"Boss say I must not talking (tell others) how I accident," Alam recounts of the first hours after his forearm was torn open. "He say I must explain like this: (that) I go canteen to makan (eat), and I fall down there." "He tell other workers, nobody must talking." But when Alam Mahbubul finally got
By Zhan Nanxin In his third month on the job, it was ‘Tomorrow…. Tomorrow’. Then it became ‘Next week’ and gradually escalated to ‘Next month’. It's November now, and Islam Razibul has not received his pay since June 2015. He waited patiently for three months, but eventually lodged a complaint at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM)
By Saw Suhui When I first spot Rahabul, he is standing at a corner of a coffee shop, using a flimsy piece of tissue paper to cover the wound on his hand as his friend helps to translate his account of his unfortunate incident to a fellow volunteer. “Pain,” he says of his wound. Rahabul,
"He crushed and crumpled the leaflet in his fist and threw it away," said the young volunteer, visibly distressed by the rejection she had just encountered. "He said, 'All this no use. My friend [will] never walk again.'" Most of the time, when our volunteers fan out on our monthly outreach event, they are received
Transient Workers Count Too sees a relatively small number of Sri Lankans in the course of our work. There are far fewer of them in Singapore compared to Indians and Bangladeshis. Sri Lankans are an approved source for domestic work, construction and marine sectors, but except for women in the former, TWC2 can't recall seeing
By Jiang Haolie It is unthinkable to survive in Singapore earning just $227 a month, or $1.19 for every hour of backbreaking work. Bidut (not his real name), a reclamation worker is doing just that. For comparison, an indoor job at McDonalds would pay five to six dollars an hour; it would earn you Bidut's daily
By Jas Talukder Joynal approaches me hesitantly, yet he does not strike me as a man of low self-esteem. Clad in a brightly coloured checkered shirt, with a good trendy fit, he definitely cares about his appearance. His face is one that has not yet been marked with the hardships of life and I am a little
By William Chin You might think that a broken arm with 2 pins inserted would warrant a medical certificate (MC). Not so if you are treated by a certain Dr Tan -- TWC2 has her full name. Monir Shafi suffered a bad fall on 28 July 2015, which required treatment for his arm and back.
The New York Times has an exposé on Step Up Marine, a manning agency operating out of Singapore's Chinatown, and its network of recruiters in neighbouring countries. Young men are deceived and entrapped into horrendously abusive jobs on fishing trawlers, including Eril Andrade who died at sea. Court papers in the Philippines point the finger clearly
In the much acclaimed 1948 Italian movie of the same name, the protagonist searches for his stolen bike, the bike that he needs to keep his job to help his family escape from poverty in post-World War 2 Italy. Arman, the protagonist of this story who came to work in Singapore to help lift his
