Discussion: survey, data and statistics
We hoped to find out how workers navigated the procedure for going out on rest days. Instead we found that most weren't going anywhere.
With mediation meetings too difficult to organise, most cases were suspended. With the gradual lifting, there's some movement, but little prospect of happy outcomes.
Here's the first of our monthly summaries about Covid-19 related numbers and milestones, gleaned from media and government statements.
Covid-19 stats from India and Bangladesh don't look good. Expect ti to remain difficult to bring workers from there. That means those who are already here should be allowed to stay.
Here's a figure: There are 66,000 employers of S-Pass and Work Permit holders as at April 2020. And workers with bank accounts now number 521,000, which seems to be 77.5%. Numbers exclude FDWs.
News flash: Between 16 and 22 April, nearly 94% of new Covid-19 infections were reported from worker dormitories. S11 in Punggol is by far the largest cluster.
The increase in cases in quarantined and non-quarantined dorms are compared in this article, It is clearly worse in non-quarantined dorms. Why is that so?
We mined our data and found 30 companies that hired new workers after having failed to pay salaries for previous workers. The new workers later came to TWC2 with salary problems
When a worker has paid a huge amount to get a job, he cannot afford to lose that job and will thus be vulnerable to unreasonable, exploitative demands by the employer. How huge is huge?
Work pass and Special pass holders made up about 40% of overstayers arrested in 2018, with tourists forming an even larger number. But they hadn't managed to evade the authorities for long.