A National Solidarity Party (NSP) supporter by the name of Geraldine Soh Shin Lin was sacked from her job at Jurong Town Council without any valid reasons given.I don't know any more details than what the Temasek Review has stated. And I do not know whether there might be any inaccuracies in their article.
According to Ms Soh’s boyfriend Joel Kong who alerted us to the case on our Facebook, Ms Soh has been working at Jurong Town Council for three years without any incidents or warnings to note.
On 1 May, she was spotted by a fellow collegue selling merchandise at a NSP rally. On 3rd May, she was suspended without any valid reason by her superior Ong Ah Hai for seven days.
After her suspension, the Town Council informed a RC member who told Ms Soh’s father that she was suspended because she had ‘passed confidential information to the Opposition’ which Mr Kong vehemently denied.
Ms Soh was dismissed today after arriving in office for ‘poor performance’, but the Human Resource did not compensate her for the termination in accordance to MOM guidelines except a vague promise that she will be contacted again.
Mr Kong remains perturbed at his girlfriend’s sudden dismissal without a proper explanation being given:
“Compare this to her other colleagues who were told to support the PAP during Nomination Day, and subsequently missing from office for the whole day, my girlfriend did not use working hours to support the Opposition, while those who did suppoting the PAP were not penalised. Is the residents’ money supposed to fund PAP’s electorial campaign? She is currently unemployed as a result of this morning’s happenings,” he wrote.
The person who suspended and sacked Ms Soh is Mr Ho Thian Poh. He can be contacted at 6561 2222.
NSP’s Goh Meng Seng was unavailable for comments at Press Time.
But I think that the public should take an interest in this matter, and that the public has a right to know. At the very least, Jurong Town Council should come forward to clarify the situation.
If there is wrongdoing here, don't let them get away with this. Call that telephone number, and ask Mr Ho Thian Poh for an explanation. Or email the town council with your questions, at this address - enquiry@jrtc.org.sg.
You can also send them a fax at this number - 6562 4997. Or ask Tharman Shanmugaratnam for a clarification (he's now leading the Jurong GRC team). Tharman is on Facebook.
40 comments:
Now, which is the real reason for her dismissal? Passing confidential information to the Opposition or poor performance?
I did not expect Opposition supporters to have to repent so soon.
Change is coming. But certainly not the kind of change that we have come to expect after every election.
Well to give them their due they did promise to change.
Wool pulled over everybody's eyes!
It also demonstrates this: "All are equal, but some are more equal than the rest."
So will LTK keep everyone at Aljunied Town Council? Or sack all and replace with WP sympathizers?
Well does that mean on my resume wheh I apply for a job as a toilet cleaner (after being replaced by some foreign talent) I should indicate that I AM NOT a supporter of the opposition or that I AM a supporter of the PAP?
Do I have to provide these details in addition to my NRIC number, birth certificate, National service records, details of social and other national duties?
Your advice would be much appreciated.
Shouldn't Town Council be an independent body? If not, that means job security of town council staff is only 5 years?
Why should anyone be surprised? Are Singaporeans that naive? Why do you think there are such huge crowds thanking Chiam when he lost and no such uproar in the incumbent's camp? Why do you think CST lost his job at NUS? Why do think that inspite of all the protests and complaints MBT and WKS still wins? So many voters knew it so they do not risk themselves by putting the cross in the right box. So we should know this all along and face the hard truths.
Hi Mr Wang
I think we should not just listen to one side of the story. If she felt that she has been wrongly dismissed, then she should contact MOM to seek redress. What's the point of getting people to call or email Jurong Town Council? Do you think they will entertain each and everyone? Frankly speaking, they are not obliged to do so and we are also in no position to demand to know why did they sack a particular staff.
Moreoover we do not know what has really happened. It's best to contact MOM for them to carry out their investigations first.
"I think we should not just listen to one side of the story."
Yes, quite right, Anon. That is why we should ask Jurong Town Council to tell their side of the story.
What is the point of asking MOM? How would they know JTC's side of the story?
The time for repentance has arrived.
Date of next appeal: GE 2016
MOM will still have to ask JTC to give their side of the story.
Now, whoever represents MOM in listening to stories must also watch his or her own rear. If he or she listens and interpret in favour of the wrong side, particularly in this sensitive and interesting case, that everyone in cyberspace is talking about, they may have to repent for life.
The moral of the story arising from this incident is what the Chinese used to say, killing the chicken to teach the monkey. It amounts to saying: watch your step, because we know what you did.
The internet is frightening isn't it? Such things (true or not) would have become urban legends and serve as fear mongering for the next 20 years before the internet.
