Lim Seong Ong, director of Asia Link Marine Industries, was sentenced to eight weeks' imprisonment for inflating the number of local employees he had, in order to secure a larger number of work permits for foreign workers. The number of foreign workers a company can hire is linked to the number of local employees it
Challenging themselves to "do good famously", three interns from British advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty Limited (BBH) came up with the idea of having one of them, Ian Napier, live and work as a migrant worker for a short while, and report on what it feels like to be one in Singapore. His colleagues Mark
Every person has multiple talents; migrant workers too. At TWC2's celebration of International Migrants Day (IMD), some of these hidden talents came to the fore. Members of the Indonesian Family Network (IFN), Filipino Family Network (FFN) and guests from Resorts World Singapore and elsewhere came forward to show off different sides of their personalities in
The Straits Times published an article reporting a complaint against a website (Employing a maid in Singapore) that carries employers’ allegations against domestic workers, along with their details. Former TWC2 president, John Gee, wrote to the paper and the letter was published on December 3, 2011, with notable cuts that change the letter’s tone. This
Starting in mid-2012, foreign workers taking on domestic work in Singapore will have to undergo a course known as the Settling-in Programme (SIP), announced Minister of State for Manpower, Tan Chuan-jin. The ministry's press release on this matter can be found here. The SIP will incorporate the existing Safety Awareness Course, but will include new
The above was the headline for a feature story carried in the Sunday Times, 4 December 2011, about romantic relationships between foreign workers in Singapore. The newspaper's reporters trawled Lucky Plaza and Little India over two Sundays and reported that "foreign men and women holding hands were a common sight." Taking up a full page,
December 1, 2011 For immediate release Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) welcomes the sentencing guidelines laid out by Justice V K Rajah in his written decision issued last week in Lee Chiang Theng vs Public Prosecutor. Justice Rajah said that "employers who persistently fail to discharge their legal responsibilities towards foreign workers will ordinarily have
In response to Straits Times' editorial following remarks by Justice V K Rajah dismissing the appeal of Lee Chiang Theng who had mistreated over 600 migrant workers, TWC2 president Russell Heng sent this letter to the newspaper editors on November 30, 2011: --- Dear Straits Times, I welcome your editorial remarks on abusive employers of
In a commentary published by socio-political website The Online Citizen (TOC), Jolovan Wham criticised the Ministry of Manpower's (MOM) ineffectual moves with respect to abuses committed by repatriation companies. Link to article. It is not clear however, whether Wham was writing in his personal capacity or as Executive Director of HOME (Humanitarian Organisation for Migration
The Indonesian government is launching a scheme to help Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore with salaries during their first few months here. The scheme, known as People Business Credit for Indonesian Migrant Workers, will be managed by Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) and overseen by the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs in Indonesia, said Mr Fahmi
