2006 Nov - Dec
Editorial
We report activities in each issue of the members’ newsletter, but those reports really only capture a part of what TWC2 does. Much of our effort goes into low key work: providing information to those who call or write to us; conferring with other societies and institutions about problems that need to be tackled and projects that are being planned; and then there’s the unsung but necessary tasks of keeping the society functioning on a day to day basis.
When our forerunner group, The Working Committee 2, was launched, we were sure that one thing that we did not intend to do was to run a help line. It was a commitment that we did not feel ready to handle, and we knew that there were other help lines already in operation, so why start another one?
This made perfect sense at the time, but almost immediately, people began to call asking for help. Sometimes it was a foreign domestic worker who needed help; sometimes a friend or neighbour, worried about what was happening to a worker at her employer’s home; occasionally, it was an employer who had bad experiences with an agency or a worker.
These calls have had to be dealt with on a confidential basis; we have to respect the trust of the caller and handle each call with sensitivity. This is why this aspect of TWC2’s activity has been relatively unpublicised.
The fact that we were receiving a rising stream of calls for help when we were not publicising ourselves as a society that would handle them eventually led us to embark on the highly ambitious project of launching a help line. Noorashikin Abdul Rahman, a member of TWC2’s executive committee, proposed the project at our 2006 annual general meeting. It was carried, and she then put a considerable amount of dedication into making it happen in the following months.
The launch of the help line took place at our International Migrants’ Day event, held on 17th December. It is a great responsibility. It will take time, energy and commitment to sustain it, but we know that it is needed and we are confident that it will have the full support of TWC2 members in the coming years.
To sustain our activities, we need to bring new members onto the Executive Committee and involve more volunteers in all aspects of TWC2 activity: too much falls on too few shoulders at present. We are holding our next annual general meeting on Sunday 25th March, and that is when elections to the Executive Committee will take place, as well as discussion of plans for the coming year. Please come along: details will be circulated in January.
We report activities in each issue of the members’ newsletter, but those reports really only capture a part of what TWC2 does. Much of our effort goes into low key work: providing information to those who call or write to us; conferring with other societies and institutions about problems that need to be tackled and projects that are being planned; and then there’s the unsung but necessary tasks of keeping the society functioning on a day to day basis.
When our forerunner group, The Working Committee 2, was launched, we were sure that one thing that we did not intend to do was to run a help line. It was a commitment that we did not feel ready to handle, and we knew that there were other help lines already in operation, so why start another one?
This made perfect sense at the time, but almost immediately, people began to call asking for help. Sometimes it was a foreign domestic worker who needed help; sometimes a friend or neighbour, worried about what was happening to a worker at her employer’s home; occasionally, it was an employer who had bad experiences with an agency or a worker.
These calls have had to be dealt with on a confidential basis; we have to respect the trust of the caller and handle each call with sensitivity. This is why this aspect of TWC2’s activity has been relatively unpublicised.
The fact that we were receiving a rising stream of calls for help when we were not publicising ourselves as a society that would handle them eventually led us to embark on the highly ambitious project of launching a help line. Noorashikin Abdul Rahman, a member of TWC2’s executive committee, proposed the project at our 2006 annual general meeting. It was carried, and she then put a considerable amount of dedication into making it happen in the following months.
The launch of the help line took place at our International Migrants’ Day event, held on 17th December. It is a great responsibility. It will take time, energy and commitment to sustain it, but we know that it is needed and we are confident that it will have the full support of TWC2 members in the coming years.
To sustain our activities, we need to bring new members onto the Executive Committee and involve more volunteers in all aspects of TWC2 activity: too much falls on too few shoulders at present. We are holding our next annual general meeting on Sunday 25th March, and that is when elections to the Executive Committee will take place, as well as discussion of plans for the coming year. Please come along: details will be circulated in January.
A Word from Braema, 26th December 2006
Dear Members,
It is already time to bid 2006 goodbye.
And as I reflect on our work at TWC2 for 2006 it has been one busy year and it has been fun, crazy and demanding.
This year saw us moving into a bigger and better office at #06-27 at Golden Mile Complex. We also bid goodbye to Ms Amy Fatah who had to go back to Indonesia. We thank her for all her work. We welcome Mr. Michael Chong as our new office manager.
We close the year on a high note – we have finally started the Helpline and have trained volunteers and employed a staff to manage this service well. We thank EXCO member, Noorashikin Rahman, for finally agreeing to take up this daunting task, getting systems ready, organizing training for volunteers and building up to the launch that we had just enjoyed. But the real work beings from now – managing the difficult cases which come to us, training and supervising volunteers and being true to the spirit of confidentiality, empowering the individual and advocating where the need arises. It can be daunting but it was inevitable for TWC2 – we had to start this helpline as it is so important to serve the community whose well-being issues are still far from satisfactory even as it is improving.
