Hock Lee bus riots
| Date | 23 April 1955 (Strikes) 12 May 1955 (End of strikes) |
|---|---|
| Location | Alexandra Road Tiong Bahru |
| Participants | Workers from Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company Students from Chinese middle schools |
| Outcome | 4 people dead 31 people injured |
The Hock Lee bus workers’ strikes began on April 23, 1955. The incident was a result of failed negotiations between the Hock Lee Amalgamated Bus Company and its bus workers. The workers wanted better working conditions while the employers wanted to protect their business interests. The strikes eventually escalated and resulted in a clash among the Singapore Bus Workers Union, Hock Lee Employee's Union, the Singapore Chinese Middle Schools Student Union and law enforcement on May 12, 1955. The event has been commonly understood as a violent confrontation between colonialists and communists. The event was however also born out of the conditions of colonial society as well as being part of a necessary modernisation trajectory that Singapore was embarking on.
Post War Conditions and the rise of trade unions
The global trend of decolonisation, led the way for the liberalisation of Singaporean politics. The 1948 constitution that reformed the political and judicial systems in Singapore paved the way for Singapore’s first elections in 1948. This partial liberalisation was impeded as the British saw their strategic interests in Southeast Asia being challenged by peasant uprisings especially in Malaya.
Role of the British
To maintain their control, the British tried to construct a narrative of communist insurgencies and militarism which could be potentially threatening to the security of the region. On the premise of containing communist activities, emergency regulations were implemented in 1948. These emergency regulations increased restriction on civil society meetings in Singapore. A turning point came as the Rendel Constitution was accepted by the British government and resulted in elections that brought David Marshall and the Labour Front party into power. This new constitution led to the provisional easing of restrictions under Emergency regulations, which in its turn sparked off much interest in politics among the people living in Singapore. This renewed liberalisation led to the establishment of many trade unions during this period which would have alarmed many employers that were worried about their business interests. Oppressive colonial educational and labour policies discriminated against Chinese students and workers. Perceived unjust colonial policies led to various episodes of labour unrests in 1954 and 1955. In 1954 there was The May 13 National Service Ordinance. And in 1955, there were three notable strikes namely the Hock Lee Bus workers’ strike, the Singapore Traction Company strike and the Singapore Harbour Board strike.
Role of Americans in Singapore's Labour Movement
American officials were alarmed by both the rise of social unrest in Singapore and the Singapore’s Labour Front (SLF) inability to control labour radicalism. It was estimated that 31,000 workers were involved in 129 official and sympathy strikes between March and June 1955. Some work has been done to study the significance of certain figures that arose from United States government sources. The seeds of a communist discourse was being sown by American diplomats, pressuring the British government to take subversive actions against student and labour movements in post 1954 Singapore. Thus leading to the construction of events like the Hock Lee incident as a violent event instigated by communists. Ramakrishna’s latest work on the communist threat in Singapore necessitates the polarisation of the scholarship on Singapore history and suggests that historians should take sides. Conventional historical narratives have represented the workers and students actions as violent and conceived out of communism. The emerging work on the Hock Lee incident have foregrounded the experiences of the people through the provision of accounts that focus on the social and economic anxieties that were felt by both the students and the workers due to life in colonial society.
...
Wikipedia