A letter that I can't email it out!

Dear XX,

The horrific and unprecedented economic downturn that has affected Asia, especially Singapore, has been swift and brutal. XXXXX of Asia has been inadvertently been directly affected and its staff feels the pain and impact by the recession as well. However, I have some concerns and feedback as a staff which I hope you can assist in answering.

The first onslaught of retrenchment has taken place in December 2008 and the departures of some of our dear colleagues have been distressing and demoralizing. It was perceived as a necessary evil for the continuation of XXX but I do feel that not all possible cost saving avenues were exhausted before the debilitating retrenchment exercise.

As the steep decline of the economy and financial markets shows no signs of abating, the abolition of the shift allowances were accepted by the Composing and Customer Service staff as our continued contribution in keeping XXX financially sustainable.

However, before the retrenchment and elimination of shift allowances were implemented, I feel that it is important for the staff to be convinced that all other cost saving alternatives were exhausted. Local companies affected by the recession as well like Singapore Airlines and Mediacorp chose to implement unpaid leave and/or shorter work week to starve off the retrenchment. This allowed all staff to retain their jobs despite a lower take home remuneration.

When the financial crisis gets more precarious and there is a need to systematically reduce the salary package of staff, the top management and senior executives of local companies like Temasek, Creative Technology and Capitaland opted to reduce their own salary by 15% - 25% to lead by example before reducing the salary packages of the rank and file employees.

With the economic outlook predicted by many experts to be a protracted recession, I am hopeful that that other avenues taken by other companies will be considered by XXX before other cost cutting measures or retrenchment is undertaken. I also hope to have the assurance that the management did consider the above measures by the local companies before they implemented the previous round of retrenchment and cost reduction exercises. This will go a long way to soothe the uncertainty and low morale in XXX currently.

Yours sincerely,

FXXXXXXX