It has been great to have this newsletter every month and Vice-President John Gee has to be congratulated for not letting up and building this communication with members. We would also like to invite members to contribute articles and viewpoints to this newsletter. I repeat my call here made some months back that we need to start an information sub-committee to handle all that comes at us.
Often it is the unseen hands that really make us appreciate the support that we get in doing the work at TWC2. These have come as offers of help during International Migrants’ Day or as volunteers who smilingly give up a bit more of time to man the help lines or as volunteers who chip in to help each other. It is the belief and passion of volunteers that keep an organization ticking and all of us here would like to thank you for all your support in 2006.
For 2007 we will continue to build up our work in advocacy, research and the Direct Services. We need to conduct our research with male migrant workers, remain true to the No Days Off campaign, build up community cohesion through IMD; manage our helpline, create communication channels with our membership and partners and Have Fun doing what we do. So please come join us for a period of time to do the things we do with us.
I am a firm believer working together as a Power of One. And so as the year comes to an end let me say Thank You for being with us for 2006.
I would like to wish each and every one of you the very best for 2007 and let's embrace happiness before we make it extinct!
My thoughts, an always, and for 2007 - "Never Doubt That A Small Group of Thoughtful Citizens Can Change the World: Indeed It’s the Only Thing That Ever Was”.
Be with us at TWC2 as thoughtful citizens!
Male Foreign Workers’ Salary Issues
September saw the launch of TWC2’s report, ‘Debt, Delays and Deductions: Wage Issues Faced by Domestic Workers in Singapore’. That dealt with the difficulties encountered by many women who come from overseas to work in other people’s homes in Singapore.
There are also male foreign workers who experience difficulties with indebtedness on arrival and with obtaining money that is due to them for their work. The issue has been raised by workers who have called the TWC2 office in the past, and by others we have spoken with casually. Sometimes, it is reported in the newspapers, especially when a large group of workers go unpaid because a company goes bankrupt or simply seeks to escape paying up what is due to its employees.
An indication of the extent of the problem was given in a written answer of 27th February 2004 to questions asked in Parliament by TWC2 president, Braema Mathi, when she was still a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP).
Dr Ng Eng Hen, then Acting Minister for Manpower, wrote:
In 2003, a total of 4,034 foreign workers (excluding foreign domestic workers) filed salary claims against their employers, about half the number (7,424 foreign workers) in 2002. Most of these claims related to salaries owed to foreign workers in the construction industry.
The NMP asked how many were successful in their claims. I will provide the outcome of those claims dealt with in 2003. As of December 2003, a total of 4,479 foreign workers, including those cases carried forward from 2002, had their claims dealt with by the Ministry. Of the 4,479 workers, 2,070 of them (46.2%) had successfully settled their claims with the assistance of the Ministry, and a total of $3.9 million was recovered for the workers. Another 591 workers (13.2%) were able to reach a private settlement with their employers following consultation with the Ministry, or withdrew their cases for various reasons such as their claims were not contractually provided for in their employment contracts or covered by the Employment Act.
Investigations revealed that 1,141 workers (25.5%) had no valid claims. Seven foreign workers (0.1%) referred their claims for adjudication by the Commissioner for Labour. The remaining 670 workers (15%) had encountered difficulty in securing their payments either because their employers were facing cashflow problems due to irregular progress payments from the main contractors or their employers had ceased operations or had become insolvent. Most of these cases were from the construction industry which was badly affected by the economic downturn.
After dealing with the position of foreign domestic workers, the acting minister went on:
The Labour Relations Department of the Ministry has 11 officers to handle salary claims of foreign workers, including salary claims of foreign domestic workers.
MOM bars offenders from further employing foreign workers. Thus far, a total of 37 construction employers and 17 domestic employers have been blacklisted from employing foreign workers and foreign domestic workers respectively.
Valuable as such information is, it is still just part of the story. What of workers who do not make claims for money owed to them, for one reason or another – perhaps because they fear losing their jobs, or because they are not confident about pursuing a claim?
The larger problem may be that the debts with which most male workers are burdened during the process of their recruitment. We have good reason to believe that, like female domestic workers, they are often left with no choice but to devote most of their first year’s earnings to repaying debts – and as the charges that created these debts are usually not illegal, there is no reason why they would become part of those figures listed above.
Performing an investigation into the issue of male workers’ salary issues comparable to the one we conducted into those of female domestic workers would be a valuable means of gaining some idea of the main problem areas and how many men have to deal with them as a proportion of the total male foreign worker force.
