This image is AI-generated. Any resemblance to any real person is unintended.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has a long-standing policy, under which migrant workers who have lost their jobs due to valid disputes with their employers will get permission to change employers locally. If not, the workers will have to be repatriated when the dispute is resolved or concluded and Singapore will have lost their accumulated experience and skills. Most disputes are over salary: many months not paid or short-paid.
How this policy is implemented is like this: MOM or Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM) – the unit that handles disputes – issue to these workers Change of Employer (COE) letters to facilitate their search for new jobs. However, it is still up to the worker to find a willing employer.
These letters have a validity period of only 15 days, which is very short, making it challenging for workers to secure new employment within the timeframe. Moreover, the letters often state the reason for issuance, such as “pending salary arrears case”, which makes them rather prejudicial to the workers. Employers are often reluctant to hire workers with such letters, as they may perceive them as troublemakers who stand up for their rights.
An example of a letter issued by TADM giving a worker permission to look for a new job
There is also a lack of a functioning ecosystem in Singapore to help these workers find new jobs easily. Many employment agents in Singapore do not handle such cases or have limited job recommendations for these workers. Nor is there a nationwide online listing of available work permit jobs – something that TWC2 has been advocating over many years. As a result, many workers with valid claims report being unable to find new jobs despite having COE letters in hand.
But many others do succeed. When we ask them how they found new jobs, they very often mention unlicensed contacts. But they are not just contacts; when they take money, they are job agents, albeit working illegally. And yet, it’s perhaps the money that has greased the way to new jobs. Perhaps it’s the money (or a share of it from agent to boss) that has encouraged an employer overlook the prejudicial letter that TADM has issued.
One evening, at TWC2’s free meals programme, I spoke to a couple of workers to get their first-hand experiences. They had succeeded in finding new jobs, but how did they do it?
Asan and his “friend”
For migrant construction worker Asan, the asking price was $1,000 – which he gave, not to a licensed employment agent, but to a “friend”.
Asan needed a new job fast. He had been let go from his previous job after filing a salary claim against his employer – they hadn’t paid him for the three months he’d worked for them – and he had been given a mere two weeks by MOM to look for a new employer, or face repatriation. Asan was later able to get an extension of an additional two weeks, but by Day 10 of his job search, he had already been turned down by the handful of employment agencies he’d visited. His “friend”, on the other hand, proved much more helpful.
Asan was coy about sharing any details about his “friend”, besides the fact that this was another worker in his previous company. When asked about how his “friend” was able to find the job for him, Asan stated that he didn’t know, and didn’t want to know. He was just happy to have the work.
While Asan was willing to take his dealings with his “friend” in stride, other migrant workers we spoke to who had also been forced to change jobs were much more open about their displeasure with employment agents, both licensed ones and unlicensed friends or other contacts.
Jamas and his TADM officer
Like Asan, construction worker Jamas found his work permit cancelled by his employer after filing a salary claim for four months of unpaid work. He too received a COE premission letter. Unlike Asan, Jamas emphatically denied going to any agent or paying anyone, stating that he had no money to cover the $2,000 he’d been told was the minimum agent’s fee. In our conversation, he spoke as if it was common knowledge that agents took a lot of money, and were questionable in their usefulness.
Two strokes of luck enabled Jamas to remain working in Singapore. The first was having the help of an actual friend, who referred him to a job without taking any money from him – a rarity in our experience, though possibly a lie to avoid admitting to anything legally dubious. The second was having a supportive officer handling his salary claim at TADM, who advised Jamas to look for a new job while the case was ongoing, and only when Jamas had found a new job did the officer formally issue him an official Change of Employer (COE) letter. It was a way to overcome the 14-day limitation of COE letters. Given that Jamas had taken more than a month to find the job, it seems likely that he would have been repatriated home if not for the TADM officer’s assistance.
Despite the relative fortuity of his situation, Jamas expressed ambivalence when asked about his feelings on his next job: “Worker cannot talking good [or] no good”. Resigned to the precarity of his situation, having been burned before by one too many bad jobs, he didn’t feel that it was his place to expect anything.
Is the system all that it’s made out to be?
Asan too had a far more troubled past in Singapore than he was willing to let on in our conversation with him. A check on TWC2’s case management system revealed a history of work injuries that may have previously forced him to return home. His career here has been one of stops and starts. These are not men with an abundance of options trying to play the system – on the contrary, it can feel as though they are the ones being played.
The difficulties that Asan and Jamas faced this time around weren’t from a lack of available jobs, but from being unable to access those jobs following the proper steps, and having to rely on informal means. If workers and government officers both have to work around the system to get the favourable outcomes they want, shouldn’t it be clear that the system needs changing?
See also: Recruitment reform – what needs to be done.
Asan 1730; Jamas 15648