People’s Voice reiterates call to #AbolishCECA

Singapore—In a Facebook post on Monday morning (March 8), Mr Lim Tean, lawyer and head of the People’s Voice (PV) party, called for Singaporean talent to have a “Fighting Chance in Our Job Market.”

He wrote that People’s Voice rejects what he termed as “the language of those overclass PAP scholars,” who, he said, “advocate ‘openness’” in our labour policies and welcome “foreign talent” with open arms.”

Different ministers such as Mr Chan Chun Sing, who heads the Trade and Industry Minister and Ms Gan Siow Huang, Minister of State for Manpower, have mentioned the need for foreign talent in order for the country to remain competitive, but have also underlined the Government’s plan to strengthen the Singaporean core.

However, the PV is championing Singaporean workers.

Mr Lim wrote, “Peoples Voice unabashedly loves “local talent”; we have faith and respect in Singaporeans ability to perform the high-skilled jobs which the PAP policies repeatedly out-source to foreign talent.”

He added that the party “want(s) the good paying jobs to be done by Singaporeans!,” again calling for the abolition of CECA, or the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. 

This agreement is a free-trade pact between the two countries, which was carried out to strengthen bilateral trade.

“This means #AbolishCECA and creating policies which put Singaporean talent ahead of foreign talent in our nation,” Mr Lim added.

In August last year, Mr Lim started a petition calling for the abolition of the CECA, urging the government to return the ‘S$2,400-jobs’ to Singaporeans first.

Mr Lim described CECA as a “one-way street,”  considering it a significant component in the increasing number of foreign PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) in Singapore.

In one of his Facebook livestreams last year entitled “After Work,” Mr Lim touched on CECA, noting it allows hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals to come to Singapore without a corresponding flow of Singaporean workers employed in India. Even then, he emphasised the PV’s stance against CECA, adding they wish to abolish it altogether.

In a separate Facebook post on Sunday (March 7), Mr Lim quoted HR specialist and author Mr Martin Gabriel concerning the ruling party’s labour policies.

“We have fallen far behind compared to other advance economies, that’s because the PAPs policy did not ensure knowledge transfer but outsourced almost all high-end jobs to foreigners. We are no longer knowledge and/or skills based trained, but task driven, like taxi drivers or food delivery. No disrespect, but these are the lowest jobs and least paid jobs in the food-chain order.

They were so fixated in globalization that they forgot to prepare our own people, and brought in hundreds and thousands of foreigners who played musical chairs at the top and did not ensure transfer of knowledge to our own people. They can bluff everyone else, but not me. I’ve been in the training and consulting industry for almost 20 years. I’ve seen many job related issues where locals were openly discriminated. The betrayal was so brutal, that I even once considered migrating”.

/TISG

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