The Setup of Labour Task Force

After our initial effort in exposing the discriminatory hiring practice of Certis Cisco in its recruitment effort of Taiwanese to become Auxiliary Police officers in Singapore, Certis Cisco has tried to clarify that it is "paying the same" or "even more" to local Singaporeans.


We are dissatisfied with Certis Cisco's statement because apparently, it did not put up the full picture of its hiring policy in its public statement and it did not include the Free Lodging which it is providing to the Taiwanese employees. In addition, what Certis Cisco had said, contradicted the hiring advertisement and reports posted in Taiwanese media. According to the recruitment advertisement, it has specifically said that the BASIC salary is NT60,000 which amounts to SGD$2,700 instead of the SGD$2,575 which Certis Cisco has claimed. The recruitment advertisement has also said that there will be additional Over Time pay for the Taiwanese Auxiliary Police Officers.

However, we have cross-checked with various sources. For local Singapore Auxiliary Police Officers, they are receiving extremely low "BASIC PAY" while the $2575 as stated by Certis Cisco is actually salary ALREADY included Over Time pay and "Allowances". We were also told that no CPF was paid for these "allowances". These allowances are also subjected to stringent conditions that the Auxiliary Police should not take any Medical Leave during the month else the bonus will not be given to them.

From our various sources, we did not get any information of the "$10,000 bonus" given upon at the end of the contract. We would like to urge current Auxiliary Police Officers to come forward and verify on whether they have received this $10,000 bonus before or is it subjected to some ridiculously stringent terms and conditions.

On top of that, there are more complains of the couple of companies which employ Auxiliary Police Officers by former as well as current employees of their Human Resource policies which we think may possibly contravene our Singapore Labour Law.

PPP is extremely concerned about all these labour issues arising in the hiring and Human Resource management practices. In view of the seriousness of the various issues raised by the public over these companies' hiring practices, PPP has decided to set up a small Labour Task Force to investigate and look into the various labour issues arising from the hiring of Auxiliary Police Officers.

The Task Force will be led by our Organizing Secretary Mr Augustine Lee Zixu. This Task Force will investigate thoroughly the truth of the matters with regards to the hiring practices of these few big security companies which manage and supply Auxiliary Police Officers. It will embark on a fact finding mission and would make formal complains if there is any lapse or breach of the Labour Law by these big security firms.
We hope that former and current Auxiliary Police Officers who have suffered any unfair treatment by their employers would contact us through Private Message, to provide or furnish us with details of their employment terms and conditions as well as their working conditions. We will seek professional Human Resource advice to evaluate and make assessment on the situation. All identities of informers will be kept private and confidential unless they are ready to lodge formal complains.

These leaders of the security industry should lead by example as a role model to implement good HR management system for all other smaller security firms to look up to.

We empathize with the plight of the employees in the security industry and we just want to make sure that none would be exploited in any way by their employers.

Goh Meng Seng
Secretary General
People's Power Party