Lawyers using 'pushy tactics' to get workplace injury clients
Lorna Tan, Finance Correspondent
Straits Times, 20 January 2007
Insurers unhappy such claims are on the rise and affecting business
GENERAL insurers are seeing red over 'ambulance-chasing' lawyers urging construction workers to sue their bosses under common law rather than claiming under the Workmen Compensation Act.
Lawyers are so keen to get the business that they turn up at popular recreational spots for foreign workers, such as Little India, to look for 'victims' of workplace accidents.
Insurers say the practice is resulting in claims that are at least 50 per cent higher than normal, and plunging the already unprofitable business of insuring building firms further into the red.
However, lawyers claim they are merely helping workers, mainly foreigners, understand their rights and reap better compensation for workplace injuries.
Workers can go for a potentially hefty payout under common law but if that fails in court they can turn to the Compensation Act. Under the Act, however, they have only one year from the time of the injury to file a claim.
It is a potentially huge market. There are about 240,600 construction employees here, of whom 135,000 are foreign. According to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) website, there were more than 1,100 construction-related accidents every year from 1996 to 2005.
Lawyers who go 'Sunday shopping' around Little India - a favoured hunting ground for Bangladeshis - or Golden Mile complex where Thais congregate, openly ask workers if they or their colleagues have work-related injuries.
Sources claim that some lawyers even pay a fee to 'informants' who provide leads.
This practice, if true, is illegal as touting for work and paying commissions to non-lawyers to obtain business are not permitted.
Once a victim has been found, lawyers may offer to waive legal expenses until damages are awarded but will take a cut - usually 20 to 30 per cent - from the eventual payout.
Employers are required to provide compensation insurance which workers can claim if injured.
Under the Workmen Compensation Act, employees doing manual work or those earning less than $1,600 a month are entitled to compensation if injured.
Compensation ranges from small sums for medical expenses for minor injuries to a maximum of $147,000 for permanent incapacity, such as the loss of limbs. If a worker dies, his dependants can be paid up to $111,000.
Yet some workers employing legal help have been able to claim substantially more by suing under common law.
One example is a building worker in his 40s whose foot was severed near the ankle in a worksite accident. He also suffered spine and shoulder injuries.
He received a payout of $180,000 under common law, more than double the $85,000 he would have received under the Act, said insurance cooperative NTUC Income.
Payouts are potentially higher under common law because it allows damages to be paid for a worker's 'suffering and pain' while the Workmen Compensation Act does not. There are also no specified limits to payouts under common law.
An insurer, who declined to be named, said: 'These ambulance chasers go to the workers and create a demand for their services. The manner in which they generate business is not right.'
Insurers are also concerned that such tactics could lead to self-inflicted injuries or exaggerated claims.
But lawyers dismiss the criticism, saying they play 'a critical role in informing foreign workers of their rights and assisting them with remedies'.
A lawyer, who declined to be named, pointed out that to win a case under common law, negligence on the part of the employer or the main contractor has to be proven.
This is not necessary under the Workmen Compensation Act, where the payout will be awarded if there is a work-related injury, regardless of whose fault it is.
'Rather than pointing fingers at us, insurers should encourage their clients (construction firms) to make their workplaces safer. Workers can't sue if they can't prove negligence,' said the lawyer.
General Insurance Association (GIA) president Derek Teo said the rising number of injured workers turning to lawyers has been one of the contributing factors to insurers suffering a loss from writing workmen compensation insurance since 2001.
The other factor is underpricing of premiums by the insurers, due to stiff competition.
For every $1 in premiums collected by insurers, they are paying out 86.2 cents in claims. In the year to last September, insurers faced an underwriting loss of $17.4 million, up from $15 million in 2005 for workmen compensation.
GIA does not track the breakdown in claims under common law and the Workmen Compensation Act.
'We will work with employers, especially the construction sector, to enhance their work safety programme,' said Mr Teo.
GIA and MOM are in talks with the Law Society to facilitate the resolution of claims by foreign workers.
QUESTIONABLE PRACTICES
'These ambulance chasers go to the workers and create a demand for their services. The manner in which they generate business is not right.'
AN INSURER, on lawyers who go to recreational spots for foreign workers to look for 'victims' of workplace accidents
NEGLIGENCE STILL KEY
'Rather than pointing fingers at us, insurers should encourage their clients (construction firms) to make their workplaces safer. Workers can't sue if they can't prove negligence.'A LAWYER, referring to suits under common law
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Housing standards vary for foreign workers in Singapore
The following article was first published in The Straits Times on 15 January 2007.
Home for them is...
Bu Arlina Arshad
The Straits Times
15 January 2007
Housing standards vary for the 420,000 foreign workers, excluding maids, living here, ranging from luxury dorms with high-tech security systems to illegal kampung sheds on Pulau Ubin. Arlina Arshad looks at their different living conditions.
An overcrowded house with one bathroom on Ubin
A WOODEN zinc-roofed house on Pulau Ubin was housing 25 foreign workers when The Straits Times visited it last month.
A dozen Thai, Indian and Bangladeshi workers were in the compound eating their dinner of rice with vegetables.
