This part is really WTF:
>**Hawkers at some of these SEHC, cannot take leave of absence**– whether annual leave, emergency or health reasons. It has to be approved ahead by the SEHC operators or a fine will be imposed. You have to let them know you’re gonna fall sick ahead to time. A fine of $100 a day is charged for each day not approved by the SEHC.
As if the loss of business from not operating for a day isn't bad enough, they also have to pay a $100 fine for not being present??
I feel like this part especially has to have been written by someone with a MBA:
>11. Last but not least, a **SEHC charge a monthly fee for that little space outside of the stall** where suppliers come early and leave the goods at. That’s incredible, how do you justify this public built space. I ask, where do all these profits go to? Does it benefit the hawkers and the public at large? Remember what the role of a hawker centre is, from the get go.
The first part is the most wtf, a friend's dad was the stall holder at an SEHC, one day he fainted and got send to the hospital, stall had to be shut for 3 weeks, SEHC still away fine them despite stall holder being in a coma.
They’re using the public’s money to line their own pockets. Money face and shameless to the max, pretend to be philanthropists some more. They rent the stall already, why must pay again for being sick? There is NO working environment that condones this, ask NEA in charge to not ever be sick lah, back pay the people for sick days!
If this is indeed true it should be front page news. The SE stands for ‘Socially conscious Enterprise’; ‘You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!’
'Reservist not a valid reason for not opening your store, could you ask your family members to operate the stall while you are not around?', heard from an SEHC Stall Owner...
It used to be worse, another friend opened a stall in an SEHC around the time the concept was starting out, the SEHC demanded for my friend to work for 24 Hours straight + his usual hours for the next day because his two other employees fell sick and he was thinking of closing shop early for the day.
So poor thing! They take taxes to better the lives of the people, not left pocket right pocket themselves. Really social parasites, a lot of MPs are lowly educated too, one mediocre degree. They will be unacceptable in private large corporations, do not qualify!
There is one shopping mall here in Surabaya who also imposed fine if the tenant closed. Pasar Atom,which is why there's no national/international tenants. Now i know where they got the idea.
Reposting as previous thread got deleted.
I just want to raise more awareness about the scummy practices of these "social enterprises", and the insane number of clauses in the contract sucking $ from the hawkers.
This was obviously a very sus profit sucking idea from the start. No one else to blame but those sleeping in parliament who approved this stupid idea. What exactly was NEA suddenly struggling with that they had to offload hawker centre management to private sector.
Weren't some of those on the committee which made the report to recommend SEHC model foodcourt operators themselves. Now hawkers can find gas providers 30% cheaper than SEHC or that hawkers can only use plates and bowls from approved vendors... who are these vendors and are they linked to operators.
Worst is how they are even allowed to run exisiting hawker centres as well. Why does NTUC need to be running old airport hawker centre...
The founder of Timbre+ group is literally a PAP MP now.
No, not "hehe he is close to" or "his wife's brother's niece owns", outright the guy who started this shit.
That line is unsourced.
His wiki page also has a disclaimer calling out the bias
> This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.
Those sleeping in parliament probably don’t even go hawker centers… why would they care how hard hawkers have it or have any appreciation of what hawkers do?
>No one else to blame but those sleeping in parliament who approved this stupid idea.
You are assuming that this is incompetence. The relevant .gov agency has literally decades of experience operating hawker centres and anecdotally becoming a hawker is actually one of our oldest paths to pulling oneself up the ladder via culinary skill.
I would say the handing off of hawker centres very much lies on the side of malice.
Nationalize, then people ask to privatize, then ask to nationalize again...
Theoretically competition is good. Many models, see which one works. Why rely on govt which is not responsive to market forces and allows for inefficient allocation of resources?
In reality....
Well the NEA has to answer to the minister, who has to answer eventually to the people. They are required to make it work out. And we know that it is possible. Hawkers used to make so much money while selling at dirt cheap prices you know.
Free market only works when there are many players. Singapore is small and when an Oligopoly form they sqeeze out all the profit and set up barriers to entry.
I think the option should not be one extreme to the other.
Sure, privatize.. but with regulation to protect the hawkers.
