【英语中国】中国巴士司机狮城抗争录（四）：政府反击

This is the fourth chapter in the story of a Chinese bus drivers' strike in Singapore, the biggest labor action in the rich Asian city-state in nearly three decades. The event challenged Singapore's carefully-crafted image as one of the world's most orderly and efficient places, and revealed rising tensions over migrant workers, who now are a growing presence across Asia. The strike also underscored the risks faced by Chinese laborers as they fan out across the world in search of jobs that locals won't fill.

Previously: After refusing to go to work, Chinese bus drivers at SMRT met with company officials, who said publicly but prematurely that a deal had been reached to end the dispute. [[insert links to previous stories]]

Today: The strike enters a second day, prompting tough action from Singapore authorities.

* * *

Wang Yong, a Chinese bus driver working for Singaporean transport operator SMRT Corp., said he faced a hostile reception when he returned to his dormitory on Monday evening, weary after a lengthy shift behind the wheel.

In an interview, the 40-year-old said he wondered: What have I done now?

For him and some other mainland Chinese SMRT drivers living at a dormitory in the Serangoon district of Singapore, a bus strike called by their colleagues living in a Woodlands-district workers' dormitory that day had seemed far removed.

News of the strike had reached Mr. Wang through Singaporean and Malaysian colleagues at work, he said, but he hadn't given it much thought.

'Those who went to work today aren't human! They aren't fit to be Chinese nationals,' one of his co-workers bellowed, Mr. Wang recalled later in an interview.

Less than six months into the job, Mr. Wang said he wasn't inclined to risk his livelihood by joining the action.

He said he arrived in June 2012 from Chengdu - capital of China's southwestern Sichuan province - lured by the prospect of earning more to help provide for his wife and 13-year-old son.

Mr. Wang, who also drove buses back home, said he was a long way from recouping the 26,300 yuan ((US$4,300) he said he had paid to recruitment agents.

'Unlike those who had worked in Singapore for years, I hadn't recovered my initial capital. I wasn't keen on making trouble,' he said.

His co-workers who had stayed away from work that day tried to persuade him to join the cause, which entailed applying for medical leave en masse to skip work. They reminded him about their grievances over accommodation and pay, he said.

It worked.

'In the end, we didn't think the consequences would be too severe,' Mr. Wang said. 'We felt, since so many people were in the protest together, the company would be forced to start serious dialogue with us.'

The next morning, he and four friends headed straight to a clinic, he said. Mr. Wang said he told the doctor he suffered from sore hips - a real issue but one that he said he had worked through in the past. The doctor prescribed some medication, and signed a chit for a day's rest, he said.

His supervisor didn't seem bothered when he called Mr. Wang, according to Mr. Wang. 'Sure thing, don't worry about it,' Mr. Wang recalled him saying. SMRT declined comment.

* * *

On Tuesday, Nov. 27, the morning that followed the first day of the strike, SMRT's shuttle buses left the Woodlands-district dormitory with just over a dozen drivers, down from the usual 70 or 80, according to He Jun Ling, a driver from China's Henan province who had encouraged drivers not to go to work.

Some 112 mainland Chinese drivers from across Singapore, assigned to morning and afternoon shifts, didn't show for work that day, according to statements later made by prosecutors. Some were holding out from Monday, but others, like Mr. Wang, were striking for the first time.

SMRT officials again scurried to the scene at the Woodlands dormitory, according to drivers and a Wall Street Journal reporter present at the scene.

This time, officials from the transport-workers' union and the Chinese embassy joined them, hoping to talk the drivers into ending their strike, according to a public statement issued by the embassy. A police posse kept watch outside, as did a gaggle of reporters.

Many of the drivers remained indoors to avoid the media scrum. But a handful emerged, stopping by the adjoining food center for meals.

'We're not asking to be treated in the same way as Singaporeans. We understand why the locals should be better-paid,' one of the drivers said to the dozen reporters who swarmed his table. 'We only want to be treated the same way as the Malaysian drivers are.'

Reporters asked the driver, a man in his thirties who said he had a wife and an 11-year-old son back home in Jiangsu province, if he feared arrest for not working.

'I didn't beat up or kill anyone. I didn't do anything illegal,' he replied. 'I'm merely exercising my right to rest.'

This time, however, SMRT didn't attempt to negotiate a settlement, according to Mr. He, the driver from Henan province who had penned an essay online encouraging the strike.

'They seemed to have made up their minds. They wanted us to be handled by the law,' he said.

SMRT declined to comment on whether its officials held any formal meeting with the drivers who missed work on Tuesday.

