A Bangladeshi welder paid $3,400 to get a shipyard job. No receipts given, he says. Then he had to memorise some lines to say in front of the camera, and to express deep gratitude.
A first-time construction worker from Bangladesh walks us through the months in which he prepared for a working life in Singapore. He spent 15 months in preparation. His working life was 6 months. We haven't even mentioned money!
Workers with salary claims would typically be in financial distress; they need to move into new jobs quickly without first having to go home. The COE letter is supposed to help them. Does it?
(Mis)information given to migrant workers before they decide to take up a job, inability to ask the right questions, reliance on agents can lay the ground for serious difficulties after they start work.
A recruiter goes onto Facebook to publicise his scheme to hire low-wage workers in violation of Singapore law; he seems to have nothing to fear.
Construction worker Domog faces a host of problems, of which his agent fee is not top of mind, but nonetheless we ask him to detail the payments he has had to make.
Employers abused the Training Employment Pass scheme to hire cheap day labour; now hear it from the worker's perspective: distress, helplessness and financial disaster.
Another day, another scam. This time, it involves the Training Employment Pass. This case suggests lax controls and oversight at MOM. But when real individuals lose big money, something has to be done.
In quick succession, many cases that looked like a new type of job scam surfaced. Agents and employers appear to be exploiting weaknesses in scrutiny and vetting in MOM's IPA process. Victims come to TWC2 one after another.
Government policy is that migrant workers with valid claims against their employers will be allowed to look for new jobs with first being repatriated, but how do they find new jobs?
