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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://therealsingapore.com/content/...against-ns-men


Chan Chun Sing, the second minister for Defence, said that there is no single policy which will solve the problem of firms discriminating against NS men.

He was speaking at a discussion session attended by about 30 employers who were brainstorming ideas on how companies and NS men can be better supported.

Chan Chun Sing acknowledged that some companies struggle when their staff are forced to take leave to do their reservist but also said that simple solutions such as tax breaks or cash incentives for firms are difficult to implement due to the problem of how to draw the line.

“Incentives and rewards almost always have a monetary perspective to it. So how do we find that balance between not monetizing National Service, and yet at the same time recognizing it?" he said.

While it is good that Chan Chun Sing is acknowledging the problem, it appears that he is more worried about the message that solutions will send than actually addressing the problem.

Companies are required to grant leave to NS men who are called to duty and it is a fact that this disrupts the normal flow of work within the company.

Due to the inconvenience caused by these constant disruptions, it is obvious that companies would want to hire employees who do not suffer from such disruptions such as females or foreigners.

Although they would not openly declare that this is their reason to discriminate against Singaporean men, it is obvious that any profit-seeking company would be likely to think this way.

For many of these companies, they are concerned about their profits and the productivity of workers so it makes sense to use monetary incentives to reduce the discrimination against servicemen.

However, it seems that instead of doing his job and coming up with good solutions, Chan Chun Sing is crowd-sourcing and getting others to do the job he is paid millions to do. On top of this, he even shoots down some of the good suggestions saying that they won’t work.

Perhaps if he spent less time telling others what won’t work and more time thinking of what could work, there could be a solution to this problem already.

Some of the other solutions that the employers at the discussion suggested included improving the administration process of reservist.

Some suggested that there needs to be an online portal with information such as when employees are likely to be called up for reservist so that firms can plan their business better around those dates instead of only receiving very short notice on reservist dates.

It was also suggested that NS men should be allowed to take their work to camp by brining laptops and computers to be able to “keep in touch” with work matters.


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