TWC2 volunteer Meera Rajah assisted a worker as he struggled to sort out his injury case after having things messed up by a law firm. This is Meera's detailed account of how the mess came about and what she had to do to help him. It shines a spotlight into an area not often discussed:
By Seema Punwani Uzzal's world stopped on 28 Oct 2013. It was the day he found himself locked in a room, alone, injured and his documents taken away from him. What could he, a foreign worker from Bangladesh, have possibly done to warrant this kind of inhumane treatment? He had an accident at the shipyard
By Stéphanie Psarski It is sad, how some humans can treat other humans. On 26 July 2014, construction worker Hossan slipped on oil and landed heavily on his back. The company doctor gave him Panadol and two days' medical leave. But at the end of the two days, the pain was still very bad, he
This paper by Meera Rajah, a young volunteer helping out with case documentation and follow-up, provides a good summary of the issues that migrant workers commonly face. It is however, not just a descriptive summary, but delves into the reasons why things are as they are, putting the finger on the inequality of bargaining power.
This is a four-part story about four workers whose employer's behaviour appears to have crossed a few red lines relating to trafficking in persons. Five months after Monir Bhuiyan and three others lodged their salary complaints against their employer J S Metal Pte Ltd, the company was still in business, presumably with good cashflow and
Continued from Part 1. This second part of the JS Metal saga shows up defects in the Ministry of Manpower's processes. From the many cases that TWC2 has seen, it appears that these defects spring mainly from the heroic assumption that when a case of salary non-payment or underpayment arises, it's a "labour relations" dispute
Continued from part 2. Part 1 narrated what happened when Monir Bhuiyan, Titu, Mahi Uddin and Shahjahan came to Singapore for their jobs at JS Metal Pte Ltd. They had each been offered $550 a month as basic salary. This was documented in the In-Principle Approval letters (IPA) issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM)
Continued from part 3. TWC2 stayed in contact off and on with the four men from JS Metal Pte Ltd through the months following the lodging of their claims at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). For a while they had some work, all at temporary jobs "make furniture" with Delco Art Interior Decoration, located at Kallang
TWC2 has received two research reports from the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit which is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They make for sober reading. In one of them, titled Labour migration from Bangladesh 2013 report, some interesting statistics are provided. Singapore was the second most popular destination country in 2013, with 60,057 work migrants
Buried within an announcement about a new minimum percentage of higher-skilled workers in construction firms, the Ministry of Manpower also announced that work permit construction workers will be able to move to new jobs at the end of their work permit periods without first having to go home. This new policy will take effect from