Others were enjoying a cigarette, drinking beer, or calling their loved ones back home.
The men, who work on the Chek Jawa coastal boardwalk, invited The Straits Times to take a look around.
Yellow boots crowded the entrance, and muddy tracks were all over the vinyl floor of the house, which had damp clothes and mosquito nets hanging haphazardly from beams.
Eighteen double-decker beds and two single beds lined two walls.
Crowded, you say? The place used to house twice the number of workers, a worker who has since moved out said.
Modern conveniences are not part of the picture. Water has to be drawn from a well and pump-filtered. Bugs are a part of the deal.
Only one toilet and a bathroom serve them all.
An old school building with rubbish all around
The aroma of curry wafted through the canteen-cum-kitchen of Ama Keng Hostel in Lim Chu Kang.
More than 30 foreign workers were whipping up dinner on portable stoves in a dining and cooking area as big as a basketball court.
They did not seem to notice the dirty puddles on the floor, or the cabbage leaves and egg shells strewn around.
Early last month, when The Straits Times visited the school- turned-hostel - which is on the Manpower Ministry's list of approved workers' dormitories - two mongrels were feasting on food scraps.
The building's window panes were old and yellow. Damp clothes hung haphazardly on beams in the rooms. To 750 foreign workers, mainly from the marine industry, this was their home.
Getting into the hostel was easy. Visitors, mostly workers from nearby hostels, patronise the hostel's provision shop for beer and tidbits.
It appeared women visitors are a usual sight too. Workers would not say who these women are, but offered the tip that to enter the premises all you had to do was to saunter into the shop and 'pretend to buy things'. A man near the security post did not bat an eyelid when this reporter strolled in with a worker.
Hostel manager Eric Yeoh blamed workers for the dirty conditions. The place is scrubbed with high-pressure water hoses in the evening and cleaners do the job during the day, he said. 'Some workers don't use the toilets...and throw their rubbish all over the place.'
A run-down factory with many problems
In a secluded corner of Kim Chuan Drive stands a run-down workers' quarters.
At SGF Dormitory, blue canvas sheets pass for window curtains. Shower stalls are covered with green slime.
Mosquitoes have been found breeding there thrice between 2005 and last year.
That last transgression brought the dormitory operator composition fines of between $200 and $2,000.
The National Environment Agency checked the three- year-old place again last November and declared it to be in 'satisfactory condition'.
But a month later, SGF was in trouble again, this time with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), which had been tipped off by The Straits Times: The dorm did not have a Fire Safety Certification; it had illegally converted the first-storey kitchen- cum-dining area into sleeping quarters; it was storing LPG gas without a licence.
For the three offences, they were issued with three notices of Fire Safety Offence, amounting to $1,500.
Last November, The Straits Times saw workers hosing themselves down in the open in a dimly-lit backyard because no bathroom had been provided for them on the first floor.
And with only four hoses available there, some workers were waking up at 4am to shower - or going without it.
In the sleeping quarters, double-decker beds were placed so close that only a narrow space was left between bunks.
Beds were found in the first-floor units, which were supposed to be cooking areas.
When The Straits Times revisited the dorm last week, few improvements were seen.
Dorm director Seah Kim Tek, 58, insisted he has addressed some of the authorities' concerns.
He claimed that: he had written to the Urban Redevelopment Authority for approval to convert the first floor's kitchen-cum-dining area into sleeping quarters; he had told the fuel supplier to get a licence for storing LPG tanks; he had also told the dorms' tenants to have no more than 60 workers in each of the 10 three-storey units.
But The Straits Times counted 100 beds in one unit. Mr Seah said: 'I only rent them the space. The tenants bought and arranged the beds themselves. They are stubborn and problematic. I am going to tell them to get out by the Chinese New Year.'
When asked if he was going to provide shower stalls and toilets for workers on the first floor, now that it was going to become sleeping quarters, he said: 'They shower at their construction site and then come here. Or they can go upstairs and shower.'
He was referring to the four shower stalls and six toilets on the upper floors.
Asked why workers were cooking in their sleeping quarters, he said, exasperated: 'I told them not to, but they still do it. What do you expect me to do? They refuse to cooperate!'
When asked why the toilet walls are green with slime although he had four cleaners and why canvas sheets were being used to keep out the rain, he replied: 'I can put air-con, provide fans, put up windows, but why do up the place so nicely? The tenants are not going to pay so much, and the workers are going to spoil the things.'
He reckons he has paid about $4,000 in fines since the dorm opened. Meanwhile, he is getting another more fire-safe design plan drawn up for submission to the SCDF.
He blamed his cleaning contractor for not fumigating the place regularly, government officials for 'digging out a mosquito larva hiding behind the brick', and his cooking-gas supplier for putting LPG tanks on the premises.
The workers were not spared in his blame game. He said they had filthy habits and were always squeezing in more people than allowed.
He said: 'These tenants beg you and dump all their sick and accident cases here. Then 'temporary' cases become permanent. I tell them: 'Only 40 to 50 workers a unit, no more, tolong!' '
He was forthcoming about another 'sin' - that, until late last year, the dorm had no water supply for fighting fires.
