200 SMRT bus drivers refuse to go to work over pay issue
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WeiHan:
That is why there is a one man one vote. This system allows to 95% sheep to hold the 5% lions responsible.People may be missing the point whether they argue for or against higher pay for workers.
The point is that common workers never have the advantage that elites that make the rules have. The workers salary may increase after they exert political pressure, protest, make it to the street etc...but remember..that is only after a lag time-in the meantime while they are fighting for pay rise, inflation has already gone much higher. In other words, pay rise for common workers is always behind the inflation curve.
In this world, only smart people win the game. -
matrix0405:
But these 95% bark up the wrong trees sometimes....then sometimes they were made used...in the end, they are still in the losing end.
That is why there is a one man one vote. This system allows to 95% sheep to hold the 5% lions responsible.WeiHan:
People may be missing the point whether they argue for or against higher pay for workers.
The point is that common workers never have the advantage that elites that make the rules have. The workers salary may increase after they exert political pressure, protest, make it to the street etc...but remember..that is only after a lag time-in the meantime while they are fighting for pay rise, inflation has already gone much higher. In other words, pay rise for common workers is always behind the inflation curve.
In this world, only smart people win the game. -
Dora1:
Just wondering how Taipei or Hong Kong maintain low fares and high efficiency in their transport system without needing an influx of foreign workers? They get cheap labour from the countryside? Or huge funds from the government? :?Twinkies, have u been to HK and Taipei? Both mrt are a lot more efficient than SG. HK is abt the same price as SG iirc. Taipei is definitely cheaper, and free for kids below 7. Their mrt is not perfect, but a lot better than the current SG. Actually they remind me of the mrt that SG had maybe 10 years ago? Reliable, predictable efficient and cheap.
Which other country in the world has car prices that are remotely near to SG's car price? In other countries, people decide to take public transport because its relatively convenient and cheaper instead of private cars because of parking charges, congestion, cannot find parking lot etc. so if the public transport is not well run or not value for money, ppl will simply turn to driving, and endure the high parking charges and congestion. This is the competition that I'm talking abt. some cities like Perth offer totally free buses for some routes to encourage ppl to use public transport.
The SGP model is totally diff. Most people in SG have been priced out of the car market, so taking public transport is not only an option, it is a necessity. Whether the public transport is reliable, value for money etc, they still have to take it. So if you are the transport operator, why would u want to put money to improve the services huh? What's the incentive for doing that? -
3Boys:
Is 10% of household income used for transport expenses insignificant, or is it something we could work towards reducing? Is it really ONLY a small percentage of people where their transport expenses constitute 10% or more of household income?ChiefKiasu:
The real question is whether the government should implement even more creative ways of using taxpayer's money to keep public transport prices affordable even to the poorest segment of our citizenry.
Chief, in another thread, we had already discussed affordability. It is affordable for the big majority of commuters. Our fares are not that high compared regionally and internationally.
For the small percentage for which transportation make up a bigger proportion of costs of living (10% of households perhaps, depending how you cut off), my belief is that direct subsidies and grants to these families are far more effective than tweaking our entire transportation model to cater cost-wise to them.
Let’s use some real figures here. My family of 4 does not own a car so we depend solely on public transport to get around. Monthly household expenditure for transport EXCLUDING occasional taxi ride would come out to about $320. This is already an under-estimate as compared to some other families as due to the nature of my work, I do not need to commute everyday and my DD2 walks to school.
Families with both parents taking bus/mrt everyday and with more than one school-going children who relies on public transport to commute to and from school, or with retired parents staying together, would probably chalk up more in transport expenditure, perhaps up to $400 or more monthly.
Let’s calculate using my lower figure of $320 monthly for transport, which will increase once my DD2 goes to secondary school and takes public transport to school. If that constitutes 10% of a household income, the family would have to take home pay of $3200, ie. gross monthly household income (before 20% CPF cut) got to be $4000. If spend $400 monthly on transport, then the gross household income would be $5000 if based on the 10% assumption.