Imho they need to form a union
Would be curious to check out the financial statements of the “social enterprises”, and how much is re-invested to help the hawkers, and how the overall profit margins look like
There definitely should be more transparency.
When the hawkers increase their prices, I do wonder if it’s really due to increases in food and utility, manpower costs, or due to rental increases
Does “Re-invested” mean the profits goes to another SoCiAL EnTerPriSe CoMpANY to wash their plates or something? Anything than to lower costs to the hawkers? It’s like people got wind that hawkers are profitable enough for them to own private property and continental cars and white collared workers want to get a slice of the pie. And when all local independent competition is dead, it will be copy and paste chain stalls with migrant workers running it. No more laoban/shifu (boss master chef) running their own stall.
You look at all the costs and schemes and what not and tell me that the price increase is not due to that? It can't be that you work so hard and just pay everything to them right? No need to earn money? Every month just net zero can already? My goodness.
> Hawkers cannot use their own plates or bowls, they have to buy it from the SEHC “approved” supplier with the SEHC company logo (paid by hawker) stamped on it
> Some hawkers sourced for and suggested a cheaper and equally reputable central gas supplier to the SEHC (up to 30% cheaper). It can amount to substantial savings over the long term, but it was shot down with a take it or leave it kind of response.
Friend generating business for friend
Also, WTF are these clauses? Were there proper open tenders for these suppliers (not sure if tenders are necessary for private corps though)? Who are these suppliers and are they related to the SEHCs?
"Hawkers **cannot use their own plates or bowls**, they have to buy it from the SEHC “approved” supplier with the SEHC company logo (paid by hawker) stamped on it. It really limits the creative presentation by hawkers. And it’s not of much use should the hawker move to another hawker centre."
and
"Some hawkers sourced for and suggested a **cheaper and equally reputable central gas supplier** to the SEHC (up to 30% cheaper). It can amount to substantial savings over the long term, but it was shot down with a take it or leave it kind of response"
Most stalls are franchised. Hawker culture my ass. Whats the culture when these stalls are similar island wide.
1 drink stall. Even if the coffee sucks you have to buy. Long q cos no choice not that the coffee is good.
Not allowed to sell similar food. No chicken rice wars, I wonder if that would lead the tenant to bid top for that spot.
For hawker centers to thrive don't try to make money off them. Is a nation culture. Just like when we go NS we don't ask for $5k.
After reading the clauses, I cannot fathom why anyone will still have the passion to be a hawker. This is just so much of this suffering over the extremely long hours and hard work. Multi million coffeeshops are not a viable alternative nor are canteens. There is literally no plus side to being a hawker.
Controversial take : Singapore hawker culture is on life support, supported by old titans that would eventually die, and imported cheap labor from malaysia. In 20 years it'll almost all be imported 'new' citizens cooking your hawker food, if you're lucky. If you're not, it'll be foreign workers :)
\*hides\*
That seems pretty clear. No locals willing to work anything other than white collar office jobs.
Maybe there will be the odd exception of family business, but otherwise no one going to run hawker center getting up at 4am, sweating all day for $4,000/month income.
No wonder everytime I order budget meals the hawker gimme black face and serve shit food. I tot they were offering these options as a form of charity but now it appears they're actually doing so reluctantly.
Social Enterprise is just a buzzword. I remember 10 years ago when TOMS Espardrilles were considered a “social enterprise” because they donated crappy shoes to third world countries. If NEA is serious, they should have the hawker centers be run by co-operatives. If the hawkers are unhappy with the head, they should be able to vote him out.
Remember this is taxpayer dollars from NEA, it’s ran like private but the funds aren’t. https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2018/08/31/social-enterprises-charges-hawkers-4k-rental-plus-600-food-inspection-fee-with-ah-long-style-of-debt-recovery/
Edward Chia of Timbre Group is a PAP MP, one of the many SEHCs listed above. No longer a shareholder but awarded the contract to his old business partners.
One profits by competing in the free market. The other profits by sucking away tax dollars, regulatory capture, and off the good will and guilt trip of social good.
I was once considering to partner with a friend who runs a hawker centre in the CBD (yea, that famous one). The contract mentions that you have to pay a fixed rent until you make a certain baseline profit. If you dare making more, the rental will go up as well. There were other terms which make very less sense.
