By Shahnaz What does Mattaparthi Kumaraswamy have to show for the six years he has worked? Very little. When he goes back to India, he will have no savings, hardly any prospect of a job, yet there's an extended family to feed. Has he seen the sights of Singapore, gone shopping in Orchard, taken a holiday? The
An incentive to promote work safety backfired on Boomi Murugan. He was not allowed to see a doctor immediately after an injury because, according to the worker, the assistant manager wanted to win the annual award. Murugan worked for a hydrojetting company. Although he had a face shield on, five tiny metal pellets ricochetted into
By Marifel Mosquera Teresita (Terry) is the newly hired helper of Lim Family from the Province of Iloilo in the Philippines. Like most of the women who come to Singapore as domestic workers, she is looking to better her life and climb out of poverty. The film is about her relationship and struggle with one
By TK “The students had a blast!" said Professor Anju Mary Paul. "Their interactions with the workers both in Little India and today have fundamentally changed their views about migrant workers in Singapore.” Paul is from Yale-NUS College's Division of Social Sciences, and was speaking to TWC2 after the college hosted a visit by migrant
By Benjamin Wong Arumugam Ramachandran first came to Singapore four years ago. For three years Ramachandran worked injury free, but seven months ago, during a routine construction job, Ramachandran injured his knee. At first, he was unwilling to report it, and tried to carry on working, hoping the pain would go away eventually. For the
Once in a while, Transient Workers Count Too succeeds in helping a worker get everything that is due to him. Not only is the worker happy, so are we. Deliriously. But there was a month in which everything looked very bleak for Hazrat (not his real name). His employer had submitted salary vouchers with forged
By Max Ang The modern urban environment is a tough and unrelenting place where the simplest of needs is monetised. Money is needed in the exchange for basic necessities, such as food and shelter. Without it, one can starve amidst plenty. Such is the predicament of Perumal Thamilarasan. Two years into his job as a
By T K “Photo photo”, the men called out to the TWC2 volunteers to help take pictures, as they lined up beside the movie director, chests out, shoulders squared and faces to the lens. This was at the screening of "Television (2012)" by Bangladeshi film director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki. The film was among several in the listing
"You see my IPA," says Shipon as he leaves through a whole sheath of papers. "It say here my salary one month $650." The 'IPA' is the In-principle approval for a work permit and contains the terms of employment that the employer declares to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) at the time of applying for
For both groups -- those regularly working and those with injury and salary claims-- the threat of premature repatriation creates a lot of stress. It is the most important stress factor among working workers, and the second-most important, after being injured, among injured and salary-claim workers. Having uncleared debts incurred in agents fees also hung
