Unsafety and Unions in Singapore’s state-led industrialization, 1965–1994

ABSTRACT

Industrial hazards are a neglected part of the history of Singapore’s successful industrialization since independence in 1965. Our paper investigates risk in the competitive shipbuilding and repair industry across three decades and four serious accidents in the industry. The risk was determined by a group of factors: the political economy of the state-led industrialization program, the nature of work within the industry, the degree of supervision by safety officers and subcontractors; and the characteristics of the workforce, including the foreign workers. However, the key element was the Singapore state, which took a leading role in both the tripartite system of industrial relations and the industrial safety regime. The state and management shared the view that industrial development was crucial to Singapore’s survival. With the emphasis on productivity and the framing of industrial failure as a national calamity, unions and workers had little say in objecting to perilous work or proposing suitable remedies. While the government instituted numerous efforts to address occupational hazards, many failed to translate to the vessel and the factory floor.

KEYWORDS:

• Unions
• industrial safety
• Singapore
• shipbuilding and repair
• productivity
• migrant workers

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Reportable accidents involved employee/s being off work for more than 3 days or hospitalised for more than 24 hours.

2. These were incidents which resulted in more than one death, such as in 1985 when 61 fatal accidents resulted in 65 deaths.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Dobbs

Stephen Dobbs is a teaching and research academic at The University of Western Australia with a long standing interest in social and labour history particularly in relation to Singapore. He authored The Singapore River a Social History 1819 – 2002 (2003).

Kah Seng Loh

Kah Seng Loh is a historian of Singapore and author of Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore (2013). He works on histories of housing, health and labor, oral history, and heritage.