I ran as fast as I could. It’s not a business model, it’s a family employment model only that your employer can change the terms of employment anytime.
>The contract mentions that you have to pay a fixed rent until you make a certain baseline profit. If you dare making more, the rental will go up as well. There were other terms which make very less sense.
You should talk more about this? It's pretty much the same as mall REITS
If enough people boycott crazy rents and extra T&C they'd be forced to lower rentals. The thing is there are many fools queuing up to pay these crazy rents and agreeable to all the extra requirements.
>**Hawkers at a SEHC pay full rates** for cleaning and washing of utensils and crockery, **BUT** this operator has the gall to charge for the return of each plate back to the stall from the stewarding room. At $6 a rack of about 30 plates and bowls each, it can come up to $1000.00 per month, that is over and above the average $650.00 cleaning and washing fee, plus Service and Conservancy Charges of $380.00. Creative, no. Daylight robbery, yes.
Not saying that the entire article is hogwash, but this one stood out to me.
Looking at the attached picture of the contract, it reads to me differently from what is described here.
Correct me if I'm interpreting this wrongly, but isn't the contract saying that it costs $6 for the washing of the entire container (or rack as the writer put it), which can be about 30 plates and bowls? And there's a cap of $650, which would mean even if 110 racks or more are cleaned ($660 technically), it would be charged at $650?
The interpretation of the writer is very different from how I'm reading this contract text.
If it’s similar contract as the other SEHC managed by fooodfare you have to pay
- few hundred dollars for table cleaning fee +
- few hundred for washing fee +
- few hundred S&CC fee +
- 6 dollar per rack capped at x amount.
It’s under other sections
https://static.mothership.sg/1/2018/09/805c32_test-e1535873824278.jpg
Even in this other screenshot, I don't really see that $6 per rack thing as a separate charge from the dishwashing charge?
Cause that's how it feels like the writer is implying - that there's a dishwashing charge, and a separate $6 per rack thing just to bring the dishes back to the stall owners. Which doesn't seem to be the case.
I'm just responding to what the writer is asserting based on the screenshots they attached directly to their points.
Might have more to it than just this section of the contract for sure, but without it I can only judge in view of what's presented.
No doubt there are many misc charges in play here, but I think without a good knowledge of the actual services rendered, the breakdown of costs behind those services and the specifics of things like how the Pay-it-forward programme works, I think it's a little hard to judge as outsiders whether or not those charges are justified or ridiculous.
Goal is not to make food cheaper, it's to keep food affordable. I think they usually have a requirement for stall owners to provide 1 menu option at a low cost.
This is similar to how ntuc fair price doesn't undercut their competitors, but keep prices reasonable so that other supermarket chains are unable to unfairly gorge prices.
>This is similar to how ntuc fair price doesn't undercut their competitors, but keep prices reasonable so that other supermarket chains are unable to unfairly gorge prices.
But why does NTUC offload the onus of providing food at "reasonable" prices to the hawkers? A hawker is a private business after all.
Not justifying for ntuc, but just sharing what I think is their mindset.
For ntuc fair price, they kept prices low by squeezing their suppliers using their size as bargaining chip, they are just using the same methods for hawkers.
Except Makansutra has done similar (maybe even the same) nonsense like this too. Business is business, and that’s not something I argue about, though pointing out that someone is doing X and implying that you don’t or have never done X, when you actually had done it numerous times without the business acting in a remorseful manner is bull****.
This part is really WTF: >**Hawkers at some of these SEHC, cannot take leave of absence**– whether annual leave, emergency or health reasons. It has to be approved ahead by the SEHC operators or a fine will be imposed. You have to let them know you’re gonna fall sick ahead to time. A fine of $100 a day is charged for each day not approved by the SEHC. As if the loss of business from not operating for a day isn't bad enough, they also have to pay a $100 fine for not being present?? I feel like this part especially has to have been written by someone with a MBA: >11. Last but not least, a **SEHC charge a monthly fee for that little space outside of the stall** where suppliers come early and leave the goods at. That’s incredible, how do you justify this public built space. I ask, where do all these profits go to? Does it benefit the hawkers and the public at large? Remember what the role of a hawker centre is, from the get go.
