CLERKS EMPLOYMENT BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Labour and Welfare (Mr Lim Yew Hock): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, I have His Excellency the Governor's consent to proceed with the Bill.

Hon. Members will remember that during the last Session, the Member for Serangoon (Mr Lim Choon Mong) introduced a Shop and Office Employees Bill. At the Second Reading of this Bill, the previous Government introduced Sessional Paper No. Cmd. 11 which laid down the labour policy of the previous Government and included as an annexure a Bill to regulate the conditions of employment of clerks and shop assistants. In committing the Bill of the Member for Serangoon to Select Committee, this Assembly ordered that it be an instruction to that Select Committee that regard be had to the terms of the draft Bill annexed to the Government White Paper. The Select Committee, Sir, did not have time to conclude its investigations before the end of the last Session and the Bill therefore lapsed.

A considerable amount of further study has been done on the Bill attached as an annexure to Sessional Paper No. Cmd. 11. Due regard has been given to the representations made before the Select Committee by employers and trade unions in addition to the advice of the Labour Advisory Board to which the Bill was referred for comment.

The greatest change that has been made, Sir, is the splitting of the Bill into two: one relating to clerks and the other to shop assistants. Despite the fact that both Bills are similar in the protection and benefits they give to these two types of employees, it is considered that separate Bills are desirable. Clerks and shop assistants are after all two distinct types of employees and it may well be that the experience gained in administering this Bill over a number of years will show that the type of amendment and addition which is necessary to one Bill is unnecessary to the other.

Sir, apart from the drafting of two separate Bills, the main difference from the provisions of the previous Government's Bill is the inclusion of a new designation of "industrial clerks" in the Bill which is the subject of my motion. This has been done to meet objections that many clerks, for example, tally clerks, storekeepers, etc., must have the conditions of employment with regard to hours of work and holidays as the workmen with whom they work.

As the matter of legislation for clerks has already been debated at considerable length during the previous Session of this Assembly, Sir, I do not propose to cover the ground again. The need for legislation to protect clerks is too obvious to require a lengthy oration.

I intend therefore, Sir, merely to summarise the main features of the Bill, a Bill which I am quite sure will go a long way to give fair conditions of employment to a hitherto neglected section of the community

Briefly, Sir, this Bill regulates contracts of service, lays down conditions for the payment of salaries and limits the type of deductions which may be made from salaries. It provides for, in the case of clerks, 16 days paid public holidays, 14 days paid annual leave. It limits their hours of work to 39 a week and provides for overtime at time and a half for hours worked in excess of this limit. In the case of industrial clerks whose conditions of service must be similar to those of workmen for the reasons I have already given, it provides for 11 days paid public holidays, 7 days paid annual leave. It limits the hours of work to 44 per week and also provides for overtime at time and a half. Paid sick leave up to a limit of 28 days is provided for both clerks and industrial clerks.

Another important feature of the Bill, Sir, is that it permits clerks to lay their complaints in the Labour Court thus saving them the formality and expense of proceedings in the Civil District Court. It provides for adequate powers of inspection and suitable penalties for infringement of its provisions to ensure that it is successfully enforced.

Sir, it is Government's intention to refer this Bill to a Select Committee which will, no doubt, take into consideration any views which hon. Members may express on the Second Reading.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr John Ede: Mr Speaker, Sir, as a Member of the Select Committee which sat last Session to consider two Clerks and Shop Assistants Bills, one drafted by the Liberal-Socialist Party and the other by the Government, I think it had become clear that we had been setting ourselves problems of legislation which it would not be at all easy to surmount. I am glad therefore that the Government has taken the course of drafting two Bills to meet two rather different sets of problems.

In the Clerks Employment Bill before us, the further conundrum with which the old Select Committee was faced has been met by defining two categories of clerks: industrial and otherwise. Whether this is going to be a satisfactory solution or whether it would result in invidious distinctions and further complications is a matter on which I have an open mind, but to which a Select Committee of this House should call for evidence.

It has been suggested, Sir, that a 39-hour week will be extremely hard on the numerous small businesses in Singapore. If this is so, I hope that the Government will call for evidence and, at the same time, make their own investigations, because a Bill of this kind while giving much needed protection to the clerks should not impose undue hardship on the small employer on whom so much of the ordinary trade of the country depends.

Further, it has been stated that a 39-hour week is not at present being worked in Government and City Council offices. This rather surprises me and I should like to know from the Minister whether this is a fact and, if so, what will be the extra bill which the ratepayer will have to meet, bearing in mind that the Government's and City Council's, wage bills already swallow up too high a proportion of the country's revenues.

