Maximum Working Hours
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extracted from ST forum.
Who keeps tabs on the number of hours cabbies work?
I refer to the Case File article, 'Staff overworked: Firm fined $24,000' (ST, Dec 2), which stated that it is an offence to deploy workers beyond 12 hours a day.
Yet in the article, 'Fewer taxis, holidays driving up cabbies' pay' (ST, Nov 26), it was reported that some cabbies work longer shifts - 16 to 18 hours - to earn more money.
I wonder if the Ministry of Manpower or the Land Transport Authority has jurisdiction over these cabbies. If it is illegal to work more than 12 hours in one shift, what are these taxi drivers doing? Who monitors the number of hours they put in at each shift?
As it is, cabbies here are notorious for their bad driving habits such as speeding and cutting across four lanes to pick up passengers. Compound this with fatigue and what would you get?
While I empathise with their having to earn a living, it should not be at the expense of the safety of other road users and their passengers. I am sure some readers have encountered taxi drivers nodding off while driving. Do we need to live in fear that we might one day meet such a driver on the road?
Geraldine Clarissa Lee Tzu Eng (Ms) -
extracted from ST forum.
Review doctors' working hours, for safety's sake
I refer to the article, 'Checks in place to manage stress, fatigue' (ST, Dec 2), which stated that pilots are not allowed to fly more than 100 hours in any 28 consecutive days. This is to ensure that they fly with full concentration and deliver passengers safely to their destinations.
I wish to relate this to the plight of doctors here. Not long ago, an article in Time magazine reported that in the United States, around 98,000 deaths each year are the result of medical errors. Could some of these errors be due to fatigue or poor concentration?
I have friends who are junior doctors. They tell me their workday typically starts at around 7am, when they prepare to do ward rounds, after which the rest of the day is spent mostly in the wards carrying out instructions given by senior doctors. Their day theoretically ends at 5pm, but they do not usually leave before 6pm.
And when they have night duty, they work continuously from 5pm till the next morning. Thereafter, they continue the morning's duties like in any other day. They are allowed to leave only when they have completed the tasks for that morning. Many a time, it can be as late as mid-afternoon. That means they would have worked non-stop for close to 24 hours. And these night duties can occur up to six times a month.
These junior doctors are always stationed in the hospital wards and if their concentration and competence are affected by fatigue, are we not placing patients at risk?
Are we so short of doctors? Or are the hospitals swamped with too many patients? As with passenger safety, when there are patients' lives at stake, it makes sense for doctors' working hours to be reviewed.
Chris Tan -
I quit my last job because need to work 15 hours
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the one that your friend introduced?Originally posted by maggot:I quit my last job because need to work 15 hours -
Ya...Originally posted by dragg:the one that your friend introduced? -
my friend, 38, got a job through his friend.
1600 per month with no cpf.
employers take advantage and exploit whenever possible. there is nothing that we can do.