By Elizabeth Zhou The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) recently printed colourful flyers in four languages – English, Chinese, Bengali and Tamil. Meant to reassure and educate the migrant worker community of the procedures and processes in place to take care of their rights, these flyers paint an image of a benign and helpful ministry, one
By Danielle Hong This evening, Khan Masud, amiable and floppy-haired, is a first-timer at Transient Workers Count Too's free meal program, known as the Cuff Road Project. He heard about the soup kitchen from an acquaintance living around Rowell Road in Little India and decided to come by. Sure enough, he got a free meal,
By Joyce Wong He signed and accepted the five points awarded through the injury assessment and is waiting for the payout to go home. But on checking his case status via MOM's website, he is surprised to learn he is scheduled for a pre-hearing conference. “So what did your lawyer and MOM officer say about
By Nguyen Minh Quan “Mother must die”, says Muthu Chetty Murugesan when he shows me his injured left eye. What he means is his mother will be devastated when she learns that her son has lost an eye. He hasn't yet told anyone back home about the injury. "My country no one know," he says,
By Pan Chuen His livelihood depended on him being physically fit and able to shoulder heavy materials, but a worksite injury dashed those hopes. The only break in the dark clouds above him is a compensation pay-out from his employer. But what if the lawyer doesn't act promptly? Like many other Bangladeshi workers in Singapore,
By Peter Looker "Lawyer say you wait, you wait, you wait MC money" Atikur (not his real name) tells me, "but money no give". For four whole months now, Atikur, a worker from Bangladesh, has been waiting for "MC pay" accruing from the medical leave he was given for a serious and ongoing problem with
Several law firms specialising in work injury claims have offices in Little India By Nguyen Minh Quan To the question "How much do you have to pay your lawyer, how much is he going to charge you?" Gowri (not his real name) replies: "Charging, no talking." It is phrased in a way migrant workers
By Sonia Pillai “Family just cry," says Mahbub, 26, of their helplessness after learning of his injury. "Now everything cannot. My cousin, my uncle, my friend borrow (he means 'lent') me money, I cannot give back.” He had borrowed $8,000 to pay his agent for this job. It's been two whole years since. A fall
By Sonia Pillai Quite early in the interview, Palani Srinivasan, 43, mentions that his lawyer has told him to go home after his third operation. “Let me do collection for you,” was what (according to Srinivasan) his lawyer said. TWC2 vice-president Alex Au, who is sitting beside me, thinks it rather strange. "His WICA process
Vallathan Kowthaman is going home end January 2014. He has no reason to smile as broadly as he does in the photo above, being about $6,000 poorer than when we arrived for his second job in March 2013. But he gives us a big smile because TWC2 has been his lifeline since he was injured,
