5 May 2005
The News Editor
Straits Time Forum Page
UNION OF SECURITY EMPLOYEES’ RESPONSE TO THE DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES BY THE SPRINGBLOOM CONDOMINIUM MANAGING AGENT
“No to Discriminatory Practices”
I refer to the article in The Straits Times on 3 May 2005, entitled “Under Fire for Exclusion Clause”, which highlighted that the managing agent of the Springbloom condominium had asked a number of security firms to tender for a contract with a condition that they were not to deploy guards from a certain ethnicity. The Union of Security Employees (USE) is appalled by the apparent and explicit discriminatory employment practice in the procurement of security services for the condominium.
2 USE condemns all forms of discrimination in employment practices perpetuated by employers, and even buyers of services. We call for all employers to abide by the Code of Responsible Employment Practices, which was jointly issued by the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), Singapore Business Federation (SBF) and National Trades Union Congress in December 2002. The Code acknowledges that the Singapore workforce is multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious. As such, employers and employees, and even buyers of services, must appreciate the diversity of the workforce and work together to achieve workplace harmony.
3 Employers, and to some extent, the buyers of services, should treat all staff fairly and continue to recruit them based on skills, merit, experience, capability and relevant job requirements, regardless of race, religion, age, gender, marital status, disability or factors that have no relevance to the requirements of the job. In addition, it is also entrenched in Article 12(2) of the Constitution of Republic of Singapore that there shall not be any discrimination against citizens of Singapore on the ground of religion, race, descent or place of birth in the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment.
4 By the same token, buyers of security services should be responsible and should not engage in discriminatory practices. They should consider adopting performance-based contracts in order to secure the highest level of performance and output from the security firms and guards.
5 Notwithstanding, we applaud the security firms that have turned down the offer to bid for the tender in question. We also urge SNEF, SBF and the Government to step up efforts in educating employers and buyers of services on the Code and other non-discriminatory practices.
6 With the new security landscape and operating environment post-September 11, the private security sector has become a growth industry and is rapidly gaining significance and importance. USE has been actively engaging the tripartite partners in raising the overall image and professionalism of the security industry and we would like assure that such isolated incidents would not dampen our efforts.
Patrick Tay Teck Guan
General Secretary
Union of Security Employees
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National Trades Union Congress
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Email: goykl@ntuc.org.sg
