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In the story Injury claim unattended to for a year, worker left helpless, we wrote about a worker Lablu (not his real name) who had to wait 15 months after the accident to get his injury claim processed. We ended that story by saying that Lablu’s case was hardly an isolated one. Indeed, while Lablu’s frustrating case was going on, there was another with similar delays.

Zabirul (name changed) points at the root cause of the unjust delay in his case: his boss.

“My boss always thinking: After the injury I want to send him go home.”

Zabirul sensed that the boss couldn’t stomach the idea of paying for treatment or compensation. Even though these employee rights are enshrined in law, for a migrant worker to assert his rights could have been perceived as an intolerable affront to the boss’ pride and social status. As Zahirul puts it, “My boss thinking: How come he can take money from me?”

However, Zabirul’s long delay was not just because of stonewalling by the employer. Just like in Lablu’s case, the insurer also seemed to allow things to lapse with little sense of urgency, and the authorities, despite Zabirul complaining to them about lack of progress at several points, seemed to take a hands-off attitude.

There is no publicly available information about performance standards for timely processing of work injury claims, nor any news about enforcement. If at all there are criminal penalties for deliberate non-cooperation by employers, they must be just for show. We have not come across any prosecutions over this.

Small injury, big problem

Zabirul was injured while at work on 31 May 2023. The injury to his left elbow wasn’t grave, and he didn’t go to a doctor till later because he thought it might heal by itself. Of course, it is better if an injury receives medical attention (Zabirul did see a doctor later) to ensure that it heals properly, but migrant workers are often in fear that bosses would take a jaundiced view of their going to doctors, and they might lose their jobs as a result.

This fear undercuts the greater social and economic good: Early medical attention ensures that any injury, infection or illness is attended to quickly and effectively. After a period of medical leave, the worker should be able to return to the job and everybody benefits. The employer gets his experienced worker back, and the worker’s career is back on track. That’s how it should be, but once a boss’ pride gets stirred into the pot, everything turns sour. The greater good is sacrificed to one person’s power and pride.

Not knowing how to access his injury insurance, Zabirul sought the help of a lawyer in early July 2023, about five weeks after the accident. The lawyer, noticing that the employer had not filed a work injury compensation claim, then filed one for Zabirul.

The employer’s failure to report the accident is a violation under the Work Injury Compensation Act, and this is something that should be investigated.

Zabirul didn’t come to TWC2 immediately after the accident. He only came to consult with us about six months later, in November, because he was not receiving his medical leave wages. He also mentioned that the employer had not paid the medical bills at the hospital nor provided a letter of guarantee that the hospital had asked for. As a result, his continuing treatment was in jeopardy. Unhappy that the lawyer wasn’t helpful, he discharged the law firm from representing him.

These issues of medical bills and medical leave wages, together with other issues surrounding accommodation and food, would drag on for months. The employer refused to engage seriously with Zabirul. When Zabirul sought help from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), he was told to contact the insurer, but when (with our help) he reached the insurer, he was told to go back to the employer.

Delay upon delay

Despite these issues remaining unresolved, our story’s main starting point is 18 April 2024. This was the date that we at TWC2 learned that the insurer had “completed their investigation”. It’s worth bearing in mind that this was already ten-and-a-half months after the accident which resulted in a relatively minor injury that, we think, had long since healed. The insurer explained that the case had been under investigation all this while because they could not ascertain whether it was a workplace injury – possibly due to non-cooperation by the employer. The stalemate was only broken when MOM instructed them that if they had no reason to reject the validity of the claim, they should go ahead to accept it.

So, the good news today was the insurer’s comment to us that the claim would “now proceed”.

But what does “now proceed” mean?

Immediately, it ran into problems. Eleven days later, Zabirul told us that his employer was asking him to decide whether he considered his injury a “temporary incapacity” or “permanent incapacity”. Zabirul didn’t even understand the question, that’s why he came to us to ask what it meant. We too were surprised that the worker was being asked this question. Surely, that is a matter for a doctor to assess.