I would like to ask how many of those using public transport have a gross monthly household income of at least $4000? Remember, I’m already using a lower transport expenditure to calculate. In reality, I should ask how many people using public transport have a gross monthly household income of at least $5000 as I think most household would spend much more than $320 monthly on bus/mrt. Actually, many in this group belong to the sandwich population and most of them are not eligible to any form of subsidy in this income bracket.
How do we then define affordability of our transport fares IF majority of people using public transport have gross household income much less than $5000 and transport expenditure constitute 10% or more of it?
We argue that our fares are one of the lowest as compared to other countries. Perhaps we should compare transport fares in relation to the mean income of the commuters (who do not have the means of other transport alternatives) instead of comparing in absolutes? That is, what’s the ratio of transport fares to the mean income of the commuters (commoners) as compared to other countries? Will that provide a better gauge than to say we pay $1.10 while others pay $2.50. There are also other cities who provide free bus service as long as you travel within the city zone. So how do we accurately compare and justify our fare rates? -
Just wondering out loud, the possible revenue and expenditure of our public transport companies.
Revenue
IncomeTax
GST
Bus/MRT Fares
ERP
COE
Road Tax
Sale of mrt cards
Advertisements that are everywhere in the mrt stations, seen plastered all over the floor/walls/poster stands and every inch of space that can be utilized.
Advertisements on the exterior AND inside buses and trains.
Rental of so many shops inside and within the premises of mrt stations. (I think rental rates should be quite high given the high traffic at the stations).
Investment, perhaps from parent company (not finance person so not sure whether can be done).
Expenditure
Salary, from top management to drivers and maintenance workers and cleaners (I think cleaners are outsourced).
Share holders
Fuel
Service, maintenance and repair of bus/trains/tracks/stations, including purchasing equipment and replacement parts.
Upgrading/getting new buses/trains.
Building more stations and railway lines.
Please add if I’ve missed out anything. Just wondering how do they allocate the revenue for each category of the expenditure. Is raising fares the ONLY way? I wouldn’t agree to raising income tax or GST for this purpose as I would rather it be channeled to other ministries such as education or healthcare etc which are not privatised and which depend largely on the government to provide the funds.
I would think providing public transport is a BASIC and ESSENTIAL need by the government. It should not function EXACTLY like other private entities where revenue come SOLEY from getting customers to buy their services or products. In the case of private enterprise, people have a choice to CHOOSE whether to spend money on the services/products provided, a case of want, not need.
If one has the means, one can choose whether to take bus/mrt or go get a car. For someone without the means, he/she would have no choice but to take the bus/mrt. If not, either the person get around by foot or sacrifice living expenses in other areas in order to use the public transport. Remember, many people taking bus/mrt cannot even choose to pay for a “cheaper” bus/mrt fare to save some money on living expenses simply because there is no choice!
Before we shout “Increase the fares to pay the drivers!”, have we thought of the wages of other groups of people (many may also be earning as much as the drivers) who have to fork out money for the wages for this group of people to increase? If raise fares so as to raise drivers’ salary, then the commoners’ salary should also be raised accordingly, and this may create a never ending viscous cycle affecting other industrial sectors as well. Are bosses in other groups willing to increase wages? How is this going to affect the bottom line of many other industries? Are we even willing to accept minimum wages?
Perhaps there should be more of thinking out of the box to keep fares low but raising drivers’ salary? Remember one minister said “better, cheaper, faster”? Hee, think they should apply this principle to themselves first and see how and whether this works before advising other enterprise to do so.
Ministers like to talk about productivity, so they should increase productivity and reduce/save cost by streamlining processes or think of innovative ways to cut cost on the non-essentials without compromising on safety and efficiency, thus passing savings to the pay of drivers. We could also relook the % allocation or think of other ways to utilize and increase those income generating revenue already stated at the start of the post. If there’s a will, there’s a way, instead of going the straight forward, short cut method textbook answer of getting money directly from consumers, many of those do not even have a choice of not using the service. -
I can attest to the cheap, reliable and comfortable MRT system in Taipei. The fare is quite similar to Singapore’s MRT price. However, it is less crowded. The MRT move faster and there are less hiccups like ours. It is very clean also. It is punctual.