Now, it gets aired and the MSM has to respond, Jurong TC most likely has started investigating and crafting their reply. And they better be intelligent enough not to try pull minor "forgot to keep paper clip" excuses. The internet is watching.
But to give credit where credit is due, Tharman will be very impartial if it arrives on his desk. He can win elections and respect with or without opposition supporters in his TC.
My take is that this incident serves a very interesting and useful objective for both the PAP and the Opposition. Whoever benefits more in the end is not certain.
For the PAP, the obvious objective is that this will serve to remind opposition supporting civil servants to watch their step, because this is what will happen to them if they are found out supporting the opposition.
For the opposition, this episode will put another needle into the side of the PAP, by further reinforcing the believe that they are openly indulging in using fear of job security to force civil servants to vote for them.
Whatever the facts may turn out, the story is already circulating wildly in cyberspace. Yes, the internet is indeed frightening.
Aiyah... just like NWC saying "our recommendation to increase wages has nothing to do with the elections; the timing was coincidental", super easy for a boss wanting to fire someone to come up with the necessary "reason" wat.
Another Papfia tactic? Of course need to verify but I hope it's not true. Then it would prove that nothing has changed.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/05/10/aljunied-residents-punished-as-promised-by-mm-lee/
I am not surprise at all ...
"The Infamous Replacement Exercise"
Replacing Native Born Singaporeans with : New Citizens .. PR's .. FTrash .. Foreign Workers.
They got their first victim .. after receiving the mandate in 2011 GE ... More victims are on the way .. We got ourselves to be blame. We gave them the Mandate ... Now we are a Dead man.
Come on you guys, maybe it's an honest mistake. They may still change their minds with the door and window open for her to be reinstated if they are wrong. Let's give them a chance to repent or change.
Boo Boo Hoo Hoo
Unca Mickey Mouse
Looks like we pay big peanuts and we got big monkeys.
Enjoy the monkeying for the next five years.
One posting says quite rightly that,
"...we should not just listen to one side of the story. "
Yes but Singapore is supposed to have First World (oops sorry, that phrase Worker's Party so PAP will have to come up with a new term like Without Equal) efficiency much praised and admired by many including our foreign talents.
So alamak. This kind of slip shod work should not have happened. Doesn't the Town Council know that they must give adequate reason for dismissing a person (or maybe there is no need. I don;t know only the Town Council knows). For companies there is always an exit interview. If we are aping companies and CEOS to lap at their pay structures then we should emulate their best practices too.
Or duh... have I miss something in all these?
"For companies there is always an exit interview. If we are aping companies and CEOS to lap at their pay structures then we should emulate their best practices too"
I honestly am not even sure if such a case of an exit interview was given to the girl in her case. There should have been clarification in any case about why she was ever terminated for her service, and whether it was even a valid reason at all.
@ Anonymous May 10, 2011 4:34 PM
Someone had said that his friend used to vote for the opposition when he lived in Hougang but when he moved to Aljunied GRC, he was concerned that the vote could be traced especially since he was a civil servant, and was scared that would affect his priority line-up for a HDB flat. A word of advice given to him for his friend was this, "Why don't you tell your friend to photocopy the voting ballot so that the HDB can see that you voted and crossed out the box for the PAP, so that you can then get a high priority for your HDB housing lineup?" ......lol, that was a good one.
Powerful inspirational jokes of wisdom :
"Why don't you tell your friend to photocopy the voting ballot so that the HDB can see that you voted and crossed out the box for the PAP, so that you can then get a high priority for your HDB housing lineup?"
-Author : Anonymous May 11, 2011 12:33 AM
==========
Wahaha ...LOL .... the best joke that makes my day ... Thank you :)
It will be good to know who this fellow colleague was. If she was really only selling merchandise, and got the sack because of this bootlicker, it's injustice!
Mr Wang,
Perhaps you can write a post on this, could the taxpayer end up paying George Yeo nearly $100 million in salaries and pension?
http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?92709-George-yeo-could-be-getting-2m-pension-a-year
I went to the Jurong TC website and it frightens me that I cannot tell where PAP ends and where the town council begins.
Is the TC a party apparatus? Or is it a municipal management that is independent of the party, like the civil service is?
What about the People's Association and the RC?
ST carried this story today (May 11), wherein JTC clarified that the dismissal was due to poor performance. if so you don't just dismiss anyone without a verbal & then a written warning. if there is such a record; well then fine, we'll believe JTC. if not their explanation does not hold water, and JTC should be taken to task for unfair work practise, not to mention victimization.
