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Chellan’s difficulties with his boss became acute in March 2025, but there’s a history. He feels he has been under a spotlight since December 2023, when he was named as a witness in a civil case concerning the injury of another worker under his supervision.
He’s had sixteen good years working in Singapore, his last employer being a swimming pool management company where he oversaw around 17 workers.
Things weren’t smooth-going in the company, says Chellan (not his real name). He speaks of a lack of “support” for employees, though it’s not entirely clear what support was expected. Sometimes, cultural differences colour workers’ expectations how employer-employee relationships should be. He gives a few examples though, of the times he had to step in to assist fellow workers: helping two workers in his company raise the issue of overtime salary with the boss, and giving other workers suggestions when they ran into problems of their own – we don’t get the details of what those other problems were.
In December 2023, one of Chellan’s teammates fell down while moving chlorine from a shelf, breaking his leg. When the injured worker, upon consultation with a lawyer, decided to launch a civil case to settle the issue, Chellan was named as one of the witnesses. The case is still ongoing.
Chellan’s involvement in the injury case – not that he had much choice in the matter – made him hyper-visible within the company. Even so, things were manageable through 2024, but in early 2025, matters escalated.
In February 2025, when Chellan went on home leave for the birth of his baby boy, a driver in the company complained about him to their boss. Chellan had taken this driver to task before, for taking too many personal calls during work hours. All of this came to a head in March 2025, when Chellan came back from India. The boss called him up and questioned him about allegations that he had been taking company property and selling them on the side to make a quick buck. Chellan strenuously denied the claims, and anyway the boss had no substantial evidence, he tells TWC2, but nonetheless, the boss seemed convinced he had been stealing material and continued to push the matter.
It wasn’t long before the rupture came. In the afternoon of 6 March 2025, the boss called Chellan when he was working on-site in Changi, asking Chellan to head back to the company warehouse to fetch a ladder and take it to another work site at Dairy Farm. The work progress at the Dairy Farm project was too slow, the boss said, largely due to the lack of a ladder.
Chellan went to the company warehouse as asked, but there was no ladder there. He informed his boss of this. The boss then accused him of stealing from the company and called the police. The long and short of it: Chellan lost his job and is now under police investigation.
A sickening prospect
It’s too early to say how this case will end. We at TWC2 do not form any opinion about guilt or innocence. But guilt or innocence is not the only issue of importance. Process and the possibility of abuse of process are also at the front and centre of concerns.
In this section, we’re not referring to Chellan’s case specifically. Our comments here draw on our experience with many similar cases where accusations have been made against workers and they are put under police investigation as a result. Chellan’s case is typical in how his Work Permit was quickly cancelled rendering him jobless. He’s required to stay on in Singapore for the duration of the investigation, but now he has no income.
We recently published a research report On the margins of marginal labour which deep-dives into the issues, and so there’s no need to repeat its findings here except to highlight, very briefly, that investigations can take a very long time (months and years in the case of the interviewees in the research report). If this is to happen to Chellan, he may be looking at an extended period of unemployment, just when his family has a new mouth to feed. Who is going to support him, his wife and child?
Also worth mentioning is that over the years, TWC2 has seen many workers whose cases ended either with no charges filed, or charges ultimately dropped. Such outcomes raise the spectre of malicious accusations.
If – and here we’re speaking purely hypothetically – a boss wanted to get even with an employee who had been called (through no choice of his own) to testify in a civil suit involving the company, making a false accusation would be the easiest thing to do. Even if the worker were completely innocent, he would still pay dearly with months or years of unemployment, stuck in Singapore.
One might ask: isn’t making a false police report an offence? Yes it is, but proving it (as opposed to a mistaken accusation) is not easy. And frankly, TWC2 has seen very few instances of accusers being taken to task when workers are eventually exonerated.
“I feel inside my heart, not right.”
The emotional stress that Chellan is under is starkly visible in his expression as he recounts the events. Keenly aware of his own emotional turmoil but with no outlet to express his feelings, he has turned to prayer, he tells us, visiting temples in an attempt to seek solace and strength.
He feels unjustly treated: he was just trying to look out for his co-workers, but now he is shunted into a police investigation.
At another level, Chellan’s story raises a question about witness intimidation. Injury reporting processes are supposed to improve safety and encourage accountability. Yet, Chellan’s experience suggests the possibility that employers can pervert an accident investigation and fair handling of an injury claim. Perhaps we need to reconsider the definition of safety to include the people who become involved in the pursuit of accountability.
Four months after losing his job and being put under police investigation, Chellan heard from the police that the case has been closed. No further action will be taken and he is free to look for another job in Singapore. This however does not change the fact that he has lost income for four months due to what now looks like spurious allegations.
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