We Examine Each Worker's Claim

This letter was published in TODAY on 8 August 2011.

I REFER to the letter “MOM to NGOs: It’s critical to be objective” (Aug 2).

As an organisation dedicated to the rights and welfare of low-wage migrant workers here, HOME runs shelters, help desks and help lines giving emotional support, employment advice and legal aid to workers embroiled in employment disputes.

We agree with the Ministry of Manpower that employers deserve a fair hearing when workers lodge complaints against them. In most cases, we refer workers who come to us to the MOM for investigation and mediation.

As a small, non-profit organisation with few staff and resources, we lack the capacity and are not vested with powers to conduct investigations. NGOs are also disallowed from participating in MOM’s mediation sessions to independently verify claims.

In spite of this, we examine each worker’s claim and, whenever possible, contact the employer or MOM to address the problem and obtain more information.

Since last year, HOME has seen at least 12 workers from Yang Wei’s company with complaints regarding salaries and its non-compliance with employment laws. Yang had informed HOME that his attempts to speak with the employer about his problems fell on deaf ears.

Thus, he sought help from MOM. He disputed the employer’s wage calculation and was unhappy it refused to reimburse his medical expenses, even though this was his legal entitlement.

In addition, he told us the employer had barred him from work as punishment for creating “trouble” and still wanted to deduct his wages for not turning up for work. Yang was also unhappy that the MOM officer seeing to his case was rude and curt to him during mediation.

We emailed these concerns to the MOM officer on June 29.

Based on the complaints of Yang, his colleagues and hundreds of workers from other companies whom HOME has seen, we believe the exploitation of migrant Chinese construction workers are not limited to a few individuals but reveal patterns of systemic discrimination and abuse.

We obtained more than 30 employment contracts from companies that hire many of them and found terms and conditions in blatant disregard of Singapore’s labour laws.

These issues and the challenges migrant workers face in seeking redress for their problems have been documented in our new report, The Exploitation of Migrant Chinese Construction Workers in Singapore, and in a report last year with Transient Workers Count Too, Justice Delayed, Justice Denied: The Experiences of Migrant Workers in Singapore.