For those of you who seem surprise
by this, where have you been?
Look at all our past opposition
heroes who have been sued off their pants? A regime has predatory and cannibalistic tendencies to proliferate longevity. It just gets meaner as power becomes entrenched.
Any challenge or threat to its
existence will be annihilated.
The 60% are still scared shit.
End of story.
May be NSP should do something for her. E.g. help her to fight the case or find her a job where she would actually be appreciated for helping others during her free time. The more the PAP behave like a terrorist, the quicker their downfall would be. I wonder what they are thinking! Do they expect her to support PAP now because of this? PM Lee said in the post-election message that we should forget the differences and work together now. He ought to be informed of the case since these people at their town council is working against his big effort to reconnect. If PAP wants to increase their popularity they ought to get rid of such behaviors! Otherwise they might as well start killing all those people appeared at the oppositions rallies. If they subscribe to the idea that brutality can perpetuate their power, there is a lot they can learn from Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya!
Oh, how coincidental.
She is spotted selling NSP merchandise on 1st May.
She gets suspended on 3rd May.
She gets fired right after Polling Day.
And then we are told that she has been fired for poor performance over the past few months.
Only a fool would believe.
@ Anonymous May 11, 2011 10:49 AM
"If they subscribe to the idea that brutality can perpetuate their power, there is a lot they can learn from Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya!"
"Brutality" is probably too strong a word for use, but I would rather use a "lack of equity". Discriminatory hiring practices (this applies to termination of service notices as well) still exist here in Singapore unlike other First World countries where they would have to go through a lot of legal hurdles to try doing such a thing like what the town council did. For example, just because you voted for Obama to be US President, it does not mean that the police can terminate you from service although it is a civil body in effect. It probably has to do with the fact that the incumbent party has deeply entrenched itself in the daily workings of our society, even starting with grassroots.
The question now on everyone's mind is was her dismissal politically motivated and why single her out ?
LKY and his PM son, including George Yeo, Lim Hwee Hua and Cynthia Phua must be very happy to see that the Town Council Branch Manager has taken upon himself to take the necessary action appease their anger ?
FYI.
http://www.facebook.com/notes/joel-kong/letter-to-jurong-town-council-ho-thian-poh-with-regards-to-termination-of-staff-/10150251205660931
PAP membership of Jurong TC manager who sacked NSP supporter censored by state media
see this link
http://www.pap.org.sg/uploads/ap/3967/documents/oba_spba.pdf
Branch Branch Secretary
Bukit Batok East Ho Thian Poh
Mr Wang, the article is inaccurate.
(1) Soh is not an employee of the town council. She is an employee of a private contractor that provides services to the town council.
(2) Soh was told the reasons for her dismissal: poor performance.
(3) Soh herself has not alleged that she has been sacked because she supported an opposition party. It was her boyfriend who made the allegation.
I have given up reading Temasek Review, because of their irresponsible fabrication of stories. One cannot assume that something is true, just because it appears on TR.
TR counter balances the 154th scum media nicely. Don't like it? Go such! hahahaha
Anons @ May 11, 2011 5:39 PM
This should answer your doubt ?
Please do note that the GM Mr Ho is a PAP Branch Secretary of Bukit Batok East Ho Thian Poh.
Note this letter is written on behalf of Geraldine Soh
Quote :
Letter to Jurong Town Council / Ho Thian Poh with regards to Termination of Staff: Geraldine Soh
This is a reply to Mr Ho Thian Poh in relation to his comment on the termination of my girlfriend, Ms Geraldine Soh, from Jurong Town Council.We noted Mr Ho’s comments and would like to ask him a few questions that he would probably be in the best position to answer considering that he was the manager who terminated Geraldine:
(a) Mr Ho alleged that Geraldine had “…weaknesses in attending to calls from residents, and following up on calls”. Considering that she has been with the same Town Council for 3 years, did the Town Council only find out about her inability to perform only now? What was her performance like in the previous 2 years of service?
(b) Mr Ho had also further alleged that Geraldine “was counselled” and that ” counselling of the officer by her supervisors did not lead to improvement…”. We would like to clarify that there was no counselling done by any body in any capacity from ESMACO and/or Jurong Town Council on Geraldine. In fact, the management had occasionally asked staff to go to the manager’s room to inform them that there is a complaint on them. Thereafter, there wasn’t any pointers given to the staff on the ways to tackle the issue, and the staff would be asked to continue her work. This is a common process for her other colleague, namely Zainab and Josephine Goh. In addition, if there was so much of counselling session(s) done to her, please let us have details of the said, inclusive of name of supervisor that did the counselling.
