By Eitan After a year of volunteering, I can now spot a new guy at our soup kitchen with little difficulty. Unlike the 'regulars' who know the drill -- present a meal card, sign into the registration book, get a token -- and who also engage in some banter with TWC2 volunteers, the new ones
Singapore brings in hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from India and Bangladesh for the construction and marine industries. We also have large numbers of technical and professional immigrants from the Indian subcontinent. They need to eat. They prefer to eat at restaurants that serve their kind of food. To keep their customers happy, restaurant
A visit to the Asea Trading International Singapore Skills Centre in Tangail District of Bangladesh began with a conversation with the managing director Mr. Md Anisur Rahman. He proudly boasted that his centre hosts about 100 men at a time offering training in such skills as welding, electrical wiring, waterproofing, pipefitting and installing acoustical ceilings.
The process of work injury compensation goes like this: When a course of treatment is completed, the injured worker is assessed by doctors for any residual permanent incapacity. If there is, an interim Notice of Assessment (NOA) is sent to the worker, the employer and the insurance company that issued the work injury compensation policy,
TWC2 volunteer Meera Rajah assisted a worker as he struggled to sort out his injury case after having things messed up by a law firm. This is Meera's detailed account of how the mess came about and what she had to do to help him. It shines a spotlight into an area not often discussed:
In a lecture delivered at the Institute of Policy Studies, National University of Singapore, on 12 November 2014, Ho Kwon Ping, executive chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings and IPS-Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore, made a few proposals with respect to migrant workers in Singapore. The relevant part is here: First, we can perhaps
By Seema Punwani Uzzal's world stopped on 28 Oct 2013. It was the day he found himself locked in a room, alone, injured and his documents taken away from him. What could he, a foreign worker from Bangladesh, have possibly done to warrant this kind of inhumane treatment? He had an accident at the shipyard
The Facebook post by Minister for National Development Khaw Boon Wan 11 November 2014 (click thumbnail at right) titled 'Joint exercise with Police, SCDF & foreign worker ambassadors' accompanied by eight photographs does a great disservice to migrant workers who have played such an important role in building Singapore, especially those of South Asian origin
By Stéphanie Psarski It is sad, how some humans can treat other humans. On 26 July 2014, construction worker Hossan slipped on oil and landed heavily on his back. The company doctor gave him Panadol and two days' medical leave. But at the end of the two days, the pain was still very bad, he
This is a four-part story about four workers whose employer's behaviour appears to have crossed a few red lines relating to trafficking in persons. Five months after Monir Bhuiyan and three others lodged their salary complaints against their employer J S Metal Pte Ltd, the company was still in business, presumably with good cashflow and
