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Homeless in the rainy season
Shah Alam hopes to go home soon. It's better than staying on in Singapore, sleeping on the streets. "Now raining season, got big problem for me," he says. "Even at night not raining, floor also wet." To wash himself each day, he depends on the kindness of a restaurant
Another wave of unhappy workers from Lian Shing
By Benjamin Wong Ilias Mir Anisur (above left) and Badal Barai (right) are part of the third group of workers from the same company, Lian Shing Construction Co Pte Ltd, to approach TWC2 for help. Despite so many workers lodging complaints with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) over a 12-month
Falling from tall ladder, all he gets is a massage
By Nigel Lin He gives us a big smile now, but in the evening of 12 May 2012, he lay writhing in pain after a nasty fall off the top rungs of his ladder -- a scene like this and you would expect this poor soul to be receiving medical
“Pay me $650 a month or I’ll cancel your work permit”
By Asha R He came to make a living, but ended up thousands of dollars poorer. Rony Nurul Islam, 36, is a quiet man with an easy smile, but get him talking about how he ended up in TWC2's soup kitchen, and the frustration starts pouring out of him. Rony
For employers, the law is optional — is this MOM’s policy?
Anowar Hossain (above right) was financially desperate ten months after the accident at his worksite. He had been terminated from his shipyard job and received no income since. To pay for food and lodgings, he relied on borrowing. At some point, even friends and relatives tired of lending money without
Piety and the worker
By Benjamin Wong It is seven in the evening. The crowd at the TWC2's Cuff Road meal project starts to pick up and workers slowly stream towards the restaurant. They wait in queue, decked out in varied attire -- some are in jeans, others in bermudas, with their t-shirts and
Boss refuses to heed court order to pay $69k injury compensation
Uzzal’s injury happened like this. On 9 June 2010, he was working on a project in an HDB flat, hacking away floor and wall tiles in a bathroom. The vibration from the hacking machine caused his safety glasses to slip off allowing a chip of tiling to rocket into his
Two workers, broke and in debt, speak to Today in video
In this video, Today newspaper interviewed two Bangladeshi workers suffering because they are receiving no income, when they have borrowed money to come here. Below is a transcription of what's said in the video that was uploaded onto Youtube on 4 January 2013. The accent can be quite thick and
Eight hours a day in ‘prison’ — I will go back to Myanmar, even if I have to starve there
[Webmaster: This story first appeared on the Facebook page "A maid's-eye view of Singapore employers". It is a distressing story, but it shows how some domestic workers suffer terribly. The story is said to be from a woman pseudonymed Soe Soe who has since left Singapore. Soe Soe told her
MOM tough on worker, lets employer run rings around laws
Workers put on Special Passes are not allowed to work; they receive stern warnings and punishment if caught doing so. Yet their employers are able to avoid paying medical leave wages and medical expenses, leaving the workers with no means of survival. A fall at a Tampines construction site on