Tag Archives: MOM processes
Discussion: Ministry of Manpower’s administrative processes
Fraud committed using ministry letterhead
Sarowar (not his real name) approaches our help desk hesitantly. Despite being in his mid-thirties, he does not exude much self-confidence. Maybe it’s because he knows his English is weak, and what he has to tell us is fairly complicated. However, it didn’t take us long to grasp the nub of the problem: Someone had Continue Reading »
Unpaid workers find company funds diverted
A boss was apologetic that he was unable to pay his employees their salaries on time. But what is interesting is the reason why he couldn’t do so: he had to pay foreign worker levies to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) first. Below are key portions of a transcript of a meeting between the boss (who Continue Reading »
Raiful paid $8,000, job didn’t exist. Initial attempt to lodge complaint rebuffed
By Troy Lee based on an interview in July 2017 In the early hours of Friday, 7 July 2017, Md Raiful Islam touched down at Changi airport, looking forward to start on a new job. By midday, he was devastated. The job did not exist. He had paid about 465,000 Bangladeshi taka (about S$8,000) for Continue Reading »
Employer proclaims he lied to ministry, then gets away with paying less in salary
Transient Workers Count Too came across a very interesting statement by Mr Tan Khim Long, director of KBC Engineering Pte Ltd. The company was defending a salary claim by a former employee, a Bangladeshi named Showkat, for short-payment of salary. The case was heard by the Manpower Ministry’s Labour Court in late 2016 and early Continue Reading »
Wage theft as it happens
There are many stories on this website about employers arbitrarily reducing migrant workers’ salaries soon after the latter have started on their jobs. Employers and their agents promise certain terms of employment while the worker is still in his home country, but once the worker has arrived in Singapore, salaries are lowered and deductions increased. Sometimes, the Continue Reading »
Letter to Straits Times: MOM’s advice out of step with reality
On 13 August 2017, the Straits Times highlighted the case of over a dozen Bangladeshi workers from SJH Trading. They told the newspaper that they had not been paid their salaries. Most are in their 40s, and had contracts stating they were to be paid a monthly salary of $1,600, excluding overtime pay. Their main Continue Reading »
Contract substitution made easier by ministry?
Over the years, Transient Workers Count Too has seen many cases where, after arriving in Singapore to start on their jobs, migrant workers are told by their bosses that the salary stated on the In-Principle Approval (IPA) letter will not be honoured. Instead they are given the choice of accepting a lower salary, or be sent Continue Reading »
Worker had to pay $80 to get his own payslips
We shall call the worker Towhid. He was paid less than promised through several months of work. After lodging a complaint at the Ministry of Manpower, his case went before the Labour Court, which strictly speaking is an administrative tribunal within the ministry, not a judicial court. Nonetheless, one would expect the tribunal to have Continue Reading »
Injury compensation law vanishes on the way to the toilet
By Wahid Al Mamun, based on an interview in May 2017 What constitutes a workplace injury? This seems like an easy question to answer as I sit with Rana Md Sohel at TWC2’s meal programme. His claim seems reasonable enough – he cannot extend his left forearm fully, and there is a large scar running Continue Reading »
Sukranjan’s case drags beyond 12 months. How is he to survive?
By Troy Lee, based on an interview in May 2017 On the Ministry of Manpower’s website, it is stated that most work injury claims take “3 to 6 months for most cases. Some injuries may need more time to stabilise before a doctor can assess for permanent incapacity.” However, many of the cases that come to Continue Reading »