TWC2 would like to hear from anyone who would be interested and willing to work with us on this as a project in 2007.
Shouldn’t This Work Both Ways? Making Available Employment History of FDWs for Prospective Employers
From time to time, the Ministry receives requests from prospective FDW employers for more information to help them make better informed choices in their selection of FDWs. Therefore, effective 1 November 2006, MOM will require EAs to make available the employment history of FDWs to their prospective employers. Such information can be obtained by EAs from the MOM website. Only general information will be provided to cover the number of different employers and the start and end dates of each employment period. No specific information or details will be given. - MOM press release of 2nd October 2006
I can appreciate that employers may find it useful to check the employment record of a woman they are considering taking on as a domestic worker. The number one complaint that TWC2 hears from employers of foreign domestic workers is that their newly-hired workers are not able to do the things that they were told they could. Being provided with a workers’ previous employment history in the way indicated by the MOM could certainly be one effective way in which the wary employer could gain some re-assurance about her dependability.
Would it now be possible for the MOM to introduce a similar provision that would allow women seeking employment as domestic workers to check how many workers their prospective employers have taken on and the dates of their employment? It seems only fair.
A study conducted by Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) this year confirmed that most domestic workers begin their employment in Singapore owing a significant amount of money for placement fees and other costs. Repaying these sums typically takes up practically all of the first six months of a domestic worker’s salary. If the worker’s employer decides to return her to the employment agency that supplied her, or worse, to send her back to her own country within those six months, she will still owe part of that money and not have been able to send anything back to her family. If she transfers to another employer, the likelihood is that she will have to pay a transfer fee equivalent to between one and three months of her salary payment.
In these circumstances, the vast majority of domestic workers are ready to go to great lengths to try to keep their jobs and do not seek to change employers for frivolous reasons.
Shouldn’t they be given the chance to find out if a prospective employer has changed domestic workers frequently in the past? They would then at least be able to ask the potential employers about why those changes had occurred so that they could reach an informed decision on whether they would like to work for them. This might avert trouble later and could save some workers from suffering what, to them at least, would seem like the loss of a lot of money.
John Gee
Protected and Unprotected
SAM Security Service Pte Ltd and its director, Mr Gunapalla S/O Joseph Selva, were each fined $29,000 on 9th November 2006. They had been convicted of 58 charges of having made security guards employed by the firm work more than 12 hours a day. They were fined $500 for each charge.
The firm had contravened Section 38 (8) of the Employment Act, intended to protect workers against being made to work for periods of time that could endanger their health.
Foreign domestic workers are frequently expected to work for over 15 hours, often for every day of the week, and that is legal. They are not protected by the Employment Act or by any other legislation prescribing an upper limit on their working hours.
Life for Rent
A large group of students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic gained an insight into the hopes and problems behind the decision of millions of workers to migrate to take jobs in better off lands through a project that concluded in a conference on 6th December.
Twenty students from the poly’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies went on a ten day trip to the Philippines in September. They went to Northern Luzon, where they saw something of village life. They were able to see how people there live and to compare the position of families who receive remittances from members working abroad with that of families who are completely dependent on working in the local economy. They also saw the children and spouses left behind and missing their loved ones abroad. They began to see Filipina domestic workers in a more three-dimensional perspective. One of the participants described how she had begun work on the project just thinking of it as something that she needed to do as part of her academic work, and then, in the Philippines, she found herself starting to feel a strong sympathy with the Filipina migrant women workers.
Upon their return, they prepared a photographic display of their visit and organised a well-attended conference for their fellow students on 6th December, under the title of the Dido song, ‘Life for Rent’.
TWC2 supported the initiative with advice and a pre-journey briefing. Braema also spoke at the conference, focusing on the findings of ‘Debt, Delays and Deductions: Wage Issues Faced by Domestic Workers in Singapore’*, the report released by TWC2 in September.
Activities
‘My Day Off’ Bazaar
A sale of donated books and CDs at the LIME Scape flea market on 28th October, followed by a smaller sale the following weekend, raised nearly $300 for TWC2. Thanks, Sha, for organizing it, and Hong Ying, Lin Lin, Joni, Russell, Braema and John for helping out.
Dear Members,
It is already time to bid 2006 goodbye.
And as I reflect on our work at TWC2 for 2006 it has been one busy year and it has been fun, crazy and demanding.
This year saw us moving into a bigger and better office at #06-27 at Golden Mile Complex. We also bid goodbye to Ms Amy Fatah who had to go back to Indonesia. We thank her for all her work. We welcome Mr. Michael Chong as our new office manager.
