Singapore's
Foreign workers
They cost the same to a boss as a local worker on real costs, reports US Barbara Garson. zmag.org.
Jun 17, 2006

"There are no Americans willing to do those jobs," says the man who needs his crops picked or his tables bussed." I've recently visited two countries where that's actually true.

Singapore and Switzerland don't have enough citizens to fill all the jobs. So these two wealthy nations bring in vast numbers of guest workers from surrounding poor regions.

Neither the Swiss nor the Singaporeans are particularly foreigner-friendly, yet the migrants cause very little tension internally and neither country requires militarised borders to keep hordes of poor people out.

Singapore and Switzerland treat their "guests" very differently. But they both employ strategies to keep foreign workers from undermining local wages.

This is the common policy that keeps their borders secure and it's one we could emulate. But first let me describe the differences Singapore's guest workers are rigidly segregated.

Construction workers often live right on the construction site, sleeping in longhouses or metal containers. The one place I could hope to meet one was at a run-down Mall where crowds of migrants gather on their day off.

One man I approached led me into the alley and spread newspaper on the pavement so we could sit down to talk.

"There are benches across the way," I suggested, pointing to a green space. "Singaporeans don't like to see us on the street," he answered.

That's absolutely true. Singapore employers put down a S$5,000 bond for each worker they bring into the country. They're required to house, feed, and over see the departure of each individual or they don't get their $5,000 back.

There's no way that Singapore's migrants can blend into the community, even though many belong to the same ethnic groups as native Singaporeans.
In Switzerland migrants live more like normal people. I visited an Alpine resort town where most of the hotel workers were Portuguese.

A local Swiss ski instructor complained that he could no longer afford to live in his hometown with so many Chalets bought up by British tourists.

So I asked one of the Portuguese hotel workers if the management provided dormitories. She looked confused. "Well how do you live in such an expensive place?"

"I have a job," she answered. "I rent an apartment." Though she will never become a Swiss citizen, she was a bit insulted by the suggestion that she was different from other workers.

Migrants in Singapore are not only more isolated than in Switzerland, they're also paid less. The Portuguese worker in Switzerland gets the going wage.

The Filipino in Singapore takes home about a third of what a native would get.

But - and here's that important similarity-in both countries: A FOREIGN WORKER COSTS HIS EMPLOYER THE SAME AS A LOCAL.

A few decades ago Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew realised that Singapore could never win the worldwide competition to offer cheap labour.

He decided instead, that this one equatorial Island among hundreds, was to become a high value-added producer.

To Lee that meant wages had to be high enough to encourage Singapore's businessmen to invest in labor saving technology. To raise Singapore salaries he had to make sure that local wages wouldn't be under-cut by migrants.

So Lee set a high levy on each migrant's salary. Yes, you could pay an unskilled Bangladeshi S$400 dollars a month. But in that case you had to pay the state another S$400 a month.

Coming from the US I simply couldn't believe that a government, however indifferent to the welfare of foreigners, was honestly trying to keep its own people's wages up.

But I interviewed a labour contractor who brought Indians, Filipinos and some of the first Mainland Chinese migrants into Singapore. He told me that he would have to pay a Singaporean welder $2,500 a month. "And the foreigners?" I asked.

He took out a pencil to calculate his cost.

"Salary $900, levy $200 [it was lower on skilled workers], meal allowance $250, accommodation…insurance…interest on the bond…" His final figure was "The same! $2,500 a month."

Singapore's employers will tolerate this kind of micro-regulation. The Swiss rely more on faux laisez-faire. For example, during the international recession of 1973,

Switzerland didn't extend unemployment insurance to guest workers. With no way to support themselves in that expensive country, most went home.

As a result, the Swiss unemployment rate remained low while it soared in the rest of Europe and in the US

In similar circumstance Singapore would simply lower the quota of foreign workers that each industry is allowed to employ. But the underlying principle is the same.

Foreign workers must not be pitted against citizens.

US policy is exactly the opposite. Recently we've been offered competing suggestions about how harsh or lenient to be toward Mexicans who sneak across our borders. The most pernicious plan comes, as usual, from our president.

His national-guard proposal heightens our fear of Mexican hordes while his guest worker plan increases the real reasons we have to worry. We are right to fear foreigners brought into the country to work at wages we can't live on.

The US already permits 800,000 legal "guests" each year. That's more than the highest estimate of illegals. By greatly expanding that number the presidents bill guarantees the creation of even more jobs "Americans don't want."

Unfortunately all the contending proposals included some provision for lower paid guests in ways designed to undermine American wages. Making us poorer is a bi-partisan policy.

[I ran into the Swiss ski instructor again right before I left his country. He was still railing against the British week-enders who drive up prices. But I couldn't lure him into bad mouthing the Portuguese. After all, they were only there because there really weren't enough Swiss to serve all the tourists.]

Singapore and Switzerland need foreign workers.

Maybe the US does too. How to find out? Offer the jobs at good US wages. If there really are no Americans to pick crops or buss tables, by all means invite people from over the border at the same good pay.

But to implement this policy with the requisite flexibility, you have to have a government that's on your side. Barbara Garson is the Author of "MacBird" and the new comedy "Security"

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