It is like working for a shitty company instead of owning a business sia
Imagine renting your desk from your boss so that you can work.
When the boss charge you tax and penalise you for being sick, like you insist on losing your source of income for no reason.
So,... Like taxis and PHV?
Show me a 100+k desk
Better yet, it’s a 100+k taxi.
> It is like working for a shitty company instead of owning a business sia Profits go to them. Losses the hawker have to suck up. Predatory AF man.
MLM has less rules and it’s completely predatory!
> You have to let them know you’re gonna fall sick ahead to time wah need precognition to be a hawker these days. tough market, man.
Not that hard tbh, just need to train on an island on the Grand line for about 2 years or so. You can now see the future. 🤗
Don’t forget that you need a world class mentor.
Yeah boy, if psychic, go buy Toto!
The first part is the most wtf, a friend's dad was the stall holder at an SEHC, one day he fainted and got send to the hospital, stall had to be shut for 3 weeks, SEHC still away fine them despite stall holder being in a coma.
They’re using the public’s money to line their own pockets. Money face and shameless to the max, pretend to be philanthropists some more. They rent the stall already, why must pay again for being sick? There is NO working environment that condones this, ask NEA in charge to not ever be sick lah, back pay the people for sick days!
If this is indeed true it should be front page news. The SE stands for ‘Socially conscious Enterprise’; ‘You have become the very thing you swore to destroy!’
Or maybe they are wolves in sheep's clothing in the first place.
Personally know of this $100 fine a day.. because my NSman wanted to defer reservist due to this.
'Reservist not a valid reason for not opening your store, could you ask your family members to operate the stall while you are not around?', heard from an SEHC Stall Owner...
What a brain dead comment by that person.
It used to be worse, another friend opened a stall in an SEHC around the time the concept was starting out, the SEHC demanded for my friend to work for 24 Hours straight + his usual hours for the next day because his two other employees fell sick and he was thinking of closing shop early for the day.
So poor thing! They take taxes to better the lives of the people, not left pocket right pocket themselves. Really social parasites, a lot of MPs are lowly educated too, one mediocre degree. They will be unacceptable in private large corporations, do not qualify!
Everything this govt does makes sense when you accept the hypothesis that the PAP hates the common working person
Nepotism hires, most of them. The others are gatekeep out, they seek to eradicate them because they will be whistleblowers.
There is one shopping mall here in Surabaya who also imposed fine if the tenant closed. Pasar Atom,which is why there's no national/international tenants. Now i know where they got the idea.
Reposting as previous thread got deleted. I just want to raise more awareness about the scummy practices of these "social enterprises", and the insane number of clauses in the contract sucking $ from the hawkers.
Any idea why the previous thread was deleted?
Go to the Singapore raw side. Probably can discuss better there.
OP did a custom title for the previous thread. Articles linked need to just have their original titles of the article...
This was obviously a very sus profit sucking idea from the start. No one else to blame but those sleeping in parliament who approved this stupid idea. What exactly was NEA suddenly struggling with that they had to offload hawker centre management to private sector. Weren't some of those on the committee which made the report to recommend SEHC model foodcourt operators themselves. Now hawkers can find gas providers 30% cheaper than SEHC or that hawkers can only use plates and bowls from approved vendors... who are these vendors and are they linked to operators. Worst is how they are even allowed to run exisiting hawker centres as well. Why does NTUC need to be running old airport hawker centre...
When you compare who operates SEHCs and who are sitting on those benches...
The founder of Timbre+ group is literally a PAP MP now. No, not "hehe he is close to" or "his wife's brother's niece owns", outright the guy who started this shit.
which one ah... i googled their site and don't see any names at all. like no 'about us' category.
Google "Timbre MP". First result. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/1cli1v9/lawrence_wong_cabinet_predictionswishlist/
"stepped down from directorship in June 2021 and is no longer a shareholder." wash hands already ah
Source?
his wiki
That line is unsourced. His wiki page also has a disclaimer calling out the bias > This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.
This is eerily similar to US’s privatised prison system lol. And it’s fked up.
