Interesting updates related to migrant worker issues
The Straits Times reported that employment agents in Myanmar are encouraging young women to lie about their ages in order to work in Singapore as domestic workers. Currently, Singapore requires a person to be at least 23 years old for the domestic work sector, and the onus is on employment agents here to ensure this
Details are beginning to emerge about the accident that happened in the Bugis area on Wednesday, 18 July 2012. The two workers from mainland China who perished were reported to be have been under a mould into which wet concrete was being poured. They were there to check for leaks as the tons of concrete
There is a rising trend in work injury claims, reported the Straits Times on 16 July 2012. Figures from the Ministry of Manpower show that more people have been making injury claims through the Work Injury and Compensation Act (Wica) over the past three years. Last year, 12,768 claims were made, compared to 12,288 in
In Parliament on Monday, 8 July 2012, Minister of State for Manpower Tan Chuan-jin defended the current policy of requiring employers to provide medical insurance, so that such costs do not burden the local taxpayer. Otherwise, he said, "that would be unfair to society at large". "[T]he government has to ensure that foreign workers' medical
A 19-year-old worker from India was killed and 18 others injured after the lorry they were in was involved in a head-on collision with another lorry on Tuesday, 3 July 2012, reported the Straits Times. He had been working in Singapore for only five months. Mr Kathiravan and three others were flung out from the
A Ministry of Finance official wrote to the Forum pages of the Straits Times to say that about ten percent of Work Permit holders pad income tax in 2011. The short letter is given here in full: Work permit holders, such as domestic helpers, are generally semi-skilled or unskilled ('Provide figures on work permit holders
Falling from heights has claimed the life of an eighth domestic worker this year. An Indonesian maid fell to her death from the ninth floor of a Woodlands flat on Thursday (26 April 2012) at about 6:20 pm, reported the Straits Times (28 April 2012, Yet another maid falls to her death, by Cherie Thio),
Minister of state for community development, youth and sports, Halimah Yacob, called on employers not to insist that domestic workers clean the outside of windows. She was responding to reporters' questions about the seven maids who had fallen to their deaths so far this year while cleaning windows or hanging out the laundry. Her words
The new Settling-in-Programme (SIP) for first-time domestic workers will kick in from May 1, reported the Straits Times on April 14, 2012. The compulsory programme replaces a controversial entry test which many first-time maids find hard to pass because of their weak command of the English language. The workers must attend the course before their work
Speaking to reporters, the secretary-general of the Natioanl Trades Union Congress (NTUC), Lim Swee Say, said "'Today, our challenge is that we are too foreign worker-centric." This was reported in the Straits Times on April 14, 2012. Lim, who is also a minister without portfolio, added, "I, as secretary-general, feel that we need to get
