Singapore’s Unpaid Migrant Workers

Although Singapore is known as an efficient, developed country, for many migrant workers from South Asia it is a huge struggle to be paid.

Sardar Md Insan Ali, who comes from Bangladesh, is one such worker. He was promised he would be paid S$1,600 (US$1,173) a month, but upon arrival in Singapore he discovered his wage would be only S$18 ($13) per day. On top of that, his employer did not pay him in full for eight months.

Tamera Fillinger from the NGO TWC2 says this is a common tactic used by employers. “What we see over and over again is that the guys will put up with the employer’s assurances, for some number of months, that they will be paid the full amount,” she said.

CNN reports:

Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower said it had received 9,000 salary-related claims involving about 4,500 employers in 2016. These figures include both local and migrant workers.

According to a response to a parliamentary question by Lim Swee Say, Singapore’s Minister for Manpower, 95% of those cases were resolved either through mediation or in the Labor Court. He added that 158 employers had been prosecuted and convicted over the last three years for not paying wages.

However, Jevon Ng, a social work executive at the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME), said that number is low, because the ministry favors “a conciliatory approach over a punitive one in resolving salary claims” to maintain its business-friendly reputation.