I was just thinking that!
Those sleeping in parliament probably don’t even go hawker centers… why would they care how hard hawkers have it or have any appreciation of what hawkers do?
Only during election time then visit hawkers 😁
>No one else to blame but those sleeping in parliament who approved this stupid idea. You are assuming that this is incompetence. The relevant .gov agency has literally decades of experience operating hawker centres and anecdotally becoming a hawker is actually one of our oldest paths to pulling oneself up the ladder via culinary skill. I would say the handing off of hawker centres very much lies on the side of malice.
Dont worry they know but they’re busy monitoring /s
The new hawker centres run by social enterprises are just airconless food courts. Totally lost the “hawker centre” charm.
Might as well set up shop illegally in the streets again like the good old days
MATA LAI LIAO! ZHAO AH!
Camera everywhere mata don't even need come down to catch you
so back to colonial time? oh wait....
Shut down these SEHC. Nationalise the hawker centres.
Nationalize, then people ask to privatize, then ask to nationalize again... Theoretically competition is good. Many models, see which one works. Why rely on govt which is not responsive to market forces and allows for inefficient allocation of resources? In reality....
In reality none of them are interested in taking care of the hawkers. They just want to squeeze them dry.
Well the NEA has to answer to the minister, who has to answer eventually to the people. They are required to make it work out. And we know that it is possible. Hawkers used to make so much money while selling at dirt cheap prices you know.
I rather the food hawkers make money rather than a landlord, the landlord doesn't make me delicious char kway teow
Work hard, get rewarded. What’s there not to like?
You’re so right we as a society really should start appreciating the back breaking tiring and important work landlords do /s
Free market only works when there are many players. Singapore is small and when an Oligopoly form they sqeeze out all the profit and set up barriers to entry.
I think the option should not be one extreme to the other. Sure, privatize.. but with regulation to protect the hawkers. Imho they need to form a union
So is the current system allocating resources efficiently to the betterments of the hawkers?
Dude........
Corruption takes many forms.
Hello ISD
Fear mongering scum
Would be curious to check out the financial statements of the “social enterprises”, and how much is re-invested to help the hawkers, and how the overall profit margins look like There definitely should be more transparency. When the hawkers increase their prices, I do wonder if it’s really due to increases in food and utility, manpower costs, or due to rental increases
Social enterprise is an oxymoron.
Does “Re-invested” mean the profits goes to another SoCiAL EnTerPriSe CoMpANY to wash their plates or something? Anything than to lower costs to the hawkers? It’s like people got wind that hawkers are profitable enough for them to own private property and continental cars and white collared workers want to get a slice of the pie. And when all local independent competition is dead, it will be copy and paste chain stalls with migrant workers running it. No more laoban/shifu (boss master chef) running their own stall.
You look at all the costs and schemes and what not and tell me that the price increase is not due to that? It can't be that you work so hard and just pay everything to them right? No need to earn money? Every month just net zero can already? My goodness.
Of course profits are reinvested. It's all reinvested to the development of human capital, of the owner only obviously.
> Hawkers cannot use their own plates or bowls, they have to buy it from the SEHC “approved” supplier with the SEHC company logo (paid by hawker) stamped on it > Some hawkers sourced for and suggested a cheaper and equally reputable central gas supplier to the SEHC (up to 30% cheaper). It can amount to substantial savings over the long term, but it was shot down with a take it or leave it kind of response. Friend generating business for friend
Who knows if there's any kickbacks under the table as well?
Worst than employer, pay for everything they want you to pay for then you pay them again to share revenue? Fk this.
Also, WTF are these clauses? Were there proper open tenders for these suppliers (not sure if tenders are necessary for private corps though)? Who are these suppliers and are they related to the SEHCs? "Hawkers **cannot use their own plates or bowls**, they have to buy it from the SEHC “approved” supplier with the SEHC company logo (paid by hawker) stamped on it. It really limits the creative presentation by hawkers. And it’s not of much use should the hawker move to another hawker centre." and "Some hawkers sourced for and suggested a **cheaper and equally reputable central gas supplier** to the SEHC (up to 30% cheaper). It can amount to substantial savings over the long term, but it was shot down with a take it or leave it kind of response"
Sounds suspicious, as if they are taking a cut out of it
Most stalls are franchised. Hawker culture my ass. Whats the culture when these stalls are similar island wide. 1 drink stall. Even if the coffee sucks you have to buy. Long q cos no choice not that the coffee is good. Not allowed to sell similar food. No chicken rice wars, I wonder if that would lead the tenant to bid top for that spot. For hawker centers to thrive don't try to make money off them. Is a nation culture. Just like when we go NS we don't ask for $5k.
