Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

TL;DR – So sneaky.

An exposé is thrilling.

Imagine tailing someone like a private investigator, with a camera in hand, lots of waiting and watching.

Last month, I was given an opportunity to tail the union leaders from Aero Asia Security Systems and also a couple of Industrial Relation Officers (IROs) in the Union of Security Employees (USE).

And my task was to shadow them for an afternoon, to uncover things that they have been doing behind our backs, things that we didn’t know about.

I almost regretted saying “Yes” when the afternoon came. It was a sweltering hot afternoon as I began my stakeout from Star Vista.

I might have that special stalking knack because very easily, I identified my targets – union leaders Ng Tiong Hian and Sivasakthy as well as the IROs, Kubaren Algasamy and Edwin Yee.

I saw that the two union leaders Ng Tiong Hian and Sivasakthy were loading bento boxes into the trunk of a mini van.

I spied, with my little eye and I counted. There were about 80 Qiji bento boxes, and at least four cartons of Yeo’s Lychee Pu’er Tea. Wah! Got party issit? I thought.

The team of four soon began to embark on their journey to the west (literally!) To Tuas it was, the far westernly side of Singapore I had never ever been to before.

But… 80 (!) bento boxes? And to Tuas??

I cracked my head to put two and two together, but still couldn’t figure out what’s up their sleeves.

It was only when we arrived at the first location that I realized what they were up to.

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It turned out that the union leaders and IROs were going around Tuas to distribute food and drinks to the security officers from Aero Asia Security Systems.

Ah, so it was their way of showing appreciation to the security officers for their hard work.

And more importantly, they want to reach out to them and let them know that the union is there to look out for them, to care for them. By visiting the union members at their workplace, it’s also a very good opportunity for the union leaders and IROs to speak one-on-one with the security offers to better understand their working conditions and work concerns.

According to our (usually reliable, hurhur) sources, Aero Asia Security Systems is a unionised security company, and this branch of the union carries out distribution of food and drinks to their security officers quite regularly.

On the day that I was stalking them, the team of four visited a total of 10 sites and that was their third distribution for the month of May. They had already delivered bento boxes to other sites in the past two weeks before that super-hot afternoon that I was tailing them.

I mean, it’s always nice to know that someone’s got your back, right?

As you can see, this tailing assignment is a classic case of “expectation versus reality”.

It wasn’t as exciting nor glamorous as Hollywood movies make it out to be. I didn’t have to wear a wig, conceal my appearance and I didn’t have to use a fake name card.

But my heart is full – knowing that the security officers are being cared for, while they take care of the places they are posted to.

By Joey Wee

I am nice, most of the time!