By TK Khurshed, a migrant worker who had injured his back eight months ago, shared bashfully: “I am going to write a letter and send the photos to my wife.” This would be his very first letter home after working in Singapore for three years! He wants to share this “good-good and everything-very-nice” Gardens by
By Danielle The two make a striking pair – young men with slicked hair, tattoos and ear studs to boot. Pals from Khalsa College in Amritsar, in shirts and jeans, you would have mistaken them for undergraduates anywhere. Except that Manbir Singh (left) and Jhorar Hardeep Singh (right) aren’t in Singapore for leisure. They are migrant
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 foreman, he from behind kick
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 another human being. It also
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 stifling that after every ten
With additional reporting by Lee Kah Ghim (Nur E Alam) and Tan Ruoqi (Nur Mohammad) Some stories we hear from workers come in fragments and it is hard to fully understand what's going on with their cases. The stories are also so divergent that one wonders if there are consistent policies or processes in place
By YC Loh I winced as the young man showed me his mangled left forefinger -- an injury that may cause him and his family much financial hardship in the future. Sooriyamoorthy Senthilkumar arrived in Singapore from Tamil Nadu on 30 May 2012 to work as a gardener. Over the next few months, he worked
By Davina Tham When eighteen workers demanded the four months' salaries that were owed to them, their boss told them that they would only receive the money if they first signed a “condition paper”, says Mohammed Anisuzzaman (striped shirt). "But never show paper," he adds, indicating that they were upset to be asked to agree to
On 26 November 2012, 171 bus drivers from SMRT Corp did not turn up for work. Many of them did the same again the following day. Acting Minister for Manpower Tan Chuan-jin called it an "illegal strike" saying that public transport services had been classed as "essential services". Five drivers were charged with criminal offences
By Suresh When Khairul intervened to pacify two co-workers having an altercation, the boss, who had been watching all this while, suddenly came forward and pushed Khairul flat to the ground. He mounted Khairul’s chest and attempted to strangle him. The poor worker did not have a clue why all this was happening. For days