(c) ESMACO had, through Ho Thian Poh, susepnded Geraldine on or around 9.30am on 3rd May 2011 from all duties and she was asked to report back to office on 9th May 2011. No reasons were given for the suspension and she was told that a reason would only be given to her when she return to office on 9th May 2011. Is this the correct procedure? We would also like to check on the number of staff suspended by Jurong Town Council without reasons since Mr Ho Thian Poh had taken over as General Manager. We would also like to further check on the number of staff suspended by Jurong Town Council without reason, and subsequently have their employment terminated by Town Council after returning from suspension.
(d) With reference to Point (c), Geraldine returned to office at 8.25am on 9th May 2011 and was refused access to her workdesk, instead she was asked to wait at the sofa in the Town Council. She was then seen by her managers Ho Thian Poh and Ong Ah Hai in the Conference Room, in which the former terminated her employment at that instance for the reason of ‘poor performance’.
(i) Geraldine was informed that she was suspended for ‘poor performance’. However, she was subsequently dismissed immediately at the end of her suspension for the same reason. Why was she given the suspension then, since an immediate termination on 3rd May 2011 would be more economical viable to the company?
(ii) Why was Geraldine not given any WRITTEN WARNING prior to her suspension that would eventually lead to her dismissal from the company? Geraldine was also not warned about her poor performance by the management.
Accordingly, she had obtained a “C” grade (which was the national average) for her Peformance Evaluation during the latest assessment and was only 1% away from getting a “B” grade which would come with a 1 month bonus as reward.
(iii) As such, with point d(ii) in hand, is it fair for ESMACO to terminate her for ‘poor performance’ given the circumstances?
(iv) We would also like to query why the termination was made exactly on the 1st working day after the General Elections. Had she not been unnecessarily suspended for a week, Geraldine would be dismissed before the General Elections.
Mr Wang,
Did you call the JTC yourself?
Actually I do pity this girl when I first read about this incident. But after some thoughts, there are some doubtful points too...
* having scored a grade C for her past appraisals seem to suggest that she is a borderline performer.
* they keep saying her sacking after being seen supporting NSP is too much of a coincidence. How about printing the confidential document mistakenly is also too much of a coincidence?
* can a confidential document be discarded so casually as throwing into the dustbin? I'm sure many corporations have the practice of shredding confidential document.
Her immediate boss, Mr Ho Thian Poh, has been established to be a PAP card carrying member.
Even if you weed out the usual suspects and pure coincidences, somehow this thing doesn't smell right.
And with the kind of labour law we have here,and unions being aligned to the Party, unlawful dismissal is going to hard to prove
Jurong Town Council in the spotlight
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/05/15/jurong-town-council-in-the-spotlight/
==================
Why is these things happening in Singapore Mr Wang ???
I was working in an idiotic company that has been awarded contract to maintain and rehabilitate the sewerage system in some parts of the island. I personally witnessed 95% of the employees are foreigners.
Listen to the best part of it : The garmen body who awarded the contract "PUB" . The Consultant RTO ( Resident Technical Officer ) from "PUB" ... 95% FTRASH from Philippine, India, Myanmar ... etc..
That idiotic company keep on importing FTrash from China. The last straw ... 50 of them ... all PRC .. doesn't even know how to say hello. Whatever you ask or say to them ... their infamous reply : SAMOH ... SAMOHSEH. ... You called that foreign talent ???
No wonder our Nation productivity level fall to the lowest .. even a third world country better then us.
Couldn't take the embarrassment, I left that idiotic company. After about 6 months, received a called from a friend of mine who's still working in that idiotic company begging me to rejoin. And also that idiotic company has been advertising aggressively in classified. Out of desperation finally my friend confessed to me.
Somehow rather MOM who has been a sleeping idiots all along, was awaken by someone who gave them a hard knock on the head. They started to investigate and discovered 95% of the 50 PRC'S, holding fake certificates. MOM Warned the idiotic company to export them back to China. I bet as per normal ... no summons issued.
Clearly it shows ... MOM IS INCOMPETENT ... HOPEFULLY ... THE OPPOSITION CAN HIGHLIGHT THIS MATTER AND MANY MORE ... ESPECIALLY ABOUT MOM AND ICA BECOMING A SANTA CLAUSE BY GIVING FREE CITIZENSHIP/PR/WORK PERMIT TO ANY TOM, DICK AND HARRY. PLEASE GET MOM DEMOTED AND PROMOTED DAD BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.
LKY AND GCT ... thanks for leaving ... you're not welcome anytime.
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