Poor, abused workers at Singapore Zoo

Following our report on Sun City superviser's abuse of staff...

MOM, zoo act to protect workers

It Started with one brave soul and a fuzzy handphone video.

When a whistle blower contacted The New Paper last November, a week after zoo worker Nordin Montong was killed at the white tiger enclosure, a one-minute-long video was all he had.

It showed a worker from Sun City Maintenance, the same maintenance company Mr Nordin(the man who jump into white tigers' den) worked for, being verbally abused and beaten up by his supervisor in front of a crowd of onlookers.

The informant claimed that Sun City workers were also overworked and underpaid.

One month after The New Paper's report on the video, Sun City is now under investigation by the Manpower Ministry (MOM) for overworking its workers and making unauthorised salary deductions.

In the meantime, the zoo's parent company, Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), has announced a slew of measures to protect Sun City workers.

Among the measures are dormitory inspections by WRS staff, making background checks on future sub-contractors and introducing compliance with employment laws as a condition in their contracts with sub-contractors.

Said Ms Fanny Lai, group chief executive officer of WRS: 'The video incident brought our awareness to a greater height... that workers, whether local or foreign, must be treated fairly. This is an issue very dear to my heart and I want to make sure that we walk the talk.'

Ms Lai was speaking to The New Paper on the sidelines of a thank-you brunch for the media, held at the Jurong Bird Park last week, where WRS also unveiled its revamped waterfall aviary.

Ms Lai said that when the allegations of worker abuse came to light, an internal investigation was immediately carried out.

WRS also brought up the issue to MOM and sought advice from the Singapore Manual and Mercantile Workers' Union.

'Our HR people checked the living conditions of the Sun City workers and we had a few discussions with them,' said Ms Lai.

She declined to elaborate on what was discussed at the meetings but subsequently, WRS issued a warning letter to Sun City, stating that a repeat of the incident may result in the termination of its contract.

But the question remained. Why didn't alarm bells go off earlier?

The handphone video, originally taken last August by a Sun City worker who witnessed the beating, was passed to Sun City workers and WRS employees soon after.

'The video was circulating widely. Even the upper management at WRS saw the video a few weeks after the incident but they ignored it,' claimed the whistle-blower who wanted to be known only as Lawrence.

On hindsight, could the feedback channels at WRS have been improved?

Ms Lai agreed with the need for open feedback channels but added: 'We don't want to go back and ask (our staff), did you have the video, who gave it to you, when did you receive it, and so on and so forth. I focus more on the energy to move forward and how we can prevent a repeat of this incident.'

'Isolated'

It was an 'isolated' incident, she said, and one that WRS regrets took place.

But she also emphasised: 'The incident happened outside the zoo, at the carpark which is outside the work area of the zoo, and after office hours when the workers were waiting for the company bus to take them home.

'It was really not within our purview to intervene at that point in time.'

For Lawrence, however, the incident was less an isolated incident and more a 'tipping point' of the ill-treatment Sun City workers had been enduring silently for a long time.

The question of how much WRS knew about the allegations - and whether it should have acted earlier - might rest on the identity of a mystery man involved in the incident.

Towards the end of the video, a man wearing a yellow polo shirt and carrying a walkie-talkie on his belt was seen intervening and ordering the Sun City supervisor to stop the assault. After the situation was defused, he took out his walkie-talkie and spoke into it.

Who was this man? Night safari staff wear yellow shirts as part of their uniform, but they are not the only ones with walkie-talkies: Sun City supervisors use them too.

But Lawrence insisted that he is '101 per cent certain' the man is a manager from the Night Safari's operations department. He provided us his name.

'Even my colleagues agreed that it was him when they saw the pictures in the report,' he said.

Ms Lai, however, maintained that everyone involved was from Sun City. She said that WRS staff were informed about the incident afterwards but were 'not aware of its extent'.

She also said that WRS was unaware of Sun City's tainted record.

Checks with MOM had showed that Sun City was fined last October for overworking its workers and depriving them of annual leave.

What's most important now, she said, is to find a practical way forward.

Ms Lai said: 'Instead of going into the details, what I can say is that the whole incident happened within the contractors. But when people have committed a mistake, I think we should try to let it go. The most important thing is to move on, to have a better tomorrow.'

A happy worker will help the animals to be happy to.