"He crushed and crumpled the leaflet in his fist and threw it away," said the young volunteer, visibly distressed by the rejection she had just encountered. "He said, 'All this no use. My friend [will] never walk again.'" Most of the time, when our volunteers fan out on our monthly outreach event, they are received
For the record, we place here the relevant part of the Parliamentary minutes from the sitting of Monday, 11 May 2015. Sanctions against employers who withhold wages for foreign employees Mr Hri Kumar Nair asked the Minister for Manpower whether the Ministry will consider stronger sanctions against employers who fail to pay, or wrongfully withhold,
The New York Times has an exposé on Step Up Marine, a manning agency operating out of Singapore's Chinatown, and its network of recruiters in neighbouring countries. Young men are deceived and entrapped into horrendously abusive jobs on fishing trawlers, including Eril Andrade who died at sea. Court papers in the Philippines point the finger clearly
In the much acclaimed 1948 Italian movie of the same name, the protagonist searches for his stolen bike, the bike that he needs to keep his job to help his family escape from poverty in post-World War 2 Italy. Arman, the protagonist of this story who came to work in Singapore to help lift his
Qatar's new regulations requiring employers to pay migrant workers via bank accounts will take effect in November 2015. This puts the country ahead of Singapore, where our Ministry of Manpower is not addressing a widespread weakness. Here, employers can choose to pay employees in cash, and it is fairly common for employees to report that whilst
TWC2 has recently learned from a migrant worker organisation in Taiwan that the regulations there make a clear distinction between a domestic worker and a caretaker. The job of domestic workers is to look after young children. They are employed by families with at least one child under the age of six and are forbidden to
TWC2 is seeking collaborators to help us undertake research on Singapore's Labour Court system at the Ministry of Manpower, specifically procedures and practices relating to the salary and injury claims of migrant workers. Research will include a review of legislation and legislative history governing salary and injury claims in Labour Court and an overview of
Our annual benefit event -- Lunch with Heart -- will be held on Sunday 13 December 2015. Tickets are now available at$80 each. Even if you cannot make it, it would be great if you could purchase tickets and donate them back. Each donated ticket will be used to sponsor a worker to a wonderful
With the 2014 statistics now out on the Ministry of Manpower's website, a steady rise in workplace injuries can be seen through the five-year period 2010 to 2014. Here are the key numbers: These figures are shown in the bar chart below: It is not clear how "major injuries" are determined and differentiated from "minor
Statement by Transient Workers Count Too On 28 September 2015, Singapore acceded to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (UN TIP Protocol), often known as the Palermo Protocol. This is the key international legal instrument for combatting trafficking. Though just over 15 years old, it has
