Woman who made construction workers hold up placards demanding payment fined, along with husband

SINGAPORE: The director of a company who instructed construction workers to hold up placards demanding outstanding payments from a subcontractor was fined by a court on Friday (Sep 26), along with her husband.

Rebecca Rubini Ravinthiran, a 33-year-old Singaporean, was fined S$8,500 (US$6,600), while her husband Vee Derrick Mahendran, 36, was fined S$4,500.

Ravinthiran pleaded guilty to three charges including organising a public assembly without a permit and breaching conditions of work permits by involving the foreign workers in illegal activities, with another 14 charges taken into consideration.

Her husband pleaded guilty to one charge each of abetting the organisation of a public assembly without a permit and breaching a condition of the foreign workers' work permits. Another nine charges were considered in sentencing.

Ravinthiran was a director of Scorpio Builders and Apex Engineering at the time of the offences in 2024.

Scorpio Builders was a subcontractor to TLT Construction and Engineering, which was in turn a subcontractor to the main contractor, Rich Construction Company, for Housing and Development Board (HDB) estate worksites at Dakota Breeze and Parc Flora @ Tengah.

Ravinthiran's companies provided manpower for services like painting and rooftop steel structure works for the two Build-To-Order HDB worksites.

TLT Construction allegedly owed outstanding payments to Scorpio Builders, the court heard.

When attempts to seek the payments failed, Ravinthiran came up with the idea to instigate her workers to hold placards at the worksites to garner the attention of TLT Construction.

On Oct 23, 2024, she directed two workers to collect cardboard pieces from a rubbish chute. Her husband then guided them to cut the cardboard into specific square shapes.

Ravinthiran then printed the following text and attached the print-outs to the cardboard: "RICH CONSTRUCTION (CHINA CONSTRUCTION)/TLT CONSTRUCTION PLEASE PAY OUTSTANDING AMOUNT", "WHY DO THIS TO SMALL CONTRACTOR???", "PLEASE PAY OUT MONEY $73,410++ & $77,000", "PLEASE PAY OUR MONEY $69597++" AND "OUTSTANDING AMOUNT $69597++".

On the morning of Oct 24 last year, Ravinthiran instructed a total of six workers to stand beside the entrance to the Dakota Breeze worksite without saying or shouting any slogans.

She handed four placards to four workers who held them up to demand that Scorpio Builders be paid the outstanding amount owed for its work to TLT Construction.

That same morning, Ravinthiran instructed another worker to distribute four placards to his colleagues at the Tengah worksite.

She asked him to instruct a total of nine workers to stand along the walkway outside the entrance of the worksite, without obstructing the walkway.

Ravinthiran also got her husband to go to the Tengah worksite to ensure the workers there were not rowdy and to ensure compliance with her instructions.

Ravinthiran later received a call from an unidentified person asking the workers to stop what they were doing at the Dakota Breeze site.

She was also informed by a worker that the safety officer of Rich Construction had said he would call the police if the workers did not stop their acts.

Ravinthiran assured her worker not to worry and instructed the six workers at Dakota Breeze to continue.

Police officers arrived 30 to 40 minutes later and were handed Ravinthiran's number. She went to the worksite to speak to the police and dismissed the six workers.

The nine workers at the Tengah worksite were dispersed on Ravinthiran's instruction after a safety supervisor from Rich Construction told her husband to disperse them.

The prosecutor said all the workers had been unwilling to be involved, but had complied with Ravinthiran's instructions as she was their employer.

The workers' act of holding a placard while standing outside the worksite without a relevant permit under the Public Order Act is an offence, the prosecution said.

This resulted in them being involved in an illegal activity, a contravention of a condition in their work permits.

The prosecution sought fines for the couple, with a higher fine for the woman.

For the public assembly offence, they asked for a fine of S$3,000, higher than a case involving activist Jolovan Wham over a public assembly he had organised back in 2016.

The judge said he did not agree that this case was more serious than Wham's, as Wham was advocating for a social cause, while this was a private matter and more confined in scope. Wham had also claimed trial, the judge said.

In mitigation, Ravinthiran apologised and said she deeply regretted her actions.

She said they were non-violent and peaceful, and there had been no damage to property, confrontation nor public disorder.

She said she had ceased all her business operations and was not applying for any work permits. She said she was the sole breadwinner as her husband is self-employed and they had four young children fully dependent on their support.

In mitigation, her husband said he did not organise or initiate the assembly and did not instruct any workers but merely updated his wife on what was happening and stayed out of the way.

He said the couple was now "under serious financial strain".

Ravinthiran was allowed to pay her fine in instalments, while her husband paid his fine in full.