There is one other specific point to which I wish to refer, namely, in clauses 44 to 46. It seems to me that they give inspecting officers very wide powers indeed. An Inspector may enter premises under clause 44 without previous notice at any hour of the day or night and under clause 46 (a) , he may put questions concerning the employees to their employer or to the employees themselves or to any other person whom he may consider desirable to question. There seems no obvious justification for these wide powers. Surely, it is sufficient that an Inspector makes his enquiries during hours when the premises are opened for business, and that there also should be the proviso to be found in section 9 (2) of the present Weekly Holidays Ordinance now to be repealed, namely:

"...no person shall be compellable to answer any question if the answer may tend directly or indirectly to incriminate himself."

I may add, Sir, that similar clauses which seem to me objectionable are to be found in the Shop Assistants Employment Bill, clauses 48 to 50. Unless, Sir, there are good and convincing reasons for their retention, I think that the Minister should consider modifying them.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: Mr Speaker, Sir, the definition of "clerk" in this Bill is contained in clause 2 which reads:

"'clerk' means any person employed in or about the business of an office whose salary is not more than five hundred dollars per mensem or such other sum as may from time to time be fixed by the Minister by notification in the Gazette and, subject to such salary limits, includes such classes of person employed by the Government or by Her Britannic Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom functioning in the Colony as the Governor may from time to time declare to be clerks for the purposes of this Ordinance...".

Now, it is true that we must have an arbitrary figure but I would like to know why the figure 500 was chosen. With the tendency of wages to get more and more inflated because the money becomes less and less valuable, it seems quite obvious that there will be many clerks who will not be in supervisory or special categories drawing more than $500 a month. It is not an altogether satisfactory method of dealing with the definition of "clerk" to allow the Minister to vary the definition by gazetting the salary limit by which a person is deemed to be a clerk or not a clerk. However, that is a matter which could be more usefully dealt with in Select Committee.

Since the Member for Tanglin (Mr Ede) has stated that he has an open mind on the subject, I see no merit in dividing clerks into two categories: Industrial clerks and ordinary clerks. One would have thought that a Socialist Government's policy would, as a matter of principle, have been directed towards some more or less classless society. This process of not only creating more classes but sub-divisions of classes is one which must be a Socialist heresy. A tally clerk will have to work 44 hours a week instead of 39 hours a week. He will be entitled to 11 public holidays instead of 13. He will be entitled to 7 days annual leave instead of 14, and so on. I think this question of principle should be resolved at once. The Government would be well advised to define its attitude to legislation of this nature: whether its intention is to stratify classes into sub-divisions of classes or whether its intention is to bring about a more egalitarian and less stratified society.

Mr Lim Yew Hock rose -

Mr Speaker: In reply?

Mr Lim Yew Hock: In reply, Sir. As I said earlier, this Bill will be committed to a Select Committee and the various points raised by the two speakers, the Member for Tanglin (Mr Ede) and the Member for Tanjong Pagar (Mr Lee Kuan Yew) will receive due consideration in Select Committee.

The Member for Tanglin has criticised that the number of hours of work per week of 39 is, in his view, not satisfactory in so far as small employers are concerned. I said, Sir, earlier that this Bill was considered by the Labour Advisory Board on which employers and employees are equally represented. He asked for information as to the working hours of Government clerks. I am sure that he must be aware that the working hours are from 9 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. with an hour break for lunch on Monday to Friday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. This works out to less than 39 hours a week.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar has said that in the definition of "clerk" the figure of $500 is an arbitrary figure. I agree that it is an arbitrary figure but the hon. Member will also remember that in the previous Bill, the figure was put in at $400 and there was no protest whatsoever and because I have felt that it should be increased by another $100 in order to cover more clerks who by the very nature of their employment should be protected by legislative measure, he has now seen fit to say that $500 is not enough whereas $400 at that time was quite adequate.

The Member for Tanjong Pagar too, Sir, if I remember rightly, was a Member of the Select Committee during the last Session.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew: No, I was not.

Mr Lim Yew Hock: I am sorry about that. I thought he was. During the deliberations of that Select Committee, Sir, employers did explain to the Select Committee the difficulties of their having industrial clerks working for less hours than their ordinary workmen - labourers - especially as these workmen have to work together with the clerical supervisors.

Of course, all the points that have been raised will be given due consideration by the Select Committee and I therefore need hardly say anything more at this juncture.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.