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SMRT Net income (S$m)
FY2011 = 161.1
FY2012 = 119.9
SMRT Operating cash flow (S$m)
FY2011 = 283.3
FY2012 = 282.1
If you look at the operating cash flow (which is not affected by non-cash depreciation & amortization figure), FY2012 = $282.1m!
Imagine if we nationalize SMRT and use this $282.1m earned every year to improve the service and still can reduce the fare price by a lot! :imcool:sunflower:
Just wondering out loud, the possible revenue and expenditure of our public transport companies.
Revenue
IncomeTax
GST
Bus/MRT Fares
ERP
COE
Road Tax
Sale of mrt cards
Advertisements that are everywhere in the mrt stations, seen plastered all over the floor/walls/poster stands and every inch of space that can be utilized.
Advertisements on the exterior AND inside buses and trains.
Rental of so many shops inside and within the premises of mrt stations. (I think rental rates should be quite high given the high traffic at the stations).
Investment, perhaps from parent company (not finance person so not sure whether can be done).
Expenditure
Salary, from top management to drivers and maintenance workers and cleaners (I think cleaners are outsourced).
Share holders
Fuel
Service, maintenance and repair of bus/trains/tracks/stations, including purchasing equipment and replacement parts.
Upgrading/getting new buses/trains.
Building more stations and railway lines.
Please add if I’ve missed out anything. Just wondering how do they allocate the revenue for each category of the expenditure. Is raising fares the ONLY way? I wouldn’t agree to raising income tax or GST for this purpose as I would rather it be channeled to other ministries such as education or healthcare etc which are not privatised and which depend largely on the government to provide the funds.
I would think providing public transport is a BASIC and ESSENTIAL need by the government. It should not function EXACTLY like other private entities where revenue come SOLEY from getting customers to buy their services or products. In the case of private enterprise, people have a choice to CHOOSE whether to spend money on the services/products provided, a case of want, not need.
If one has the means, one can choose whether to take bus/mrt or go get a car. For someone without the means, he/she would have no choice but to take the bus/mrt. If not, either the person get around by foot or sacrifice living expenses in other areas in order to use the public transport. Remember, many people taking bus/mrt cannot even choose to pay for a “cheaper” bus/mrt fare to save some money on living expenses simply because there is no choice!
Before we shout “Increase the fares to pay the drivers!”, have we thought of the wages of other groups of people (many may also be earning as much as the drivers) who have to fork out money for the wages for this group of people to increase? If raise fares so as to raise drivers’ salary, then the commoners’ salary should also be raised accordingly, and this may create a never ending viscous cycle affecting other industrial sectors as well. Are bosses in other groups willing to increase wages? How is this going to affect the bottom line of many other industries? Are we even willing to accept minimum wages?
Perhaps there should be more of thinking out of the box to keep fares low but raising drivers’ salary? Remember one minister said “better, cheaper, faster”? Hee, think they should apply this principle to themselves first and see how and whether this works before advising other enterprise to do so.
Ministers like to talk about productivity, so they should increase productivity and reduce/save cost by streamlining processes or think of innovative ways to cut cost on the non-essentials without compromising on safety and efficiency, thus passing savings to the pay of drivers. We could also relook the % allocation or think of other ways to utilize and increase those income generating revenue already stated at the start of the post. If there’s a will, there’s a way, instead of going the straight forward, short cut method textbook answer of getting money directly from consumers, many of those do not even have a choice of not using the service. -
interesting read from another website
[quote]At last, the government recognizes that the bus drivers need to be paid more. Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew said:
“Any fare adjustment will allow the two operators to have more resources, in time to come, to make further salary adjustments to their drivers. We recognize that the drivers need to be paid more. (The) question is, where is that money coming from?”
I wholeheartedly agree that the drivers need to be paid more. Let me attempt the question “Where is that money coming from?”
I note that cross-subsidy as a concept is not anathema to the bus companies and the government. In fact, cross-subsidies are already in operation:
• Revenue collected from more profitable routes is applied to offset the loss-making routes. This has been a deliberate policy for all time in governing route planning.
