Interesting updates related to migrant worker issues
In a historic move, Qatar abolished its kafala system in August 2020. Workers can now change jobs without having to get permission from current employers.
Banned from selling to the US, Top Glove has to compensate its migrant workers, losing half of 2019 after-tax profit as a result.
The world's largest producer of palm oil has its products banned from the US because of credible evidence of labour abuses.
There's an across-the-board fall in the number of low-wage migrant workers in Singapore through the first six months of 2020. Even domestic workers.
We have kept hundreds of thousands of workers in captivity for nearly six months. This is inhuman. Numbers of Covid-19 cases don't justify this anymore.
The minimum salary for S-Pass will be raised to $2,500 per month. That for Employment Pass to $4,500/month.
A 25-minute film about migrant workers on Italian farms: their wages, immigration status, payments to "gang-masters", despair and suicide.
Wkith Covid-19 restrictions continuing, foreign worker levy waivers are further extended, as are rebates. But only for certain sectors and types of employees.
Covid-19 stats from India and Bangladesh don't look good. Expect ti to remain difficult to bring workers from there. That means those who are already here should be allowed to stay.
With support from Facebook and Community Foundation of Singapore, TWC2 tops up migrant workers' phones in time for Eid al-fitr. In total, the campaign spent nearly $1 million to help about workers stuck in quarantine and lockdown.