* * *

Surveys by local media found few commuters had actually been affected by the walkout. Officials later said SMRT maintained more than 90% of normal services during the strike.

But it split opinion among Singaporeans.

For some, it was an affront to the rule of law and public order so prized by Singaporean authorities. To others, it highlighted Singapore's over-reliance on foreign labor and served as a reminder of the public's lack of concern for migrant workers.

'The government should take these PRC [People's Republic of China nationals] to task for striking. They have no respect for the local law and think this is China,' a reader wrote in comments on the Straits Times newspaper's website. 'This kind of incident will happen again if no action is taken against them.'

In a poll conducted by government feedback website Reach, about 78% of 313 respondents said they agreed that any mainland Chinese driver found to have committed offences by going on strike 'should be punished to the full extent of the law.'

Others were more forgiving. Labor activists argued in media commentaries and online forums that SMRT and the government should shoulder some blame for allowing tensions to fester.

The strike raised questions on 'whether [the workers] have a proper channel to seek redress when they feel discriminated at the workplace,' an unemployment counselor wrote in a letter to the Straits Times.

About 90% of foreign workers in Singapore aren't union members. In recent years, some of them have resorted to protests against alleged exploitation by employers, including a sit-in by Bangladeshi construction workers in February 2012 over what they said were unpaid salaries.

Officials quickly intervened in many of these cases, including the February 2012 incident, and reprimanded employers found to have mistreated workers. But authorities downplayed these episodes as labor disputes, never describing them as strikes.

* * *

On Tuesday evening, Kang Huey Ling, then SMRT's vice president of bus operations, paid a visit to the Police Cantonment Complex, home to the Singapore police's Criminal Investigation Department, according to prosecutors' later statements.

At about 6:48 p.m., she was received by an officer and filed a complaint against the striking drivers, alleging their protest was illegal, prosecutors' statements said.

Later that evening, Singapore's Manpower and Transport ministries summoned local news media to a briefing.

'These workers have disrupted public transport services and Singapore's industrial harmony. The government views these disruptions very seriously,' Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin said at the briefing.

He added that the ministry 'understands the bus drivers' grievances.' Still, he said, 'There are right ways and wrong ways to handle these concerns.... This illegal strike is not acceptable and would be dealt with in accordance to the law.'

For the first time, Singaporean authorities had described the unfolding episode as a 'strike,' a label that SMRT and media had also avoided using until then. Using the term prepared the way for the government to enforce laws against work stoppages it deemed illegal.

* * *

Police moved in the next morning, hauling about 20 mainland Chinese drivers into the Police Cantonment Complex for questioning, according to drivers. Almost all other drivers returned to their jobs, save for six of them later deemed by SMRT to have had valid reasons for missing work.

Investigators quickly identified who they believed to be the leading figures behind the strike: He Jun Ling, the writer of an essay encouraging drivers to miss work; and Liu Xiang Ying, Gao Yue Qiang and Wang Xian Jie, the three men accused of helping to hatch the idea for the incident. They were arrested.

What happened next to Messrs. He and Liu remains contested.

According to the two men, police investigators punched them when they - in separate interrogations in different rooms - answered that they didn't know each other. The two drivers said they only became acquainted after their arrests.

Mr. He said that his interrogator punched him once in the stomach, while Mr. Liu accused an officer of hitting him a few times on the torso. According to Mr. Liu, his interrogator told him: 'Do you know I could dig a hole and have you buried in it, and no one would be able to find you?'

Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Manpower said in a joint April 20 statement that Messrs. He and Liu's statements were 'baseless.'

Internal police investigations into the claims didn't uncover any wrongdoing, according to the Home Affairs ministry.

'We take allegations of police abuse very seriously, especially when they are formally lodged, and investigate them thoroughly,' Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean said in the statement. In this case, 'the investigations have vindicated the officers in this case and protected their reputations.'

Messrs. He and Liu later declined to pursue the matter, a decision that Singapore authorities said meant the drivers were retracting their allegations.

The two men, in interviews with The Wall Street Journal, maintained their claims and said they had decided not to pursue the matter only because they didn't want to prolong their stay in Singapore to the detriment of their families, as both men were sole breadwinners.

Mr. He, in a separate statement he issued after returning to China, said he thought it would be difficult to pursue the matter, given the lack of witnesses and video recordings of the interrogation.

In an April 26 statement, the Home Affairs and Manpower Ministries said that Mr. He's statement was 'reckless' and 'unfounded.'

'Either he makes a police report and substantiates his allegation with evidence or the allegations must be regarded as unfounded and spurious,' the ministries said.

