News > Our Stand
Singapore accedes to the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol
Statement by Transient Workers Count Too On 28 September 2015, Singapore acceded to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (UN TIP Protocol), often known as the Palermo Protocol. This is the key international legal instrument for combatting trafficking. Though just over
TWC2 urges stop work orders when haze PSI crosses 200
Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) is gravely concerned that current bad haze conditions will affect the health of workers in many trades, e.g. construction, marine, sanitation, landscaping. TWC2 strongly urges the government to impose a mandatory Stop Work Order when 3-hour average PSI readings, issued hourly, exceed 200, or when
MOM gives excuse that workers can always request for wages through bank
Following TWC2's letter in the Straits Times Forum, 17 June 2015, Ensure pay is banked, offer mobility, the Ministry of Manpower's response was published on 23 June 2015 Electronic payments mandatory upon foreign workers' request Mr Alex Au suggested that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) mandate electronic payment of salaries
Section 22B of EFMA: a deficient law
The story "Cannot sleep.... I remember my wife's crying" described the injustice done to Bangladeshi worker Humaun. He came to Singapore for a promised job only to be told there was none for him. The job offer had been properly documented through an In-principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA)
Ensure pay is banked, offer (job) mobility
Published in the Straits Times Forum, 17 June 2015: --- FOREIGN WORKERS' WAGE WOES Ensure pay is banked, offer mobility Sunday's report ("More foreign workers seek help over wage woes") mentioned that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will be making it mandatory for employers to issue itemised payslips next year.
MOM to require salary slips from 2016?
Buried within a news story in the Sunday Times (More foreign workers seek help over wage woes, 14 June 2015) was this sentence: Next year, employers must issue itemised payslips and provide written key employment terms, to prevent salary disputes, MOM said. A check at the ministry's website does not
TWC2 submits UPR shadow report to UN Human Rights
Once in four years, each member state of the United Nations is subject to peer review with respect to its human rights record. The Singapore government will appear before this process, known as Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in Geneva, in January 2016. In the lead-up to this process, the UN
The Right to Rest: The effectiveness of the ‘day off’ legislation for foreign domestic workers
Government legislation has helped improve foreign domestic workers’ access to compensation in lieu of a day off, but 59% of foreign domestic workers in Singapore still do not get a weekly day off. To mark International Domestic Workers’ Day (16 June 2015), Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) publishes a new
To solve salary non-payments, underlying factors must be addressed too
A typical day in TWC2's office. Foreground: six workers owed 4 months' pay, calculating their owed amounts including overtime. Rear: five workers from a different company waiting to consult with TWC2's social worker. They had come to Singapore with MOM's approval for a job, only to be told by
Kickbacks in the news: MWC urges workers to complain; reader retorts: “unlikely to work”
In the wake of the sentencing of a construction company boss for demanding kickbacks from his employees (see news story in Today newspaper, thumbnail at right), the Straits Times had a story about his unsavoury practice on 13 April 2015. The Straits Times noted that extortionate demands are typically made