• Profits from non-transport related operations (advertisements, rentals and other investments) have been useful to help the companies maintain a good and decent level of profitability overall and the directors and shareholders can still be well paid (via directors’ fees, bonus declarations…) even if part of the profits go towards cross-subsidizing the essential loss sectors. Shareholders can urge the directors to work very hard (as they should) to explore more efforts towards maintaining profitability at a level without greed so that they (the shareholders) and the companies can gain higher respect for their corporate conscience not to overburden ordinary Singaporeans who are already getting breathless with the high costs of living.
• The government is already using public funds to pay for the operators’ new buses. Such public funds, as the name tells obviously, come from the public, including the public bus commuters. It is a form of cross-subsidy from the public pocket for the bus operators’ assets. Can COE collections, road taxes, ERP revenue, petrol tax, traffic fines, etc. be applied to cross-subsidize such a basic and essential service as a reliable bus service that the economy can depend on?
• The bus companies are already operating many value-added services (e.g. premium bus service). There is cross-subsidy at work to ensure profitability.
• The bus and train operations should be seen as a valuable partnership in consideration of the transportation service as a single seamless public good. Where one operation is in better profitability, it can cross-subsidise the other to account for overall profitability of the companies to the shareholders.
Presently, the ezlink hybrid bus/train season pass for the public is priced at $170/$190 per month. This price is exorbitant and attracts only a niche demand. If the pricing can be reduced to $90/$100 (say) to cater to mass market, it may become a common pre-pay fare preference by the public to enable full freedom of travel transfers to complete a journey from point A to point B with the assurance of cost control. This will naturally and evenly spread out the commuting crowd between the high-load services and the low-demand ones, resulting in better commuter satisfaction (with lesser squeeze) and efficiency of service provision by the transport operators as there is full usage across services without the attendant resource wastage for otherwise low-demand services concomitant with the insatiable pumping of more resources to beef up the high-demand services.
Service planning to manage a more uniform supply and demand across services will also be much facilitated, and costs for the operator will be reduced not just by this fact but also by a form of cross-subsidy at work just like pre-paid smartphone data services where there is cross-subsidy between high data users and low data users but all customers are happy for the conveniences to their mobility. What the transport operators need to do is to set the season-pass price at the right level not to be loss-making while at the same time it is not seen as overpriced for covetous profit.
I urge the shareholders to be mindful as Singapore citizens to be conscientious and socially conscious to care for their fellow Singaporeans who are not so fortunate to be able to become shareholders to earn bonuses. An increase in fare of x cents is always AFFORDABLE, when seen in isolation from the small unannounced AFFORDABLE increases creeping into medical consultation fees, unannounced AFFORDABLE increases of profits that the drug dispensers seek, the AFFORDABLE increases in motor insurance premiums resulting in the inflation of school transport fees, the AFFORDABLE increases in rentals resulting in increases in hawker food, etc.
INCREASES, INCREASES, INCREASES … ad infinitum – each is always AFFORDABLE and there are always two categories of takers of the increase: firstly, those who are forced to take the increase and tighten their belts ever more; secondly, those who gleefully take the increases to expand the rich-poor divide as the rich get richer with indifference to the domestic inflation they cause (because they always find everything VERY AFFORDABLE for their spending) at the expense of the multitudes at the wrong end of the divide who suffer a relentless squeeze on their disposable income and rainy-day savings. The poor get poorer by the day with every increase in price, exacerbating the rich-poor gap (HOPEFULLY NOT WITH THE ENDORSEMENT OF A GOVERNMENT WHICH IS INATTENTIVE TO THE ALIENATION OF THE MASSES).
I know that increasing tax collections by way of raising the tax rate for the high-income brackets and introducing capital tax to deal with the problem of the runaway wealth gap of citizens are heavy subjects to contemplate. The ideas in this article may be superficial, but perhaps they can kick off a concerted deliberation by our transportation professionals and talented civil servants to come out with sustainable out-of-the-box solutions instead of always going for AFFORDABLE INCREASE NO. 1, AFFORDABLE INCREASE NO. 2, AFFORDABLE INCREASE NO. 3 … just like FINE INCREASE NO. 1, FINE INCREASE NO. 2 … as if raising stress for ordinary wage earners is always THE BEST SOLUTION. Very soon, the word “AFFORDABLE” becomes totally meaningless to the hearers.
