Employment agents, agent fees
This letter by TWC2 immediate past president John Gee was published in the Straits Times on 14 July 2014: ---- Get to the bottom of unfair maid placement fees The imposition of considerable placement costs on domestic workers by many employment agencies has, regrettably, been a common practice since 1998 ("Any breach of maids' fee
The report Training centres in Bangladesh have become money-minting machines (published September 2013) was based on research done in Dhaka. Drawing from anecdotal information, we asserted in the paper that "Most workers report that their Singapore jobs are unrelated to the skills they trained for." This anecdotal information was from workers whom Transient Workers Count Too
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,
By Joyce Wong Where is next month’s money going to come from? Sitting in front of me is a very young, clean-shaven man. He is neatly dressed with his hair slightly touching his collar. Some would call him good-looking. He is here for his dinner at TWC2's soup kitchen when we ask to interview him.
The scab on one of Das Thiru's knees about three weeks after the accident Continued from PART 'The employers believe these workers exaggerate their injuries to fool doctors' – so reported the Straits Times on 9 November 2013 (‘Hospitals give too much sick leave for injuries: Bosses’ by Amelia Tan) Is this true?
It started as a way to ensure that migrant workers coming to Singapore had some basic skills, but the raison d'etre has since become something else: to extract as much money as possible from the poor. "It" is the tangled business of providing training, testing and recruitment in Bangladesh. The key to its metamorphosis is
In the story Crime victim detained for months, we covered the case of Muthunayagam Saju who was robbed. After reporting the matter to the police, he has been kept in Singapore for months and months because he may be needed as a witness when the robber goes to court. He is not allowed to work
By YC Loh For Bangladeshis in their first job here, about half paid more than S$7,000 to their agent. More than 70 percent paid over $5,000. By contrast, the majority (over 60%) of Indians paid less than $5,000 to their agent for their first job. These figures emerged from a survey recently conducted by TWC2. The average
Three months after he arrived in Singapore for his job, Amin Hajee Baten, 39, was filled with renewed hope. His agent, whom we shall call Mr E, had finally given him a specific address in Peninsula Plaza, which Amin assumed would be where he should report for work. At long last. Peninsula Plaza is an
By Debbie and Alex After a full day's work on 17 July 2012, Rabel (not his real name) was called to the office to see his boss. "Boss say I have to leave company," he told Transient Workers Count Too. The employer asked him to sign a piece of paper stating that his work performance