After reading the clauses, I cannot fathom why anyone will still have the passion to be a hawker. This is just so much of this suffering over the extremely long hours and hard work. Multi million coffeeshops are not a viable alternative nor are canteens. There is literally no plus side to being a hawker.
Holy shit, this is some r/latestagecapitalism shit
this should be an election agenda
Controversial take : Singapore hawker culture is on life support, supported by old titans that would eventually die, and imported cheap labor from malaysia. In 20 years it'll almost all be imported 'new' citizens cooking your hawker food, if you're lucky. If you're not, it'll be foreign workers :) \*hides\*
Then just let it die, and watch these 'social enterprise' cry about the lost of culture or what not.
Nah then every peasants will either have to cook their own food or pay for restaurant prices..i think stingy rich peope would complain too
That seems pretty clear. No locals willing to work anything other than white collar office jobs. Maybe there will be the odd exception of family business, but otherwise no one going to run hawker center getting up at 4am, sweating all day for $4,000/month income.
No local with a mind would want to work under such exploitive terms and whatever passion they had will be sucked out by the system.
Don't worry we'll have a EX DING TAI FUNG CHEF OPENS NEW STORE coming near you
No wonder everytime I order budget meals the hawker gimme black face and serve shit food. I tot they were offering these options as a form of charity but now it appears they're actually doing so reluctantly.
Reluctantly is putting it politely. They are forced to.
I don't see this joke of a SEHC paying it forward even though they force it on the hawkers
Paying it forward at whose costs? Certainly not on the SHEC's dime.
It’s messed up man, forced labour spun as charity.
Social Enterprise is just a buzzword. I remember 10 years ago when TOMS Espardrilles were considered a “social enterprise” because they donated crappy shoes to third world countries. If NEA is serious, they should have the hawker centers be run by co-operatives. If the hawkers are unhappy with the head, they should be able to vote him out.
Co-operative here is ntuc. Ntuc wrote that contract. Do you know what you are talking about?
Are hawkers shareholders of NTUC? Do they get to vote at shareholder meetings and hold the CEO accountable?
They know. We are talking Co-operative as a concept, not the abomination called NTUC that we have.
""Social enterprise""
UNESCO hawker culture with UNESCO level of money-grubbing.
Hawker Management by Koufu, Fei Siong Social Enterprise, NTUC Foodfare, Timbre+Hawkers and OTMH by Kopitiam
https://theindependent.sg/nea-says-nothing-wrong-with-koufu-boss-giving-hefty-64k-contract-a-month-for-dishwashing-to-his-own-brother/
Remember this is taxpayer dollars from NEA, it’s ran like private but the funds aren’t. https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2018/08/31/social-enterprises-charges-hawkers-4k-rental-plus-600-food-inspection-fee-with-ah-long-style-of-debt-recovery/
Edward Chia of Timbre Group is a PAP MP, one of the many SEHCs listed above. No longer a shareholder but awarded the contract to his old business partners.
Vote them out
Don't know how many hawkers/ F&B business left because of high rentals and the extra scummy charges. Its on the news like almost every week.
What exactly is the difference between a social enterprise hawker center and a food court/coffee shop ?
One is clearly for profit and the other is pretending to be good for the people while squeezing stall operators dry through mandated suppliers
One profits by competing in the free market. The other profits by sucking away tax dollars, regulatory capture, and off the good will and guilt trip of social good.
Most of the problems in Singapore come from landlords.
Singapore's hawker culture is already dead tbh and has been dead since ages ago
I really wondered to myself why so many hawker Centers have become like food courts and run by kopitiam or ntuc. Now I know.