这是中国巴士司机新加坡罢工系列报道的第四章。这次罢工是将近30年以来发生在这个富裕亚洲城市国家的最大规模劳工行动，对新加坡精心打造的世界最有序、最高效地区之一的形象构成了挑战，并揭示出外来劳工问题引发的越来越大的矛盾。在亚洲各个国家，外来工的数量都在不断增加。这次罢工也凸显出中国劳工在世界各地寻找当地人不愿意做的工作时所面临的风险。

前章回顾：在拒绝上工之后，SMRT的中国籍巴士司机与公司管理人员碰面，后者发表公开声明，表示双方已经达成结束纠纷的协议，但话说得过早。

本章概要：罢工进入第二天，引起新加坡有关部门的强硬反应。

* * *

新加坡公交运营商SMRT企业(SMRT Corp.)的中国籍巴士司机王勇说，周一晚上，在上了一个长长的班之后疲惫地回到宿舍时，他遇到了其他司机满怀敌意的“欢迎”。

40岁的王勇在接受采访时说，当时他想：我做什么了？

在他和另外一些住在新加坡实笼岗(Serangoon)一处宿舍的中国籍SMRT司机看来，住在兀兰宿舍的同事在当天发起的罢工似乎是一件遥远的事情。

他说，之前罢工消息已经通过上班的新加坡、马来西亚籍同事传到他的耳朵里，但他没有想太多。

据王勇后来在接受采访时说，当时他的一位同事大声喊：“今天上班的人不是人！不是中国人！”

据王勇说，那时候他才上了六个月的班，不想因为参加罢工而影响自己的生活。

他说，他是在2012年6月份从四川省成都市来到新加坡的，吸引他的因素是在新加坡有希望为妻子和13岁的儿子赚更多的钱。

在老家也是开巴士的王勇说，他向招聘中介付了26,300元人民币，还差好大一截才能把这些钱赚回来。

他说：“我本钱都还没赚回来，不能和其他在这呆得久的人比。我是来工作赚钱的，不是来闹事的。”

当天没有去上工的同事想说服他加入罢工，具体办法就是集体请病假不上班。据他说，同事们让他想想他们对住宿条件和工资的抱怨。

王勇被说服了。

“大家最后没想到后果会有多么严重。”王勇说，“反正这个事情大家都在闹，我们觉得可能会有一个好的解决方案，公司会派人和大家进行沟通，进行交流。”

他说，第二天上午他和四个朋友直接去了一家诊所。王勇说，他跟医生说他屁股酸疼。他说这是真事，但当时已经没事了。他说，医生开了一些药，签了休息一天的请假条。

据王勇说，主管在给他打电话的时候似乎并不在意。据王勇回忆，主管当时说：“好好，行，知道了。”SMRT拒绝置评。

* * *

据鼓动司机不去上班的河南籍司机何军令说，11月27日（周二），在罢工第一天之后的凌晨，SMRT的班车离开兀兰宿舍时仅载有十几位司机，而平时都是七八十人左右。

后来检方发布的声明显示，当天整个新加坡大约有112名中国大陆籍司机在安排了上午班和下午班的情况下没有去上班。有些人是在继续周一的罢工，而王勇等其他人则是第一次罢工。

据司机和一名在场的《华尔街日报》记者说，SMRT管理人员再次匆匆赶到兀兰宿舍。

根据中国驻新加坡大使馆发布的公开声明，这次全国交通工友联合会和中国使馆的官员也赶到了现场，希望劝说司机停止罢工。一队警察和一大批记者在外守候。

为避开媒体，很多司机一直呆在屋里。但也有几个司机出来，到附近的餐饮中心吃饭。

“我们并不是要求跟新加坡人享有一样的待遇。我们了解本地人应该赚得多一点。”其中一名司机对簇拥在餐桌周围的十几名记者说。“我们只不过想要得到和马来西亚司机一样的待遇。”

这位三十几岁司机说，他在江苏老家有妻子和一个11岁的儿子。记者问他是否担心因为罢工而遭逮捕。

他回答说：“我又没打人或杀人。我没有犯什么法。我只不过是在行使我休息的权利罢了。”

但据曾经撰文鼓动罢工的河南司机何军令回忆，这一次SMRT不再寻求通过谈判达成和解。

他说：“他们好像是已经下定了决心，想把我们依法处置。”