We close the year on a high note – we have finally started the Helpline and have trained volunteers and employed a staff to manage this service well. We thank EXCO member, Noorashikin Rahman, for finally agreeing to take up this daunting task, getting systems ready, organizing training for volunteers and building up to the launch that we had just enjoyed. But the real work beings from now – managing the difficult cases which come to us, training and supervising volunteers and being true to the spirit of confidentiality, empowering the individual and advocating where the need arises. It can be daunting but it was inevitable for TWC2 – we had to start this helpline as it is so important to serve the community whose well-being issues are still far from satisfactory even as it is improving.
It has been great to have this newsletter every month and Vice-President John Gee has to be congratulated for not letting up and building this communication with members. We would also like to invite members to contribute articles and viewpoints to this newsletter. I repeat my call here made some months back that we need to start an information sub-committee to handle all that comes at us.
Often it is the unseen hands that really make us appreciate the support that we get in doing the work at TWC2. These have come as offers of help during International Migrants’ Day or as volunteers who smilingly give up a bit more of time to man the help lines or as volunteers who chip in to help each other. It is the belief and passion of volunteers that keep an organization ticking and all of us here would like to thank you for all your support in 2006.
For 2007 we will continue to build up our work in advocacy, research and the Direct Services. We need to conduct our research with male migrant workers, remain true to the No Days Off campaign, build up community cohesion through IMD; manage our helpline, create communication channels with our membership and partners and Have Fun doing what we do. So please come join us for a period of time to do the things we do with us.
I am a firm believer working together as a Power of One. And so as the year comes to an end let me say Thank You for being with us for 2006.
I would like to wish each and every one of you the very best for 2007 and let's embrace happiness before we make it extinct!
My thoughts, an always, and for 2007 - "Never Doubt That A Small Group of Thoughtful Citizens Can Change the World: Indeed It’s the Only Thing That Ever Was”.
Be with us at TWC2 as thoughtful citizens!
Male Foreign Workers’ Salary Issues
September saw the launch of TWC2’s report, ‘Debt, Delays and Deductions: Wage Issues Faced by Domestic Workers in Singapore’. That dealt with the difficulties encountered by many women who come from overseas to work in other people’s homes in Singapore.
There are also male foreign workers who experience difficulties with indebtedness on arrival and with obtaining money that is due to them for their work. The issue has been raised by workers who have called the TWC2 office in the past, and by others we have spoken with casually. Sometimes, it is reported in the newspapers, especially when a large group of workers go unpaid because a company goes bankrupt or simply seeks to escape paying up what is due to its employees.
An indication of the extent of the problem was given in a written answer of 27th February 2004 to questions asked in Parliament by TWC2 president, Braema Mathi, when she was still a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP).
Dr Ng Eng Hen, then Acting Minister for Manpower, wrote:
In 2003, a total of 4,034 foreign workers (excluding foreign domestic workers) filed salary claims against their employers, about half the number (7,424 foreign workers) in 2002. Most of these claims related to salaries owed to foreign workers in the construction industry.
The NMP asked how many were successful in their claims. I will provide the outcome of those claims dealt with in 2003. As of December 2003, a total of 4,479 foreign workers, including those cases carried forward from 2002, had their claims dealt with by the Ministry. Of the 4,479 workers, 2,070 of them (46.2%) had successfully settled their claims with the assistance of the Ministry, and a total of $3.9 million was recovered for the workers. Another 591 workers (13.2%) were able to reach a private settlement with their employers following consultation with the Ministry, or withdrew their cases for various reasons such as their claims were not contractually provided for in their employment contracts or covered by the Employment Act.
Investigations revealed that 1,141 workers (25.5%) had no valid claims. Seven foreign workers (0.1%) referred their claims for adjudication by the Commissioner for Labour. The remaining 670 workers (15%) had encountered difficulty in securing their payments either because their employers were facing cashflow problems due to irregular progress payments from the main contractors or their employers had ceased operations or had become insolvent. Most of these cases were from the construction industry which was badly affected by the economic downturn.
After dealing with the position of foreign domestic workers, the acting minister went on:
The Labour Relations Department of the Ministry has 11 officers to handle salary claims of foreign workers, including salary claims of foreign domestic workers.
MOM bars offenders from further employing foreign workers. Thus far, a total of 37 construction employers and 17 domestic employers have been blacklisted from employing foreign workers and foreign domestic workers respectively.
Valuable as such information is, it is still just part of the story. What of workers who do not make claims for money owed to them, for one reason or another – perhaps because they fear losing their jobs, or because they are not confident about pursuing a claim?
