Alleged mistreatment by employers have led to riots in Malaysia by foreign workers, various news sources are reporting. Most serious was what happened on Tuesday night (26 August 2014) in the Malaysian state of Johor. As reported by Malaysian newspaper The Star: Some 800 workers of a factory here set fire to the building Tuesday
Tay Li Nah, 39, an employer of a domestic worker, was sentenced to four weeks' imprisonment after pleading guilty to kicking Saedatun Fandilah repeatedly on her buttocks, thighs and abdomen at about 12.30am on 5 Feb 2013. This was reported in the Straits Times, 27 August 2014. Five hours later, Saedatun, in a bid to escape, removed
Further to the feature on poor accommodation for foreign workers in the Straits Times 19 August 2014 mentioned earlier in Cost implications of government policies crucial to question fo foreign worker accommodation, TWC2 vice-president Alex Au's letter to the Forum editor was published on Monday 25 August 2014: Salary non-payment a big issue for migrant
The Straits Times recently carried a story about foreign worker accommodation. Unfortunately, it didn't get to the heart of the matter: the way government policies affect cost and affordability considerations. The newspaper's 19 August 2014 story spoke about the rising number of vacancies at purpose-built dormitories. There are about 5,000 vacancies, said the story, though
Buried within a press release by the Ministry of Manpower dated 19 June 2014, and titled Computer firm director charged for false declaration of salaries, was a paragraph pertaining to the Woolim case that TWC2 highlighted in earlier articles. The paragraph provides a conclusion to the case, saying: More recently on 17 June 2014, Woolim
This letter by TWC2 immediate past president John Gee was published in the Straits Times on 14 July 2014: ---- Get to the bottom of unfair maid placement fees The imposition of considerable placement costs on domestic workers by many employment agencies has, regrettably, been a common practice since 1998 ("Any breach of maids' fee
A letter by Debbie Fordyce of TWC2 was published in the print section of the Straits Times 17 July 2014. It was a follow-on to a letter by Migrant Workers' Centre, which in turn was a response to an article by Radha Basu in the Sunday Times of 6 July. --- Why foreign workers are
"COI into Little India riot suggests sensible and practical ways to improve their lives " says the subheader to a column by journalist Radha Basu in the Sunday Times of 6 July 2014. The article focussed on the recommendations contained in the Report of the Committee of Inquiry (into the recent riot) to improve the situation
In her column published 6 July 2014 in the Sunday Times, Radha Basu highlighted the fact that many foreign workers in Singapore are still being paid at the ridiculous rate of $2 per hour. In preparing her article, she was provided evidence of this by Transient Workers Count Too, in the form of a pay
Recommended by the Committee of Inquiry (COI) into the Little India riot in its report released on Monday, 30 June 2014: the possibility of making services and amenities available to workers outside of areas prone to congregation i.e. Little India, thereby reducing possibilities of problematic events altogether. The COI stance, as reported in TODAY (4