SMRT拒绝透露其管理人员有没有跟周二没上班的司机举行正式会谈。

* * *

狮城巴士司机大罢工关键人物当地媒体调查发现，实际上很少有通勤者受到这次罢工的影响。新加坡官员后来说，罢工期间SMRT维持了90%以上的正常服务。

但罢工在新加坡人当中引发了截然对立的观点。

在有的新加坡人看来，它是对新加坡当局引以为豪的法治与公共秩序的挑 。在另一些人看来，它凸显出新加坡对外劳的过度依赖，并让人注意到公众对外来工缺乏关心。

一位读者在《海峡时报》(Straits Times)的网站留言说，政府应当斥责这些中国人的罢工行为，他们不尊重本地法律，以为这是中国。这位读者写道，如果不对他们采取措施，这种事情会再次发生。

政府民情联系组网站“Reach”网站开展了一次调查，313名受访者当中，约78%的人同意对任何因为举行罢工而犯法的中国大陆籍司机施以法律范围内最大程度的惩罚。

另一些人则更加宽容。劳工维权人士在媒体评论和网络论坛上表示，SMRT和政府应当承担矛盾恶化的部分责任。

一位专注失业事务的律师投书《海峡时报》说，这次罢工提出了这样一个问题：在感觉工作中受到歧视时，这些工人有没有合理的渠道寻求解决？

新加坡九成左右的外来工都不是工会会员。近些年来，部分外来工曾抗议过他们所指的雇主的盘剥行为，2012年2月孟加拉籍建筑工人因他们所说的欠薪问题而举行静坐，就是其中一例。

在这样的事件中，官员们通常都迅速出面，对那些被发现不公正对待工人的雇主加以训斥。2012年2月份的事件就是这样处理的。但有关部门将这些事件淡化为劳资纠纷，从不称之为罢工。

* * *

时间轴：新加坡史上历次劳工运动据检方后来的陈述，周二晚间，时任SMRT巴士副总裁的江慧玲(Kang Huey Ling)去了新加坡刑事侦查局(Criminal Investigation Department)所在的警察广东民大厦(Police Cantonment Complex)一趟。

检方说，晚上6点48分左右，她受到一名警察的接待，提交了一份针对罢工司机的申诉信，称抗议活动非法。

当天晚上晚些时候，新加坡人力部和交通部召集当地新闻媒体举行吹风会。

人力部代部长陈川仁(Tan Chuan-Jin)在吹风会上说，这些工人破坏了公共交通服务和新加坡的劳资和谐，政府非常严肃地看待这些破坏活动。

他还说，人力部理解巴士司机的怨言。但他说，处理这些问题有正确的方法，有错误的方法；这次非法罢工是不可接受的，将依法处理。

这是新加坡当局第一次把事件定性为“罢工”。在那之前，SMRT和媒体也一直避而不用这一提法。这个词语的使用为政府针对它视为非法的停工活动展开执法行动铺平了道路。

* * *

据司机们说，警方在第二天上午展开行动，把大约20名中国大陆司机带到警察广东民大厦问话。除了SMRT后来认为有正当误工理由的六人以外，其他司机差不多都回到了岗位上。

调查人员很快查出他们认为的罢工领导者：撰文鼓动司机不上班的何军令；被控帮助想出罢工方案的刘翔英、高悦强和王献杰。他们被逮捕了。

对何军令和刘献杰接下来遭遇的表述仍有分歧。

据这两人说，他们在不同的房间分别接受审讯，两个人都说不认识对方，之后警方调查人员用拳头打了他们。两位司机说，他们是被捕之后才认识的。

何军令说问他话的人打了他肚子一下，刘献杰说一名警察在他身上打了几次。据刘献杰说，审讯人员告诉他：“你知道吗？我可以挖个坑把你埋了。任何人都找不到你。”

新加坡内政部和人力部在今年4月20日发布的联合声明说，何军令和刘献杰的说法没有根据。

据内政部说，针对这些说法展开的内部调查没有发现任何不当行为。

副总理兼内政部长张志贤(Teo Chee Hean)在声明中说，我们非常认真地看待有关警察侵权行为的指控，特别是正式的指控，并且会展开彻底的调查。他说，在这件事情中，调查已经证明了警员的清白，保护了他们的名誉。

何军令和刘献杰后来拒绝追究此事。新加坡有关部门说，这一决定意味着司机们撤回了指控。

两人在接受《华尔街日报》采访时坚持他们的说法，表示之所以决定不再追究此事，原因仅仅是他们不想长时间在新加坡停留，以免害了家人，因为两人都是家里唯一的收入来源。

何军令在回到中国之后发布的另一则声明说，由于没有证人和审讯录像，他认为此事很难追究。

新加坡内政部和人力部在4月26日发表声明说，何军令的说法草率且没有根据。

两部门说，他要么报警，用证据支持他的说法，不然就必须将这些指控视为毫无根据的、不真实的。