Christmas Bonus for Singapore’s Civil Servants

Good news for Civil or government workers of Singapore.They will be receiving 2.2 months bonus by the end of this year and an additional 0.5 months in July plus $200.

This is not the first time that civil servants in SIngapore receive such kind of windfall. Everytime the economy is booming, Civil servants get good bonuses but in times of recession they also are the first one to get a pay cut. In fact, in Singapore there is such a thing as increments added to wages that can be deducted anytime that the company or the government suffers from losses.

Nobody has yet complained about this practice. In fact the NTUC(National Trade Union of Singapore ) the largest trade union organization had vetoed this move. Two or three years ago, most employees including government workers suffered pay cuts up to 30 to as much as 50%  and nobody has complained. The alternative was a pay cut or retrenchment.

This is the Singapore labor relations landscape- very harmonious and not even once would you hear a whimper or a sigh from any unionist about this practice.

When I was still working for a Japanese printing company, I re -negotiated the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the union only within 4 meetings.In our signing ceremony we had a memberof Parliament witnessing the signing.

That could never happen in the Philippines. In Manila I even had a sit down strike while negotiating CBA when we discussed about the issue of  removing chairs in production area.

That is probabl y the reason that whatever bonuses the workers get in SIngapore is totally deserved. They dont have to ask for it –it is given by the government and by the company in good times.This also produces excellent service standards for employees in the both government and private sector.

 I hope this will be the case in the Philippines.