I don’t wish to see habitual and inequitable fiscal measures being bandied about at will, reaching the proverbial last-straw breaking point for the economy when a big crash ensues.[/quote] -
Raysusan,
Interesting article, can share the URL? One thing I don’t understand is why would lower pre-pay cards help spread the crowd?
But I like the argument that things are always affordable when seen in isolation. -
Dora1:
Dora, before we proceed, do you actually know how much of the cost for a single station MTR ride in HK? And, the fare for 5 stations MTR ride? And 8 stations journey ride on HK MTR?Twinkies, have u been to HK and Taipei? Both mrt are a lot more efficient than SG. HK is abt the same price as SG iirc. Taipei is definitely cheaper, and free for kids below 7. Their mrt is not perfect, but a lot better than the current SG. Actually they remind me of the mrt that SG had maybe 10 years ago? Reliable, predictable efficient and cheap.
Which other country in the world has car prices that are remotely near to SG's car price? In other countries, people decide to take public transport because its relatively convenient and cheaper instead of private cars because of parking charges, congestion, cannot find parking lot etc. so if the public transport is not well run or not value for money, ppl will simply turn to driving, and endure the high parking charges and congestion. This is the competition that I'm talking abt. some cities like Perth offer totally free buses for some routes to encourage ppl to use public transport.
The SGP model is totally diff. Most people in SG have been priced out of the car market, so taking public transport is not only an option, it is a necessity. Whether the public transport is reliable, value for money etc, they still have to take it. So if you are the transport operator, why would u want to put money to improve the services huh? What's the incentive for doing that?
Maybe, you have got yourself confused about the HK MTR with the HK 九铁 (九铁, the train... the one that HK people ride to 罗湖 in 深圳 China... it's not the MTR or MRT in SG term, it's a train, not MRT/MTR.., I hope you get what I mean.)
-HK MTR is better than SG's MRT??????
HK MTR trains are old and dimly lit; their MTR stations are quite run down, poor ventilation, the platforms are way too narrow for today's world standard, the breadth is about a full arm length (2.5x of an adult male's shoulder to shoulder length), and most of the stations are without glass pane door; the commuters often have to resort to climbing up the stairs due to the overly crowded and congested escalators; often the MTR staffs have to halt the over congested escalator to prevent accident.
SG's MRT ride and it's stations are heavenly compare to HK... I am sure many KS parents here have been to HK and have taken their MTR to validate my statement.
HK MTR's rating is inferior comparing to SG MRT!!! (Who else is in doubt?)
And, their MTR train services broke down ever so often... it's on the average of twice monthly. Yap! 24x or more average, yearly..
Side track a bit:- When SG's MRT service disruption last Nov generated such a big hoo-haa, HK people were so amused at how pampered the SG commuters!! A single one train service disruption in 20 plus years is almost unheard of, for us Hongkongers!!! It's to us the HIGHEST kind of standard one could ever had, and the BEST quality train service in the world standard, (Of course that's according to the World Standard; but SG people has always set their standard and their expectation of their service providers way above the world!!)
Many people around the world could only dreamt to have your kind of public transport services... our HK 地铁 train breakdown so often that by now there aren't even news worthy anymore; (that's why you SG people are not reading about it anymore on your papers!!)
The SG commuters made such a big fuss when the first ever train service disruption in 20+years... So much so that the highest management personnel had to resign... tsk tsk tsk... the world according to the Singaporeans, NO DISRUPTION IS EVER EVER ALLOWED!!! OR SOMEONE'S HEAD IS ON THE CHOPPING BOARD!!
PS:- Is the HK MTR's fare really lower than the SG MRT? I am sure member Dora1 could share her finding with all of us...
(It's easy peasie, google for it and you shall get it!!)
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