By Wahid Al Mamun based on an interview late July 2017 A lot of things can happen in two months, and Mollah Showrov has learned this the hard way. His right leg is now in held immobile in an orthopaedic boot. I notice how gingerly he seats himself in the plastic chair beside me. Here
On 23 June 2017, we put up a post on Facebook that said: This is Jafar Ahmmad. He came in 2014 to work for Harri Engineering. His boss, Nallusamy Narayanan accused him and other workers of taking their pay and not showing up for work. As it turns out, his boss was later jailed for
There are many stories on this website about employers arbitrarily reducing migrant workers' salaries soon after the latter have started on their jobs. Employers and their agents promise certain terms of employment while the worker is still in his home country, but once the worker has arrived in Singapore, salaries are lowered and deductions increased. Sometimes, the
On the boarding pass is handwritten "Handcarry 6 kg". That's all he was allowed with him as he was taken to the airport. By Sun Hanchen; based on an interview in May 2017 The TWC2 volunteer was only following TWC2's registration protocol, as he requested Shahjahan Mahamud to pose for a simple photo
By Liang Lei, based on an interview in May 2017 Undoubtedly, Singapore can boast of a world-leading healthcare system that offers high quality medical treatment for a wide range of injuries, diseases and emergencies. Unfortunately, timely and trouble-free access to such services is frequently lacking for our foreign labor, when injuries occur at work. I speak to
By Troy Lee, based on an interview in May 2017 On the Ministry of Manpower’s website, it is stated that most work injury claims take “3 to 6 months for most cases. Some injuries may need more time to stabilise before a doctor can assess for permanent incapacity.” However, many of the cases that come to
Over two-thirds (68%) of foreign construction workers work so much overtime that their total monthly overtime hours would breach the legal maximum of 72 overtime hours a month. Of these, one in three (23%) worked twelve and a half hours or more in a single day -- which also violates the legal daily maximum of 12
In an encouraging development, the prosecutor in a recent case made the argument that using the threat of dismissal and repatriation to compel foreign workers to accept lower wages would constitute an offence. According to a news story in Today newspaper, Nallusamy Narayanan, the boss of a number of companies under the Harri name, had
By Poh De Sheng Farid is a Bangladeshi national who has had the uncommon experience of having worked at shipyards in both Bangladesh and Singapore. He was able to offer a comparison of the conditions workers face in Singapore vis-à-vis Bangladesh. Back in Bangladesh, Farid shared a house with six co-workers in the city of
Islam Saiful speaks with a volunteer while he takes his dinner at TWC2's Cuff Road Project By Yi Ning On 18 March 2016, Islam Saiful fell about three metres at his worksite, landing on his back and leaving him with agonizing pain. This was just the start of his problems. He was told that
