By Peter Looker Polash has no passport. He can't go home. "My boss, he say passport lost." His previous boss at Timberlux International Pte Ltd claimed not to have the passport. “Boss alibaba,” Polash alleges, using the shorthand term widely understood among migrant workers to mean 'untruthful'. What led up to this dispute has been written in
By Elizabeth Zhou Cleanly shaven, he is dressed in a tight-fitting dark blue T-shirt that betrays a physique built by hard labour. A pair of trendy earphones is slung around his neck. It is my first time at Transient Workers Count Too's free meals point, known as The Cuff Road Project. I am unsure how
By Hui Zhen Manikandan was instructed to meet “boss” one day, after six days' absence from work, and told he would be fined $180 ($30 a day) for not being on the job. “Boss say, 'Don’t give story',” he exclaimed. He was then gripped by his shirt and told he'd be sent back to India.
It is normal procedure for the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to require employers to hand over foreign workers' passports when employees have made salary complaints. "Today, MOM officer call two times to him (the boss)," Polash tells TWC2. "MOM officer give him up to 2pm to bring passports." But it was well after 2pm before
By Fuxiong Some employers try to take advantage of a foreign worker's weak English. They present stacks of papers for the worker to sign, papers that he can't understand. All sorts of pressures are then applied on the worker to make him sign them, but doing so may prejudice his rights. Fortunately, Sohag Md Lowsar
By Pan Chuen Faced with an impossible situation filled with uncertainty, what would you do? Md Jamal Abdul Aziz Maji, 29, is a Bangladeshi worker who worked in Singapore for thirteen months before his patience over unpaid overtime ran out. Unhappy about an employee asserting his right to be paid, Jamal's boss cancelled his work
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
By Lucas Ho Selvam (not his real name) rests his head, heavy with worry, in his hand. "I very worry," he says. "So many nights I cannot sleep." He knows about a recent the report in the Straits Times: "22 Indian nationals charged for false declaration of salaries," ran the headline in the Straits Times
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
