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Which caused Rashed more suffering: the accident or the lawyer?
TWC2 volunteer Meera Rajah assisted a worker as he struggled to sort out his injury case after having things messed up by a law firm. This is Meera's detailed account of how the mess came about and what she had to do to help him. It shines a spotlight into
With injured knee, Uzzal crawls under barbed wire to escape company ‘jail’
By Seema Punwani Uzzal's world stopped on 28 Oct 2013. It was the day he found himself locked in a room, alone, injured and his documents taken away from him. What could he, a foreign worker from Bangladesh, have possibly done to warrant this kind of inhumane treatment? He had
Condition for getting treatment? Don’t tell doctor it was a work accident
By Stéphanie Psarski It is sad, how some humans can treat other humans. On 26 July 2014, construction worker Hossan slipped on oil and landed heavily on his back. The company doctor gave him Panadol and two days' medical leave. But at the end of the two days, the pain
Bhuiyan and friends defeated
This is a four-part story about four workers whose employer's behaviour appears to have crossed a few red lines relating to trafficking in persons. Five months after Monir Bhuiyan and three others lodged their salary complaints against their employer J S Metal Pte Ltd, the company was still in business,
Bhuiyan and friends defeated, part 2
Continued from Part 1. This second part of the JS Metal saga shows up defects in the Ministry of Manpower's processes. From the many cases that TWC2 has seen, it appears that these defects spring mainly from the heroic assumption that when a case of salary non-payment or underpayment arises,
Bhuiyan and friends defeated, part 3
Continued from part 2. Part 1 narrated what happened when Monir Bhuiyan, Titu, Mahi Uddin and Shahjahan came to Singapore for their jobs at JS Metal Pte Ltd. They had each been offered $550 a month as basic salary. This was documented in the In-Principle Approval letters (IPA) issued by
Bhuiyan and friends defeated, part 4
Continued from part 3. TWC2 stayed in contact off and on with the four men from JS Metal Pte Ltd through the months following the lodging of their claims at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). For a while they had some work, all at temporary jobs "make furniture" with Delco Art
Forced to sign blank salary vouchers as soon as they take up their jobs
By Ashley Frois Salary disputes and unpaid wages are, unfortunately, common issues plaguing our foreign workers, but Shoriful Islam’s case stands out in particular. He and his colleagues are seasoned workers in Singapore, but on arrival earlier this year for their current job, were forced to sign empty salary vouchers.
The more we talked the more we discovered
By Jennifer Parenteau Mohamed Ariful sits down beside me and begins to tell me his story. At first it seems like a simple case of improper calculation of his medical leave wages, but as we talk it reveals much more than that! In June 2014, Ariful was working for the
Big hole in ground dug with big hole in worker’s pay
Yeusof (not his real name) knew there was something wrong with his monthly pay slip from Hyundai Engineering & Construction when he showed up for breakfast at TWC2's Cuff Road Project one morning in September 2014. He was quite sure his employer had underpaid him, showing us his documents so