Type of issue: repatriation agents
In response to the Ministry of Manpower's call for public feedback on the "second phase" of proposed changes to the Employment Act (EA) and the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act (EFMA), Transient Workers Count Too submitted a 39-page document on 30 October 2013 arguing for a long list of needed improvements. Some proposals urge amendments
An incentive to promote work safety backfired on Boomi Murugan. He was not allowed to see a doctor immediately after an injury because, according to the worker, the assistant manager wanted to win the annual award. Murugan worked for a hydrojetting company. Although he had a face shield on, five tiny metal pellets ricochetted into
For both groups -- those regularly working and those with injury and salary claims-- the threat of premature repatriation creates a lot of stress. It is the most important stress factor among working workers, and the second-most important, after being injured, among injured and salary-claim workers. Having uncleared debts incurred in agents fees also hung
By Lisa Li Before coming to Singapore, Kabir was promised that the job would pay $32 a day. But "when I start work , I no get 32 dollars, they pay only 28 dollars," he tells Transient Workers Count Too. "We hear of such problems quite frequently," says TWC2 vice-president Alex Au. "Some employers take advantage
By Max Ang Dawn on 10 July 2013, and the men file out of the Woodlands dormitory to wait for the company bus. A phone rings. It's a co-worker from the Tuas South dorm with alarming news: 'gangsters' have showed up and taken fourteen men away. More calls come in, confirming the same. Word
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
Through a Tamil interpreter, Pragash told TWC2 that his employer asked him to sign two letters, both written in English. He had no idea what was said on them, nor was he given a copy. He signed. Why?!#! asked your friendly TWC2 volunteer. Because in similar situations previously, he explained, workers who didn't sign when
