Interesting updates related to migrant worker issues
TWC2 is proud that that we have many long-standing members. But the drawback is that your email addresses may have changed over time. We need to do a verification exercise, and we seek your cooperation to ensure that our membership register is up-to-date. This is particularly as, with the help of students at the Singapore
Islam Rafiqul's case was highlighted in a full-page story in the Straits Times 19 January 2017. Headlined "Labour Court can't make employer pay", it described this Bangladeshi worker's plight, having been owed over $7,363 in unpaid wages. His case went through the usual channels at the Ministry of Manpower, resulting in him winning a Labour
The Straits Times reported, 1 December 2016, a coroner's finding that Kabir Mohammad Faysal, 29, had been electrocuted while using a water jet to clean the floor at a housing estate. The motor of the jet had not been grounded and he was barefoot as he did his job. The Straits Times reported: In his findings
The Straits Times reported that Ng Boon Cheng, managing director of Lian Lee Wooden Case Maker Co (above, in ST pic), was fined $60,000 on 22 November 2016 for collecting kickbacks from his foreign workers. The story came out in the newspaper's 23 November online edition. The newspaper reported that: Ng pleaded guilty to collecting
One of the most striking facts coming out of the currently ongoing zika virus outbreak in Singapore is that the initial cases seemed to have been concentrated at one construction site in the Sims Drive area. Of the first 41 confirmed cases, 36 were workers at the Sims Oasis project (pictured above). Within a week
In a significant law change, Kuwait now permits a foreign worker to switch employer, without the previous employer's consent, if the worker has worked three years. According to a Kuwait Times's story dated 6 June 2016, decree 378/2016 "amended article 6 of decree 842/2015 regarding transferring workers from one employer to another". "The employee can
The Straits Times reported from court that Muhammad Hidayat Abdul Rahman, 41, was sentenced to six months in jail for dumping Myo Min Aung, 28, in a back alley, after the latter fell from a height of 11.7m. Myo and another Burmese national Min Aung Myat Min were working illegally for Hidayat. The accident occurred around midnight
On 13 May 2016, a report in the Straits Times said that "Companies found lacking in workplace safety and health standards will now face stiffer penalties, including a longer minimum period in which they have to stop work." "Stop-work orders will now last at least three weeks, up from two previously. Companies slapped with a
Below are two screenshots of Facebook postings (7 April 2016) by Jolovan Wham, executive director of the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME). What they clearly show is that the practice of forcibly repatriating migrant workers, sometimes without even paying them their salary, continues to this day. His reference to "walking time bomb" is related to
Denise Phua, member of parliament (People's Action Party, Jalan Besar) became alarmist when speaking in the chamber during the Committee of Supply debate, 6 April 2016. As reported in the Straits Times (7 April edition): This generated much adverse comment on social media. There was quick commentary in The Mothership (Denise Phua had a foot-in-mouth
