News and opinions in the public domain and TWC2’s response
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
The subject of paying for medical treatment needed by foreign workers came up in a letter by a Jeffrey Law published by the Straits Times in its online edition on March 14, 2012. Below it is the reply by the Ministry of Manpower, followed by a letter by Debbie Fordyce, a member of TWC2's executive
The term 'placement fees' will, after May 1, 2012, only include the cost of medical check-ups, document processing and charges by Indonesian training centres, unlike currently where the term includes fees by recruitment agencies and other middlemen. This change will mean lowering placement fees from about $3,000 currently to about $1,600 for first-time maids and
The New Paper published a laudable background feature on domestic maids from the Philippines and Indonesia on Monday, March 26, 2012. In the three-page spread by lead writer Amanda Phua, the story described their pre-Singapore lives back in their villages where electricity is a luxury and modern household appliances unknown. It shows how hard the
The Ministry of Manpower’s extension of the maximum period of employment of work permit holders from six to ten years is a move in the right direction (See http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/Pages/PressReleasesDetail.aspx?listid=415). Like the ministry, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) believes that improving the skill levels and productivity of foreign workers should be a key aim. This move,
In a statement issued March 26, 2012, the Ministry of Manpower announced that work permit holders from "non-traditional sources" such as Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand, as well as from China, can be employed for a maximum of ten years, up from six years previously. The statement can be seen at http://www.mom.gov.sg/newsroom/Pages/PressReleasesDetail.aspx?listid=415 The ministry
Shokkanarayanan Ramakrishnan, 43, was sentenced to four weeks' jail for abetting a false declaration as part of an S-Pass scam. The Permanent Resident was then an employment agent with Islets Solutions Pte Ltd, and had helped an employer (not named in the Channel NewsAsia story, March 26, 2012) "to falsely over-declare the monthly salaries of
