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‘Foreign worker-centric focus poses challenge’, says NTUC head
Speaking to reporters, the secretary-general of the Natioanl Trades Union Congress (NTUC), Lim Swee Say, said "'Today, our challenge is that we are too foreign worker-centric." This was reported in the Straits Times on April 14, 2012. Lim, who is also a minister without portfolio, added, "I, as secretary-general, feel
Indonesian government changes maid hiring fee structure
The term 'placement fees' will, after May 1, 2012, only include the cost of medical check-ups, document processing and charges by Indonesian training centres, unlike currently where the term includes fees by recruitment agencies and other middlemen. This change will mean lowering placement fees from about $3,000 currently to about
Maximum period of employment for work permit holders extended to 10 years
In a statement issued March 26, 2012, the Ministry of Manpower announced that work permit holders from "non-traditional sources" such as Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as well as from China, can be employed for a maximum of ten years, up from six years previously. The statement can
Employment agent jailed for S-Pass scam
Shokkanarayanan Ramakrishnan, 43, was sentenced to four weeks' jail for abetting a false declaration as part of an S-Pass scam. The Permanent Resident was then an employment agent with Islets Solutions Pte Ltd, and had helped an employer (not named in the Channel NewsAsia story, March 26, 2012) "to falsely
Maid dies from 13-floor fall
Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Wanbao and the Straits Times reported that a domestic worker from Indonesia fell to her death on Saturday afternoon, March 17, 2012. She fell from her employer's home on the 13th floor of a flat in Pasir Ris Street 71. From the bamboo clothes pole found next
Levy rise of questionable benefit, says labour economics professor
In a side panel to an article in the Straits Times story on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 (Retire on CPF savings? Think again, by Radha Basu), associate professor Hui Weng Tat cautioned about the possibility of employers attempting to recover higher levy rates by lowering foreign worker wages, and urged greater
Underaged maid given 10 years for killing employer
Vitria Wahyuni was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by Justice Choo Han Teck for killing her employer, Madam Sng Gek Wah, 87, on November 25, 2009. The domestic worker, then aged 16, had been in the job for only four days when she strangled the older lady after
Concrete slab falls on worker, killing him
Masud al Manum met a tragic and untimely death when a concrete slab fell on him. He was operating an excavator three or four storeys deep inside a hole in the ground when the slab, measuring 4m by 2m, fell. It occurred at the construction site of the
Indranee Rajah takes Manpower ministry to task — audio and transcript
At the parliamentary sitting of Monday, March 5, 2012, the member for the Silat precinct of Tanjong Pagar group representation constituency, Indranee Rajah, spoke of what she recently discovered about the situation injured foreign workers found themselves in. Residents had complained about the large numbers of foreign workers
Boss housed workers in trash bin centres
Four foreign workers were made to live in a rubbish bin centre by their employer. However, to conceal this fact from the Ministry of Manpower, general manager Lim Jiun Wei, 38, and site manager Wan Kar Hou Francis, 32, made false declarations about the residential address of these employees. Today