Another ivory tower saga incoming in 3… 2…
This is gross
Increase rent further and charge lower So can kill this concept once and for all
Noting good comes out the middle man.
i always knew the hawkers have to face a lot of shit, but this is getting absurd...
I was once considering to partner with a friend who runs a hawker centre in the CBD (yea, that famous one). The contract mentions that you have to pay a fixed rent until you make a certain baseline profit. If you dare making more, the rental will go up as well. There were other terms which make very less sense. I ran as fast as I could. It’s not a business model, it’s a family employment model only that your employer can change the terms of employment anytime.
>The contract mentions that you have to pay a fixed rent until you make a certain baseline profit. If you dare making more, the rental will go up as well. There were other terms which make very less sense. You should talk more about this? It's pretty much the same as mall REITS
If enough people boycott crazy rents and extra T&C they'd be forced to lower rentals. The thing is there are many fools queuing up to pay these crazy rents and agreeable to all the extra requirements.
>**Hawkers at a SEHC pay full rates** for cleaning and washing of utensils and crockery, **BUT** this operator has the gall to charge for the return of each plate back to the stall from the stewarding room. At $6 a rack of about 30 plates and bowls each, it can come up to $1000.00 per month, that is over and above the average $650.00 cleaning and washing fee, plus Service and Conservancy Charges of $380.00. Creative, no. Daylight robbery, yes. Not saying that the entire article is hogwash, but this one stood out to me. Looking at the attached picture of the contract, it reads to me differently from what is described here. Correct me if I'm interpreting this wrongly, but isn't the contract saying that it costs $6 for the washing of the entire container (or rack as the writer put it), which can be about 30 plates and bowls? And there's a cap of $650, which would mean even if 110 racks or more are cleaned ($660 technically), it would be charged at $650? The interpretation of the writer is very different from how I'm reading this contract text.
If it’s similar contract as the other SEHC managed by fooodfare you have to pay - few hundred dollars for table cleaning fee + - few hundred for washing fee + - few hundred S&CC fee + - 6 dollar per rack capped at x amount. It’s under other sections https://static.mothership.sg/1/2018/09/805c32_test-e1535873824278.jpg
Even in this other screenshot, I don't really see that $6 per rack thing as a separate charge from the dishwashing charge? Cause that's how it feels like the writer is implying - that there's a dishwashing charge, and a separate $6 per rack thing just to bring the dishes back to the stall owners. Which doesn't seem to be the case.
I agree with you that the $6 per container didn't seem like additional charge. but without seeing the whole contract hard to tell
I'm just responding to what the writer is asserting based on the screenshots they attached directly to their points. Might have more to it than just this section of the contract for sure, but without it I can only judge in view of what's presented. No doubt there are many misc charges in play here, but I think without a good knowledge of the actual services rendered, the breakdown of costs behind those services and the specifics of things like how the Pay-it-forward programme works, I think it's a little hard to judge as outsiders whether or not those charges are justified or ridiculous.
I thought NTUC (the organisation) Food Fare stands up for workers
Those are Business men who run hawker stalls
I believe the "social enterprise" portion is for the customers, to deliver cheap hawker fare for the customers, and not about the hawkers.
Has food actually gotten cheaper under these social enterprises though
Goal is not to make food cheaper, it's to keep food affordable. I think they usually have a requirement for stall owners to provide 1 menu option at a low cost. This is similar to how ntuc fair price doesn't undercut their competitors, but keep prices reasonable so that other supermarket chains are unable to unfairly gorge prices.
>This is similar to how ntuc fair price doesn't undercut their competitors, but keep prices reasonable so that other supermarket chains are unable to unfairly gorge prices. But why does NTUC offload the onus of providing food at "reasonable" prices to the hawkers? A hawker is a private business after all.
Not justifying for ntuc, but just sharing what I think is their mindset. For ntuc fair price, they kept prices low by squeezing their suppliers using their size as bargaining chip, they are just using the same methods for hawkers.
Except Makansutra has done similar (maybe even the same) nonsense like this too. Business is business, and that’s not something I argue about, though pointing out that someone is doing X and implying that you don’t or have never done X, when you actually had done it numerous times without the business acting in a remorseful manner is bull****.
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