If general manager Ronald Scott came across as a bulldog type, we saw personnel manager Anthony Colton as a viper waiting in the long grass, ready to sink his fangs into you and finish you off. He had a severity about him that gave personnel relations a bad name, even in those bad old days in the 70s when the personnel manager, which Colton was, had the role of putting down the workers. Union officials were familiar with Colton’s ways. He was prepared to sit down and battle it out with them forever. His favourite expression was “until the cows come home”. “Gentlemen,” he would tell union officials when we gathered in his room, “we can talk until the cows come home, but I can assure you we will not be budging from what we have offered. It’s all laid out on the table, take it or leave it.”
What he usually laid out on the table were parsimonious offerings. Colton, who served in the British Army and saw action in Burma in World War II, was willing to play hardball with you. He seldom strayed from wearing grey pants with buckles on the sides, no belt, and white long-sleeved shirts. He spoke with a clipped tone. No preamble, no niceties. Union officials would thump the table in frustration when meeting Colton. A spare man with thick hornrimmed glasses which framed cold eyes, he seemed to take a delight in outstaring us. He never flinched even when we called him nasty names. One could say that he was merely serving company interests; that he was following company policy, which was to make sure that employees toed the line and did not question management directives. But he was a tough nut to the core. He might go through the motions during collective negotiations, but more often than not, we knew that he would seldom yield an inch.
Did he really think that being such a tough guy would stand him in good stead in the eyes of the management? Did he think that he was dealing with indentured plantation workers, that he was the white overseer who could easily frighten them into doing his bidding or he would send them home on the next boat? One could never be certain with Colton, who was formerly with the labour section of the Chinese Secretariat of the Malayan Civil Service. A high flyer and workaholic, Colton was widely considered a man who would have risen to be colonial secretary in pre-nationalist days. He spoke good Hokkien, and while he came across as a remote expatriate mandarin, he did strike fear in many of the workers, especially the production staff. It was certainly a master-serf relationship that Colton seemed to like fostering. Being popular and fostering good relations between company and staff were not on his list of priorities.
My fellow Young Turks felt we had to break the myth that people such as Scott and Colton seemed to underscore and believe in — that we little natives ought to go on bended knees and thank them for giving us a job. If they had the temerity to reveal what went on in their minds, it would probably be: “What would these natives do with more money? They would merely squander away any extra cash on cigarettes and booze...” (much the same attitude as some locals have with maids and other foreign workers today). We never knew at the time that Colton was married to a Singaporean Chinese woman, but we doubt, even if we had known, that it would have changed our minds about him.
Managing director A.C. Simmons, on the other hand, did appear to be a considerate man from the little that we knew of him. A large man, with a ruddy complexion and a full head of often unruly hair, he often brushed it back with his fingers to keep it from falling all over his face. He came across as a buccaneering sort. A bull chest and a big belly helped foster the image of a man who liked his food, drinks and jolly company. Photographer Jerry Seh once had to lug his large bag of camera equipment a long way to the main road after covering an assignment at the Turf Club in Bukit Timah. A European man offered to drop the bag off at Times House. Seh accepted the offer gratefully. He was glad to learn from chief photographer Lee Tuck Soon that the bag arrived safely, but was somewhat taken aback when the chief photographer looked incredulously at him and said: “Do you know who brought back your bag?”
“Some ang moh, lah,” said Seh.
“Bloody idiot, that was Mr Simmons, you dare to ask him to carry your bag back, you idiot.”
“Simmons, who’s that? He was just some ang moh.”
“Our Mr Simmons, our MD lah, you don’t know that?” said the chief, who looked as if he was about to blow a fuse, with worry.
“Never mind lah,” said Seh. “After all, the equipment belongs to the company. He was only taking care of what belongs to the company.”
We all had a good laugh, but I liked Seh’s nonchalance. Mr Simmons was the big boss, but Seh was a top photographer who knew his job even if he did not know who the boss was.
We all heard that Simmons was a great businessman. He made good decisions, and he would never allow a competitor to mount a challenge against The Straits Times. He installed a culture that spelt out his long-term strategy in no uncertain terms: Stamp out the competition before they become a threat. That strategy remains till today, to all intents and purposes.
I once opened the door to a room in the editorial office that had remained locked all the while. Inside, I came across several rolls of paper. They were covered with dust and they had certainly never been scrutinised from the time they arrived in the company. I saw, to my astonishment, that they were news scripts of stories by the New York Times and other top foreign newspapers. Simmons had apparently bought up all the feature and news services offered by all the world’s leading newspapers. He already had a monopoly on the use of the wire agencies — Reuters, the Associated Press, United Press International. Such a stranglehold on the supply of news from overseas would discourage anybody else from launching a new newspaper. In fact, it would have been foolhardy as it would mean having to break the monopoly Simmons had on the wire agencies.
