Singapour: grève sauvage des travailleurs chinois: signe précurseur des limites de l'exclusion sociale?

[Provided by author] The management and regulation of Singapore's labour market has been central to the island state's workforce development strategy and a key to the international competitiveness of its economy, and continues to be so. In order to maintain its world competitiveness ranking ‒ second after Switzerland in 2012 ‒ the Singapore government has embarked on a project to transition Singapore from a highly regulated and competently managed labour market supplying reliable and flexible workers to multi-national investors and government linked companies into a talent capital and training hub for the Asia-Pacific region. To this end a network of institutions, that include the peak trade union and employer federations, professional associations, universities, polytechnics, the national workforce development agency, and national and approved employer technical training centres, are coordinated by and follow a master plan that aims to substantially enhance the skills profile of Singaporean workers by 2020. In the interim, and possibly for the long haul, more than one third of Singapore's workforce comprises foreigners, most unskilled and semi-skilled with little or no prospect of a future in Singapore. In late 2012 a group of these workers, employed as bus drivers, organised and conducted an illegal strike, something unknown in Singapore since 1977. Their action fuelled growing criticism by Singaporeans of their government's reliance on foreign workers, including on professional and entrepreneurial employees, some of whom could be invited to take up permanent residency. With an emphasis on unskilled and semi-skilled foreign workers, this article analyses Singapore's politically and socially constructed labour market, the return of overt industrial conflict, and assesses their significance for the future of employment relations in Singapore