How did Bapak do all that?
Well, the story was that there was a "go-slow" industrial action by the editorial staff of the Straits Times in Kuala Lumpur.
As Malaysia was still under the emergency laws enforced following the May 13, 1969 riots, the European-dominated management in Singapore thought that the go-slow would definitely end without much ado.
It was illegal, for heaven's sake. So the management thought that they could hold out by asking for arbitration in the Labour Department.
Basically, they were unyielding. They wanted to tire out the journalists, thinking and perhaps, also hoping, that the journalists would eventually give up. Their spirit broken, and their struggle along with it.
They didn't realise that the journalists had Bapak on their side. His sympathies were with them.