By Benjamin Wong It is seven in the evening. The crowd at the TWC2's Cuff Road meal project starts to pick up and workers slowly stream towards the restaurant. They wait in queue, decked out in varied attire -- some are in jeans, others in bermudas, with their t-shirts and polo-tees. Among them, one man
Uzzal’s injury happened like this. On 9 June 2010, he was working on a project in an HDB flat, hacking away floor and wall tiles in a bathroom. The vibration from the hacking machine caused his safety glasses to slip off allowing a chip of tiling to rocket into his right eye. He experienced immediate
In this video, Today newspaper interviewed two Bangladeshi workers suffering because they are receiving no income, when they have borrowed money to come here. Below is a transcription of what's said in the video that was uploaded onto Youtube on 4 January 2013. The accent can be quite thick and to help viewers, we've added
[Webmaster: This story first appeared on the Facebook page "A maid's-eye view of Singapore employers". It is a distressing story, but it shows how some domestic workers suffer terribly. The story is said to be from a woman pseudonymed Soe Soe who has since left Singapore. Soe Soe told her story to the webmaster of
Workers put on Special Passes are not allowed to work; they receive stern warnings and punishment if caught doing so. Yet their employers are able to avoid paying medical leave wages and medical expenses, leaving the workers with no means of survival. A fall at a Tampines construction site on 26 April 2012 left Ashraful
By Fuxiong It's my first interview with a migrant worker and I am feeling like I am thick in the head. After nearly half an hour I still cannot make sense of Mark's story. The company that hired him is not where he worked. The boss was not really the boss, but he was also
Rashedul isn’t typical of the men who leave Bangladesh for Singapore in search of wealth and fortune, and he would be the first to acknowledge that himself. He was in the middle of completing his bachelors degree in English literature at Jagganath University in Dhaka when, following his father’s advice, he left home to find
A horrible accident resulting in death and injury reveals an employer who provided unwavering support for his Bangladeshi worker. An accident between a double-decker bus Service Number 87 and a large tree-pruning vehicle left a 50-year-old male passenger dead and several others injured on Friday. The collision occurred along Chai Chee Street in Bedok. Police
By Benjamin Wong TWC2 volunteer Siva (above at right) is decked out in a black T-shirt, grey bermudas and sandals. On the table next to him sits a stack of boxes. A worker approaches him, and Siva hands him one from the stack. The worker takes the box and looks at Siva with a slightly
Some cases that come to Transient Workers Count Too are very complicated. Others, especially of serious injuries, are heart-breaking. But Zay Lay Tun's request was a simple one: He wants help to resign from his job in an orderly way. He has no idea how. "I want go home see my mother," he says. He's