The larger problem may be that the debts with which most male workers are burdened during the process of their recruitment. We have good reason to believe that, like female domestic workers, they are often left with no choice but to devote most of their first year’s earnings to repaying debts – and as the charges that created these debts are usually not illegal, there is no reason why they would become part of those figures listed above.
Performing an investigation into the issue of male workers’ salary issues comparable to the one we conducted into those of female domestic workers would be a valuable means of gaining some idea of the main problem areas and how many men have to deal with them as a proportion of the total male foreign worker force.
TWC2 would like to hear from anyone who would be interested and willing to work with us on this as a project in 2007.
Shouldn’t This Work Both Ways? Making Available Employment History of FDWs for Prospective Employers
From time to time, the Ministry receives requests from prospective FDW employers for more information to help them make better informed choices in their selection of FDWs. Therefore, effective 1 November 2006, MOM will require EAs to make available the employment history of FDWs to their prospective employers. Such information can be obtained by EAs from the MOM website. Only general information will be provided to cover the number of different employers and the start and end dates of each employment period. No specific information or details will be given. - MOM press release of 2nd October 2006
I can appreciate that employers may find it useful to check the employment record of a woman they are considering taking on as a domestic worker. The number one complaint that TWC2 hears from employers of foreign domestic workers is that their newly-hired workers are not able to do the things that they were told they could. Being provided with a workers’ previous employment history in the way indicated by the MOM could certainly be one effective way in which the wary employer could gain some re-assurance about her dependability.
Would it now be possible for the MOM to introduce a similar provision that would allow women seeking employment as domestic workers to check how many workers their prospective employers have taken on and the dates of their employment? It seems only fair.
A study conducted by Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) this year confirmed that most domestic workers begin their employment in Singapore owing a significant amount of money for placement fees and other costs. Repaying these sums typically takes up practically all of the first six months of a domestic worker’s salary. If the worker’s employer decides to return her to the employment agency that supplied her, or worse, to send her back to her own country within those six months, she will still owe part of that money and not have been able to send anything back to her family. If she transfers to another employer, the likelihood is that she will have to pay a transfer fee equivalent to between one and three months of her salary payment.
In these circumstances, the vast majority of domestic workers are ready to go to great lengths to try to keep their jobs and do not seek to change employers for frivolous reasons.
Shouldn’t they be given the chance to find out if a prospective employer has changed domestic workers frequently in the past? They would then at least be able to ask the potential employers about why those changes had occurred so that they could reach an informed decision on whether they would like to work for them. This might avert trouble later and could save some workers from suffering what, to them at least, would seem like the loss of a lot of money.
John Gee
Protected and Unprotected
SAM Security Service Pte Ltd and its director, Mr Gunapalla S/O Joseph Selva, were each fined $29,000 on 9th November 2006. They had been convicted of 58 charges of having made security guards employed by the firm work more than 12 hours a day. They were fined $500 for each charge.
The firm had contravened Section 38 (8) of the Employment Act, intended to protect workers against being made to work for periods of time that could endanger their health.
Foreign domestic workers are frequently expected to work for over 15 hours, often for every day of the week, and that is legal. They are not protected by the Employment Act or by any other legislation prescribing an upper limit on their working hours.
Life for Rent
A large group of students from Ngee Ann Polytechnic gained an insight into the hopes and problems behind the decision of millions of workers to migrate to take jobs in better off lands through a project that concluded in a conference on 6th December.
Twenty students from the poly’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies went on a ten day trip to the Philippines in September. They went to Northern Luzon, where they saw something of village life. They were able to see how people there live and to compare the position of families who receive remittances from members working abroad with that of families who are completely dependent on working in the local economy. They also saw the children and spouses left behind and missing their loved ones abroad. They began to see Filipina domestic workers in a more three-dimensional perspective. One of the participants described how she had begun work on the project just thinking of it as something that she needed to do as part of her academic work, and then, in the Philippines, she found herself starting to feel a strong sympathy with the Filipina migrant women workers.
Upon their return, they prepared a photographic display of their visit and organised a well-attended conference for their fellow students on 6th December, under the title of the Dido song, ‘Life for Rent’.
TWC2 supported the initiative with advice and a pre-journey briefing. Braema also spoke at the conference, focusing on the findings of ‘Debt, Delays and Deductions: Wage Issues Faced by Domestic Workers in Singapore’*, the report released by TWC2 in September.
Activities
‘My Day Off’ Bazaar
A sale of donated books and CDs at the LIME Scape flea market on 28th October, followed by a smaller sale the following weekend, raised nearly $300 for TWC2. Thanks, Sha, for organizing it, and Hong Ying, Lin Lin, Joni, Russell, Braema and John for helping out.