By Joyce Wong Monjor's boss wanted him to accept a lower pay than previously agreed. He refused. Then repatriation agents came. Last month, testifying before the Committee of Inquiry looking into the Little India riots, Kevin Teoh of MOM's Foreign Manpower Management Division, said, as reported in Today newspaper: Asked about the framework in place
At the Migrant Awareness Week organised by students in the law school of National University of Singapore, 3 - 7 March 2014, a whole host of activities were on the calendar. For the forum of 3 March, TWC2 vice-president Alex Au (pictured above with HOME's Celine Dermine on his left) gave a presentation. Below is
The director of the Foreign Manpower Management Division, Kevin Teoh, told the commission of inquiry looking into the Little India riots that his ministry does not abandon workers. This was after TWC2 president Russell Heng had hold the committee in earlier testimony that workers "basically have to resort to charity to survive in Singapore" as they
Our recent article about workers from Woolim Plant Engineering & Construction Company explained how the Bangladeshi employees were underpaid for over a year before deciding to raise the issue, and how Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) assisted them in calculating their salaries and lodging a complaint with the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). This is far
Continued from Woolim, part 1: How low can a salary get? Early January 2014, Iqbal comes to the office with a group of his co-workers telling us that three of the fifteen men have accepted a settlement offer from the employer Woolim, wherein each of them would receive $2,000. This, says Iqbal, is a far
Continued from Dulal faced problems on all fronts, none of his own making Laymen think that polygraph tests can reliably establish the veracity of a person’s statement and detect his lies. Perhaps those old movies of the polygraph pen gyrating wildly on the chart and the suspect shouting out his confession, convinced that it’s futile to
On the morning of 29 September 2012 as he was about to start work, Dulal Abdul Hai found a crowd gathering to watch a fight between an Indian lorry driver and a Bangladeshi welder. Without pausing to consider the reason for the fight, he made the risky decision to intervene and pull the two men
Ananth's newly-minted Special Pass, that's bad news for him By Fuxiong Around 20 November 2013, "MOM call all 30 men to [a] meeting," says Ananth (not his real name). I ask if the boss was present. "No, not boss, but company driver [was] there." Held at the Bendemeer offices of the Ministry of
The panel comprised (L-R) Braema Mathi (Maruah), Russell Heng (TWC2), Siew Kum Hong (Maruah/moderator), Jolovan Wham (Workfair) and Vincent Law (Healthserve) TWC2 president Russell Heng spoke for the organisation at a public forum 'Foreign workers, justice and fairness', organised by human rights group Maruah on 23 December 2013. To the 100-strong audience, in
Hossain Iqbel's IPA states a basic monthly salary of $800, but for a year, he's been paid a basic of only $1.50 an hour (equivalent to $286 a month). The 'IPA' is the In-principle Approval for a Work Permit, a letter issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to employer and employee prior to the
