years and months leading up to and including the day of the strike.
 
These included his view that even before he arrived in Singapore to work, his ex-colleagues from China had surfaced their grievances -- complaints about living conditions in their dormitory and lower wages compared to other foreign bus driver nationals -- to ministry representatives, but yet they were not adequately addressed.
 
Responding to this, the ministry said in a statement that it had told the drivers who approached them in 2010 that it would only be able to deal with statutory issues — those that clearly contravened manpower laws here — and that the issues of dorm conditions and unequal pay structures were non-statutory in nature.
 
With respect to the rest, said the MOM, it did surface the drivers’ concerns to then-SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa in April 2010, highlighting the issues and requesting that the transport operator addressed them.
 
He had also said during both days of the mass strike, MOM officers were only present to facilitate talks between the drivers and representatives of SMRT on the first day, but did not inform the drivers that what they were doing was illegal; neither did they turn up on the second day.
 
MOM called these assertions “untrue”, and that MOM officers “responded promptly” to notice of the strike, intervened and facilitated dialogue between SMRT and the drivers, after which both parties agreed that SMRT would consider the issues raised within the week, while drivers were to resume work the next day.
 
“At this same session, MOM also advised the drivers that there were proper channels for them to raise their unhappiness over contractual issues, and that their refusal to work was wrong,” the statement said.

“However, the next day a significant group of drivers refused to return to work, and went on an illegal strike. It was later established that He was one of the key instigators behind this illegal strike.”
 
In the MOM statement, acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin defended his ministry's officers, stating that they “acted professionally and fairly in dealing with the 2010 petition raised by the SMRT drivers and with the illegal strike last November”.
 
“These attempts to cast doubt on their professionalism are unfounded, irresponsible and contrary to public interest… There is no place for spurious allegations from individuals who break our laws, disrupt our tripartite cooperation and impugn the integrity of our civil servants, nor from those who abet others in these activities.”
 
[Read the full statement here. Our stories on our interviews with He Jun Ling can also be found here and here.]