Singapore's migrant
workers
struggle to secure better deal
By Kalinga Seneviratne
SINGAPORE - When a group of about 100 mostly
Bangladeshi migrant workers went on strike at a construction site
over unpaid wages this month, it created ripples in this affluent
and orderly island republic.
The Ministry of Manpower (MoM) quickly stepped in
and ordered the concerned private construction company to pay its
striking workers back wages owing since November 2011. The strike
was over eight hours after it started on the morning of February
6.
"MoM does not condone employers who fail to pay
salaries on time, or fail to upkeep and maintain the foreign
workers they have
brought in," said an official
statement.
The
strike brought home the fact that a quarter of Singapore's four
million people are low-paid migrant workers from other Asian
countries, doing heavy construction jobs that its own wealthy
citizens will not do.
Social activists say there is widespread
exploitation by unscrupulous recruitment agents who circumvent
rules stipulated by the MoM and take advantage of impoverished
workers from Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, China and
Myanmar.
Last year, the MoM promised "sufficient deterrence"
to ensure that laws are respected by agents. But, Singapore does
not have a minimum wage policy and employers may easily terminate
contracts when workers demand fair wages.
Government figures suggest that the country already
has 240,000 construction workers and will need tens
of thousands more to execute planned housing programmes
alone.
Jolovan Wham, executive director of the Humanitarian
Organization for Migration Economics, lays part of the blame on
rapacious recruitment agencies that charge hefty fees from the
workers back home and then take no responsibility for them once
they land in Singapore.
"They pay such huge sums of money," said Wham. "The
agents must help the workers when they face problems at the
workplace, but they don't do that."
Many workers from Bangladesh, India, China and,
lately, Myanmar are known to have paid amounts ranging from
US$2,400 to US$4,800 to agents in their home countries to secure
jobs in this city state.
Construction workers earn about $480 a month
while skilled workers like electricians and welders get three times
that amount. However, agents and employers
deduct money from their monthly pay against "compulsory savings",
uniforms, food and accommodation.
Rafiqul (not his real name) came from Bangladesh to
work here as a construction worker about two years ago.
He paid an agent back home $3,200 to get a job
here that paid him $475 a
month.
Three months ago when Rafiqul's work permit was
cancelled and he was given a ticket to go back home, he found that
his employer would not hand over accumulated compulsory savings
worth $1,902.
"Now he says that I have to pay for the dormitory.
This was never said to me before," he said
angrily.
Rafiqul complained to the MoM, which extended his
work permit to enable him to take his employer to
court.
Saravan, an electrician from India, handed $4,756 to
an agent in Chennai for a job in a school that pays $1,426 a month.
After working for six months the job stopped in December and he is
yet to receive three months worth of pay.
"Agents use shell companies that exist only by name.
Agents in Bangladesh coordinate with agents here to set up jobs.
They are mostly swindlers and conmen as far as I can see," says
Debbie Fordyce, a volunteer with Transient Workers Count Too
(TWC2), a non-government organization.
Shafik, a Bangladeshi worker who approached TWC2 for
help, has worked here for five years and now wants to go back home.
During this period, the agent deducted $79 each month as
savings.
When Shafik asked for his money, now amounting to
$4,756, the agent refused to oblige.
"I had already given him $6,341 when I came here to
work, I don't want to give him anymore," he told IPS. But, Fordyce
says that he will find it hard to get this money back because the
law says any dues from employers must be claimed within a
year.
Another issue that rights groups want the MoM to
sort out is that of forcible repatriations of workers injured in
the workplace. After Abdul (not his real name) met with an
accident, his boss cancelled his work permit and called in a
"repatriation company". He was threatened, and when he complained
to the MoM and police, beaten up.
Repatriation companies are engaged by employers to
get rid of troublesome or inconvenient migrant
workers.
When rights groups asked the MoM to crackdown on
repatriation companies because many of them employ local thugs, it
was pointed out that while some 16,000 workers were repatriated
last year there were only seven formal
complaints.
"When people are forcibly repatriated there is
hardly any room for them to go and make a complaint," explained
Wham. "Though repatriation companies are legal their activities are
illegal. You cannot confine someone against his will, it's an
offence here."
Fordyce said that TWC2 sees about 200 workers a
month and all have invariably been cheated by one agent or another.
Most of the workers have lost large sums of money to agents,
collected on one pretext or another.
"MoM is receptive to our complaints, but we can't do
anything to get money back from people who have been given money
without documentation," she said.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NB15Ae04.html
