News and opinions in the public domain and TWC2’s response
Our annual benefit event -- Lunch with Heart -- will be held on Sunday 13 December 2015. Tickets are now available at$80 each. Even if you cannot make it, it would be great if you could purchase tickets and donate them back. Each donated ticket will be used to sponsor a worker to a wonderful
Statement by Transient Workers Count Too On 28 September 2015, Singapore acceded to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (UN TIP Protocol), often known as the Palermo Protocol. This is the key international legal instrument for combatting trafficking. Though just over 15 years old, it has
Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) is gravely concerned that current bad haze conditions will affect the health of workers in many trades, e.g. construction, marine, sanitation, landscaping. TWC2 strongly urges the government to impose a mandatory Stop Work Order when 3-hour average PSI readings, issued hourly, exceed 200, or when PM2.5 readings exceed 50 micrograms
The Straits Times carried a feature report 18 July 2015 about Bangladeshi estate cleaners living in trash collection centres, commonly referred to as 'bin centres'. Reporters visited eight such places across the island. The news story can be found by clicking the thumbnail below: Among the bin centres visited by the newspaper were two within
Following TWC2's letter in the Straits Times Forum, 17 June 2015, Ensure pay is banked, offer mobility, the Ministry of Manpower's response was published on 23 June 2015 Electronic payments mandatory upon foreign workers' request Mr Alex Au suggested that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) mandate electronic payment of salaries for foreign workers, and allow
The story "Cannot sleep.... I remember my wife's crying" described the injustice done to Bangladeshi worker Humaun. He came to Singapore for a promised job only to be told there was none for him. The job offer had been properly documented through an In-principle Approval for a Work Permit (IPA) from the Ministry of Manpower,
Kuwait's legislature passed two new laws recently to improve the conditions of domestic workers. One of the laws sets up a new type of company for recruiting domestic workers to replace the private companies that currently recruit domestic helpers. The new type of company cannot take any payments from the recruited workers. According to a statement
Published in the Straits Times Forum, 17 June 2015: --- FOREIGN WORKERS' WAGE WOES Ensure pay is banked, offer mobility Sunday's report ("More foreign workers seek help over wage woes") mentioned that the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will be making it mandatory for employers to issue itemised payslips next year. Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)
Buried within a news story in the Sunday Times (More foreign workers seek help over wage woes, 14 June 2015) was this sentence: Next year, employers must issue itemised payslips and provide written key employment terms, to prevent salary disputes, MOM said. A check at the ministry's website does not indicate any recent announcement on
Once in four years, each member state of the United Nations is subject to peer review with respect to its human rights record. The Singapore government will appear before this process, known as Universal Periodic Review (UPR), in Geneva, in January 2016. In the lead-up to this process, the UN Office of the High Commissioner