“Permanent incapacity” is legalese for permanent residual disability that would not heal after an injury. There are well-established standards for assessing the degree of permanent disability, but these standards are for doctors to apply, not the non-medically trained migrant worker to decide.

We had no idea why the employer put this question to Zabirul. A generous interpretation would be that the employer himself knew nothing about the meaning of these two terms or that it was for doctors to decide; a more sinister interpretation would be that the employer was trying to confound the worker in the hope that the worker would say “temporary incapacity” thereby waiving his right to disability compensation. “Temporary disability” means he would only enjoy medical leave benefits, but no payout for permanent damage.

We helped Zabirul draft a reply. Whatever happened after this was all opaque again.

Seven weeks later in early June 2024, Zabirul was told by his MOM case officer that the insurer would need one or two weeks more to conclude the process. There was some discussion too abut his medical leave wages, which up to this point (now a year after the accident) remained unpaid.

Two months later (now August 2024), there had still been no progress. Zabirul had neither received his medical leave wages nor any offer of compensation, despite earlier promises of imminent resolution. When Zabirul went to MOM to complain about the lack of progress, he was told to raise the matter with the insurer directly. He was told that MOM would only help to take care of his food and lodging issues if he had any.

Surely, if a worker raised the matter of an extremely long delay with the processing of his injury compensation claim, whoever he was speaking to at MOM should have flagged it up. Somebody should be taking the insurer to task and requiring adherence of performance standards. Why was Zabirul merely sent back to the insurer? To the worker, it seemed as if MOM was not taking any responsibility for it.

One month later (now September 2024), we finally managed to reach someone in the insurer’s office on behalf of Zabirul. We were assured that they were now ready to issue a Notice of Compensation, i.e. make an offer to Zabirul. The insurer had finally received the necessary documentation, such as payslips and medical reports, for this final step to be taken. Two more days, they said.

Another month later (now October 2024), Zabirul had still not received an offer of compensation. We contacted the insurer again and this time was told that whilst they had sent a claim form to the employer, it had not been completed and returned.

In the weeks that followed, Zabirul heard from his employer that the claim form had been submitted to the insurer.

Yet another month later (now it is November 2024), we learn from the insurer that they still had not received the employer’s completed and signed forms. This despite the employer having told Zabirul that he had submitted them to the insurer. We naturally expressed our consternation that it had been months since Zabirul was assured that the matter would be closed within “one or two weeks”, and two months since “two more days”.

Twenty months

On 17 December 2024, Zabirul was finally handed a Notice of Compensation (an offer of disability payout). This document was generated by the insurer and dated 13 December. It had a two-week window in which the worker could accept or object to the offer. However, the insurer sent the Notice of Compensation to the employer who sat on it for four days before forwarding it to Zabirul, thereby depriving Zabirul of four of the 14 days he should have had to consider a reply.

We’ve seen cases where employers have sat on the documents for 12 or 13 of the 14 days, drastically reducing the time given to the employee to consider a response. We do not know if MOM has considered the possibility of employers behaving this way (perhaps to foreclose a properly considered decision by the employee) and what the penalties (if any) are.

In Zabirul’s case, he accepted the insurer’s offer. The quantum wasn’t much, understandably so because the injury wasn’t all that serious. After it was paid out and a few other loose ends tied up, Zabirul went home in mid January 2025. It had been nearly twenty months after the accident. He had no employment and no work in this time.

The food issues were never fully solved. Under the law, the employer is responsible for meals when a worker is on a Special Pass, which Zabirul was. However, right up to repatriation, he only received food for four or five days a week from the caterer. Zabirul had long given up complaining to MOM.

In all, Zabirul was stuck in Singapore and unable to work or support himself and his family for a total of twenty months. The first couple of months was because he was recovering from the injury. The rest of the months, he was just another statistic, as intransigence by the employer and lacklustre monitoring by all other parties allowed time to pass with no action. Oh wait, no, he might not even be a statistic. We don’t even know whether the authorities are collecting statistics about delays.

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