Singapore Government and GLCs have done a pretty efficient job so far compared to others in the region. So how to manage Singapore is none of my business most of the time(except for the cases involving foreign workers like me).
I have worked with some Singapore Statutory Boards and GLCs on public projects for about 4 years. Most of these project and engineering team that I had encountered are pretty decent people. There were some who had used their pangkat as an excuse for being incorrigible, but they are minorities really.
This MRTs breakdowns had already been blown up, dissected and scrutinized. So I am just going to add some personal views only.
My view on the MRT breakdowns are more on the incentives side. An entry level SMRT technician salary now is the same as what I got when I started as a foreign worker in Singapore 10 years ago. Many ITE/Poly grads just used these positions as a stepping stone to other places.
It needs to be asked whether there are sufficient incentives to foster a committed team (people who actually maintains and detect potential problems)? It will be very difficult to come up with a sustainable and effective maintenance program without a committed ground crew.
We can throw all sorts of exogenous management strategies, systemic feedback approach and engineering failure analysis at the problem. Probably solving the problem currently on hand. But have we solve the human problem? The problem with incentives and fairness (or the lack of it) as perceive by people. This in turn will affect the level of cooperation the management will get from its employees.
The problem is not unique to Singapore. Morale in the general labour force are at a very low everywhere you go in the East Asian economies. Management everywhere will always argue that wages need to be kept low as possible because we need to compete with slave like labour in China/Vietnam. That is true and is not going away soon.
To further complicate the problem, a SMRT engineer once told me that it is difficult to increase the technicians and engineers salaries. Due to its nature as a public service, increase in wage bill may incensed some Singaporeans. There is a need for public transport to remain affordable he said.
But there are other areas as well people to delve into. As much as everyone like cheap public transport, do the people want technicians that may need to resort to pizza delivery to supplement their meager salaries? Sleep deprived technicians manning the shifts?
Or is it possible to have detailed breakdown of the company wage distribution? This can justify management position that the workers are fairly compensated within the organization. I mean people can work wholeheartedly even for less money if they feel are fairly treated and sincerely feel they are part of something meaningful.
Globalization and capitalism should not only be restricted to labour must compete among themselves to stay alive. Competitions comes in various forms and on various issues. It can be a competition between cheaper public transport vs higher public worker salaries. It can be 3 corner fight between shareholders, management and employees on how best operate the business.
Furthermore capitalism also concerns the balance in risk (responsibility/liability) and reward(incentives). To keep things in order, management can choose to employs an ex-military or ex-police man to catch night shift technicians dozing off and shouting nasty words to keep them working their toes. Or would it be wiser to consider whether the technicians are fairly incentivised with respect to your expectations? Fairness or bureaucracy first?
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