By Rob Irene joins the queue to get her height measured. She is in a group of about 10 new arrivals from the Philippines packed into a training room to take the Ministry of Manpower’s mandatory Settling In Programme for domestic maids. Irene arrived from Manila last night and joins a group of about 20
By Spiegel Saddled with debt and stripped of his livelihood, Rahim (not his real name) feels his life hanging in the balance. A wage dispute last month prompted Rahim’s Singaporean employer to revoke his work permit without warning, casting the 28-year-old Bangladeshi out in the cold. It’s a bitter blow for the sole breadwinner to
By Suresh A ride sitting at the back of a truck in May this year was all it took to change the fate of Kashem Abul for worse. He's been working in Singapore for a total of 13 years, albeit for different companies. Only three months into his job with a new employer, Kashem was
By Lee Kah Ghim If you witnessed a man being punched in the eye by another, would you render assistance? What if the victim were a foreign worker, someone who belonged to a category of individuals Singaporeans so frequently look down upon; would you still help? It was an apparent ‘no’ for the people at
By Benjamin Wong Where do these out-of-job workers stay? This question is often asked. Hardly any of them are housed by their ex-employers, though in theory the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) expects employers to continue providing "upkeep and maintenance" until the worker is repatriated. But rare is the case when an employer actually does so.
This year alone, Transient Workers Count Too came across three workers who had sustained head injuries. In dealing with the emergency, a part of their skulls had to be removed. With only soft skin covering the unprotected part of the brain, they were left exposed to future injuries. These three stories relate to the commentary,
Shah Ali didn't have much choice when his one-year work permit came to an end. Having paid an employment agent about S$4,400 to get this job for him a year ago, he had still not recovered the investment. If he didn't get his work permit renewed and continued in the job, he would be in
Soman Murugappan worked hard for his diploma in electrical and electronics engineering, specialising in instrumentation and control. If he's lucky, he'll be getting a job as a cleaner. The 26-year-old from Tamil Nadu, India, came to Singapore in early April 2012. He had been given a job with an airconditioning piping company. Things went smoothly
By Nasreen Ramnath The steel beam fell away beneath his feet, and he was suddenly swinging like a pendulum in mid air. Holding on for dear life to a steel cable, he hung suspended 10 meters above a yawning pit. Terrified, he looked down and immediately shut his eyes to keep out the sight of
By Suresh Little did Bitdut Chandra know that he would have to endure a second crisis after the first. In March this year, the lanky 27-year-old from Dhaka seriously injured his right leg while at work. Six months on, he is still undergoing treatment at Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and walks with a slight limp. His
