Shobus never would have agreed to a job that promised only $9 a day. But of course that’s not what he was promised before he came. He was told that he would earn $800 to $900 a month for working 8:00am to 7:00pm. He dreamed of how much he would earn by adding a few
By the time a foreign worker comes to Transient Workers Count Too seeking help, he most likely would have been kicked out of company-provided accommodation. For many of the men we help, shelter is a cramped, stuffy room in tenement housing -- that's if they are lucky enough or rich enough to afford bedspace in
TWC2 community worker Kenneth Soh together with five volunteers devoted a Sunday afternoon distributing information leaflets in the Geylang area, targeting workers from China. Four of the volunteers are in the header image above (left to right): Chan Weng Hong, Guo Quanzhi, Serena Tan and Chou Yahuei. Chloe and Kenneth are not in the picture.
By Rahul Advani Even before the start of my interview with Al Amin Kuddus, 24, he looked uncomfortable. “I have a boil under my arm” he tells me. “The pain is so strong I cannot even sleep”. As I ask him to lift his arm, he winces, hissing deeply at the pain. How he developed
It has recently come to Transient Workers Count Too's attention that a clause in the Income Tax Act that refers to withholding tax may apply to low-wage migrant workers. Workers who are terminated prematurely and who, as a result, have worked and stayed less than 183 days in Singapore would be considered "non-residents". The Income
Volunteer case workers are sometimes confused as to how salaries of work permit holders (other than domestic workers) should be calculated. This is understandable because methods used by employers differ widely, and most times, the chosen method violates the law. Yet, because volunteers may see so many incorrect ways to calculate salaries, they begin to
A worker approaching Transient Workers Count Too for help at our free meals programme would have his case catergorised as a "Company case" if the source of his difficulty is the behaviour of his employer. The most common misdeed would be to delay payment of salaries or to undercalculate. Other misdeeds that we see regularly
Hossain is angry. He is among a group of Bangledeshi workers scammed out of around S$250,000 by an elaborate ruse to lure desperate migrants into overseas jobs that don’t exist. It’s happened many times before. A group of more than 50 Bangledeshi workers – Hossain among them – were duped into handing over instalments of
Graphs by Debbie Fordyce with additional reporting by Alex Au As can be seen from the graph at Cuff Road Project 2011: Types of cases seen, Transient Workers Count Too saw an average of 65 new cases of injured workers each month at our soup kitchen in 2011. Most of the time, we saw the
It's never easy sitting across a table from someone who is distraught. As a non-profit organisation, we do not have legal powers to help; we can only assist with advice and by communicating with the rightful authorities on a worker's behalf, but in this case, Tian Jingjing's tale was that she had tried those avenues
