The Snitch

A Chinese construction company in Singapore has recently been accused of withholding salaries from its workers, and not paying its workers for working overtime.

So what, you might say. It’s not as though this is not the first time a company has been found of breaching the employment rights of foreign blue-collar workers.  Shouldn’t they file a complaint against their employer with the Ministry of Manpower and get their grievances resolved as soon as possible?

But that is where things  get murky and complicated, says local gay activist Alex Au (of Yawning Bread),  in a story that is now circulating around the local internet.

According to the Yawning Bread report, it talks about how this particular group of foreign workers have faced stonewalling ministry officers, police detentions for “overstaying” and unreasonable bosses.

While some people have criticised this piece to be biased and one-sided, I highly urge you to read the story for yourself to get a sense of the injustice that some blue-collar workers face here working under errant bosses and companies in Singapore.

Cases like these are especially worrying, as International Organization for Migration predicts that labour migration with the bulk of workers coming from China, Philippines and India will continue to remain strong. This is due to “an increasing scarcity of local workers available or willing to engage in low- or semiskilled employment such as in agriculture, construction, hospitality or domestic care,” the report says.

What should be done to errant employers like this, and how else can the law be changed to protect blue-collar transient workers?

Part one of the story.

Part two of the story continues here.