He was an astute businessman, our Simmons. He knew that the cost of newsprint, which was rising all the time, could spell the difference between profits and disaster and so ensured the company got enough newsprint at the right price by buying through a subsidiary in Hong Kong. That got The Straits Times into a spot of trouble with the Singapore government when it began a crackdown on tax evasion in the early 70s. Simmons fled Singapore and never returned.
This ruthlessness in stamping out the opposition pervaded the company. Soon after The Singapore Herald was launched in 1970, staff from The Straits Times circulation department kept a nightly vigil outside the Herald’s office. Under cover of darkness, they counted the number of bundles of newspapers that were being loaded onto the lorries that would take the newspaper to its various distribution points. This way, the Herald’s circulation could be ascertained without the need to have a spy working from within the company. I was once asked by a senior editor to call the Herald’s newsroom and tell them of a big fire in some remote part of Singapore. Why? I asked. Send them on a merry wild goose chase, tie up their staff, the senior editor said. I refused, out of a sense of professional propriety. But efforts by The Straits Times to stamp out the Herald proved unnecessary. The Singapore Herald met its demise when its publishing licence was suspended by the government a year later. The government had accused the paper of being involved in “black operations”, of being funded by questionable foreign sources, of working up agitation against national policies and institutions, and of “taking on the government”. We were aggrieved by the demise of The Singapore Herald as it meant the loss of another avenue for journalistic work. We did not quite share the view that The Straits Times management had, that the Herald was unwelcome competition. In fact, at least four journalists, including myself, who had shown early promise of making it in the profession, were invited to join the Herald’s reporting team. We were enthusiastic, especially when we were interviewed by the Herald’s features editor, the lovely Adele Koh, but baulked when we learned that a veteran from Radio Singapore, a taciturn hand-wringing type, was to be our chief. So while we mourned the passing of The Singapore Herald, we also silently congratulated ourselves on our good luck in not signing on, thanks to the man from Radio.
Colton had an office in the front of the building, where he could, if he wanted to, watch who came in and left the editorial office as they walked past his office. I never paid Colton’s office much notice until one day when I was summoned to meet him. This was after an exchange of harsh words between me and a member of the security section. The security officer had objected to a friend of mine parking in the visitors’ section of the car park at the front of the building. My visitor, a final-year student at the University of Singapore, drove a shabby car, like many students did at the time. It was a definite disgrace to the pristine image of the company frontage. But I objected to having to ask my friend to remove his vehicle. It was no way to treat a visitor, I said. The exchange escalated. Mr Security and I headed for the car park at the back of the building to thrash matters out, man to man. Along the way, he decided that the matter would best be settled by deputy editor/editorial manager Wee Kim Wee. But Wee had already left for home. I told the guard: So what now? He shrugged and walked away.
The next day, Wee called me up for a discussion. He felt my choice of words during the squabble was uncalled for. I agreed and said I would retract my words and apologise for using such ungallant language. But I would expect similar reciprocation from the offended party who, I felt, had instigated the squabble in the first place. Wee was unsure if that was the way to go about it, and I left his office, with the matter unresolved.
The next thing I knew, Colton wanted to see me. He looked me up from head to toe, his eyes glinting behind those horn-rimmed glasses, when I stepped into his office. He finally said: “So you are the widget.” It was more of a statement than a question. I could not fathom what he really said. Did he call me a whiz kid, or a whisker, or a midget? Midget? Heck I was taller than him. I was puzzled, and stayed silent.
He said Wee had referred the matter to him to find a way out of the impasse. I repeated my willingness to apologise with the proviso I had given to Wee. And for good measure, I added that the company could do what it wanted with me — at the most, I would be out of a job that paid a pittance of a salary at $400 a month. I had again thrown caution to the wind. For some reason that eludes me to this day, Colton thought long and hard about what I said. To my surprise, he finally said he would let the matter rest, and sent me away without further ado. Did I do right in sticking to my guns in putting up a brave front? At the time, in the exuberance of my youth, I thought dear Colton saw in me value for money.
As soon as I left his office, I went to the large Oxford Dictionary kept on the top of a tall cabinet outside news editor Sit Yin Fong’s office and looked up the mysterious word that Colton had used. I checked whiz kid, whisker, cat’s paw, wicket. None seemed appropriate. Then I chanced upon “widget” — a device placed in cans and bottles of beer to aid in the generation of froth. That must have been the word I heard Colton murmur in his office. Hmm, I liked the word. He must love his beer like most of us journalists. Perhaps there was some hope in him, after all, despite his stern countenance. But I was making generous allowances for the man. In true Colton fashion, he came down very hard on the union on the question of bonus. But he paid a dear price for his lack of acumen in allowing the strike to happen. And when the company had to come up with a scapegoat for the turn of events, he was, in true British tradition, sent to Coventry.
An article in The Straits Times Strike magazine which was produced by the Singapore National Union of Journalists to commemorate the event.