Under Singapore law, workers in essential services such as transport and public utilities must give their employer at least 14 days' advance notice of their intention to have a strike. The notice has to be signed by at least seven fellow workers involved in the strike or by at least seven union representatives of the workers. The notice then needs to be acknowledged and signed by the employer, after which, that notice needs to be put up in at least three conspicuous places where the workers are employed.
The case also led many to question the way SMRT handled the grievances of the workers and the dispute. The company has been asked to improve the way it manages labor relations.
In a separate incident, two Chinese workers climbed to the top of two 10-storey cranes to express their complaint at a construction site in the industrial district of Jurong on Thursday. They were escorted down by the police later in the afternoon.
'Devil' foreign instructors at Chinese bodyguard training camp