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The Lives of Others – an investigation into the issues faced by S-Pass holders
This is an investigative report by Jamie Lin Weirong, based on interviews with five S-Pass holders, originally from the Philippines. They work in different trades: retail, catering, and project design and management, but together they sketch out the issues faced by S-Pass holders. These include a difficult-to-understand hiring process, an
Migrant dreams extinguished on the road
Two months, before he was due to leave Singapore, Mahalingam Rajesh was looking forward to marrying his fiancee and starting afresh in his homeland. Moving back to India, his dream was to set up a fish farm and settle down – a world away from the dusty construction sites he’d
Not one among 500 workers could read his IPA
"How many of you received the Chinese-language version of the letter from your employment agent?" asked TWC2 social worker Kenneth Soh soon after commencing his talk to Chinese workers. He was referring to the Ministry of Manpower's In-principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA), a document that a worker had
Kamru worked more than two months, paid for only ten days
By Fuxiong Prior to coming to work in Singapore from Bangladesh, Kamruzzaman took a two-and-a-half month training course in thermal insulation. Expecting to work in a trade he trained for, here in Singapore, he was told his job was to hack concrete. When he protested that his hands hurt, "my
Chinese workers confused what went in or out of their pay
Zhang Bo (left), Zhao Shougui (middle) and Wang Qingshan (right) thought they had a simple problem when they came to Transient Workers Count Too. However, when we looked into their case, it became obvious that there were complications. In fact, the men may be luckier than they realised. Things could
Difference in medical leave raises question about standard of care
By Danielle Despite first-class medical practitioners and technology in Singapore, some injured workers complain that they do not even get a reasonable standard of care. Moniruzzaman's story suggests that employers' desire to limit costs and reduce their exposure to work safety investigation by regulators can trump doing the right thing for
Slow start to male domestic workers
The Sunday Times featured a newly-hired male domestic worker from Myanmar on its 12 May 2013 edition. 31-year-old Lum Hkawng comes from Kachin state in northern Myanmar. The former steel welder, who speaks Mandarin, is working for a partially-handicapped man in his 50s who was injured in a traffic accident.
Employer claims our article contains ‘too many . . . untruthfulness’
On 26 March 2013, we received an email from Wang Fatt Oil & Gas Construction Pte Ltd (a member of E S Goup Holdings), the former employer of Pastula Venkata Ramana, saying that several statements in our article about his case (link here) were incorrect. The company said in the email that
Worker claims breathing difficulties from dusty work environment, MOM says illness not work-related
By YC Loh Picture your workplace being five to seven metres underground and just a few metres wide, inside a one-and-a-half kilometre long drain under a road. The only source of ventilation is via mechanical means which prove inadequate. The air you breathe is saturated with dust particles, which is so
Response to complaint about our ‘demonise’ article
Transient Workers Count Too received a complaint about a post on this website about Singapore mums using blogs to vent about their maids. The blogger, Expat Bostonians, has written a rebuttal here. Her point was that she never intended to demonise domestic helpers and that it was unfair to her