在新加坡，外卖骑手的安全谁来守护？

So, given that this job is public-facing and contains a service element, in relations to our platform workers' duties, while I understand from the Senior Minister of State that there are other laws out there, for example, in terms of POHA, that can protect them, but can we also look into whether enhancing this protection for them, such as expanding the coverage of protections under the Protection from Harassment (Public Service Worker) Order 2014, to include them as well, or to expand in other ways. For example, even if they were to pursue this route through the POHA, they may not have the financial means and time to do so.

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, I thank the Member for her clarification. I am glad to see that she and her fellow Member of Parliament has visited this resident. I hope he has not sustained severe injuries and that he is recovering well. But this case is still before the Courts and still under investigation, so, I shall not comment further.

Suffice to say that under the existing law, POHA and the Penal Code, investigations will be carried out and if there is an establishment of an act of violence against another person, then the process of the law would take its course and the culprit will be taken to task.

Under the current law, POHA, there are already criminal sanctions against such offenders and there are quite stiff penalties as well, including, for example, if there are offenders who intentionally cause harassment, alarm or distress, they may be fined up to $5,000 or imprisonment, or up to six months or both. And if there are more serious cases, where the victim is led to believe that unlawful violence will be used, and in this case, violence has been used against him, then the offender could be liable for a fine of up to $5,000 or imprisonment, or up to 12 months or both. So, under our existing laws, there are punishments.

But the issue of a platform worker facing violence or harassment at work is not something that the law itself can 100% deter, because it deals with human-to-human interaction. This can happen to any person dealing with another person. It could happen to, say, nurses, it could happen to a bus driver, it could happen to just a sale staff, facing another person who decides to be violent against a person providing any form of service. Expanding the law itself may not prevent such things from happening, but what we can do is to make sure that if the person is working in a particular workplace where employers have control of the site, they can then deny or deter such people from entering the premises. The challenge, of course, with platform workers is that they move around. There is no fixed locality and they do encounter different people.

So, the law provides some of these protection. Perhaps, what the employers or the companies can do is to help educate or share some information with these workers to be able to spot trouble and develop some situational awareness so that they themselves are able to take appropriate measures to extricate themselves from a situation or an altercation, and prevent the situation from escalating and subjecting themselves to physical harm. I think these things can happen, which is why the law is there to protect them from some of these harassments.

未完待续,请点击[下一页]继续阅读