There is a rising trend in work injury claims, reported the Straits Times on 16 July 2012.
Figures from the Ministry of Manpower show that more people have been making injury claims through the Work Injury and Compensation Act (Wica) over the past three years.
Last year, 12,768 claims were made, compared to 12,288 in 2010 and 11,431 the year before.
Most of the these accidents took place in industrial areas. Although accidents in office settings accounted for only a tiny fraction – less than 0.4 per cent – of incidents, one such case made headlines last month, when a sales executive took her former boss to court after she suffered a fall at work.
— Straits Times, 16 July 2012, More making work injury claims, by Cheryl Ong
The newspaper report also noted that under the Work Injury Compensation Act, which came into force in 2008, employees seeking compensation do not need to prove the accident was their bosses’ fault, but the compensation that employers may be liable to pay is also capped.
Under a different law, the Workplace Safety and Health Act, a boss who fails to keep his workplace safe can be fined up to $200,000, jailed up to two years, or both. Fines are capped at $500,000.
However, nowhere in the news story was it mentioned that most likely the majority of work injury compensation claims originate from foreign workers, although TWC2 has not seen any hard data from MOM. Migrant workers far outnumber Singaporeans in the dirty and dangerous jobs in construction and the marine sectors and also found in manufacturing where they come into close proximity with heavy machinery. As a result these workers are most at risk.