He said: 'I plan to curi (steal) water from the PUB pipe because PUB didn't want to supply. But there's no fire so, no need to steal. I am an honest man, I won't hide anything from you.'
A spartan shack with no beds initially
For two months, four men slept on thin mattresses laid on the cardboard-lined floor, in a Pulau Ubin kampung house the size of two Housing Board bedrooms.
Centipedes crawled in twice.
When the Malaysians asked their employer, Ban Chuan Trading and Engineering, for beds, they were told there was no money for that.
One worker was aghast. He said in Malay: 'I have worked in so many places in Malaysia, and there have always been proper beds and taps. This place is the worst.'
He and his three roommates are cleaners at the Outward Bound School.
Since they started work there, three of them have had falls or injuries requiring medical attention.
One of them said: 'Our boss told us that he would pay for only the first medical treatment. If we meet with more accidents, we will have to foot the bill.'
The men's lodgings are free, but they have to take a 30-minute bicycle ride to work. The bicycles were given to them.
The men were told that their food would be paid for, but have so far been paying for their own meals.
Their biggest grouse: that their employer was holding on to their passports.
When The Straits Times contacted Ban Chuan, its project manager, Mr Anand Sanmugam, said he did not know the men did not have beds. But by Dec 16, after The Straits Times' check, beds had been sent over.
As for the promise of free food, Mr Sanmugam said it was not in Ban Chuan's employment contract.
He also said the company was holding the men's passports for 'safety', but that he would return their passports on Dec 22. As of last Thursday, this had not happened.
Mr Sanmugam also denied that the company had refused to pay for the men's subsequent medical bills
A secure, well-equipped dorm with cable TV
Foreign workers staying at a Jurong dormitory must tap their access pass or have the veins in their hands scanned by electronic sensor gates before they are allowed into their dormitory.
A security guard stands at the gates of 58, Penjuru Place to keep strangers out. A full-time management officer looks after daily operations.
The 6,000-or-so marine and manufacturing workers who live at the Penjuru Dormitory 1 are lucky compared to their peers living in sub-standard lodgings elsewhere.
There is a well-stocked minimart, a canteen selling Indian and Bangladeshi food, a multi-purpose hall and meeting rooms for employers and their workers. There is also a fitness park.
Each of the 384 units is equipped with its own kitchen, two toilets and a laundry area. Cable television is also available.
Up to 18 men can live in each unit. Each has a locker for his belongings.
Located near shipyards, petrochemical industries and factories, the dorm is the latest of four dorms run by Mini Environment Service. Penjuru Dormitory 2, coming up next door, will house another 6,000 workers by the middle of this year.
Employers pay $110 a month for each worker they place there. Workers, however, pay for their own food and utilities.
Mr Haja Najbudhin, 27, from India, for example, spends $300 of his $800 monthly pay on utilities and food.
MES executive director Lakshmanan S. said the workers have to abide by house rules, which means no gambling and drinking, among other things.
What workers' dormitories should have
Guidelines for standalone dormitories, according to the Code of Practice on Environmental Health:
• If the dormitory does not provide a separate space for cupboards or lockers, the minimum room space should be 4 sq m per person. Otherwise, it is 3 sq m per person.
• The room must be adequately ventilated and lit.
• Adequate number of toilets and sanitary fittings shall be provided. For construction sites with living quarters, a water closet, wash basin, urinal, bench and hanger must be provided for every 15 men or fewer.
Guidelines for workers' dormitories within industrial buildings and warehouses, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority:
• The workers' quarters shall not exceed 40 per cent of the gross floor area of the building.
• The number of workers must comply with technical requirements of other agencies, including the National Environment Agency and Fire Safety & Shelter Department. The total number of workers shall not exceed 500.
• Dormitories should be located away from residential estates.
Space crunch
- The Straits Times, 15 January 2007
Industry wonders where to house 50,000 foreign workers heading here
Wave of 50,000 foreign workers will sweep into Singapore in the next few years as major construction projects get under way - but housing those now here is already a big headache.
Many of the 420,000 work permit holders here, excluding maids, are being put up in illegal lodgings, often with sub-standard facilities.The Manpower Ministry (MOM) website lists 31 commercially-run workers' dormitories and 34 lessees of temporary workers' quarters scattered across the island.
These are 'off-site' quarters, which mean a daily commute for what the industry players estimate to be 120,000 residents they house. Standards and living conditions vary at these approved quarters - described by the industry as the best.
The snag: Many are full and have long waiting lists.
As many as half the workers are housed in on-site quarters. A small-scale Singapore Contractors Association Limited (SCAL) survey of 230 construction companies housing 12,000 workers found that half of these workers were in on-site lodgings.
While these quarters do not need planning approval by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the stand-alone, off-site ones are bound by the Code of Practice on Environmental Health.
The code requires each worker to have at least 4sqm of space if no lockers are provided, and 3sqm with lockers. The room also has to be adequately airy and lit.
The URA bars foreign workers from occupying private apartments and landed residential properties, but dormitory operators reckon a quarter of work permit holders here are flouting this rule.
Dormitory operators and employers want to see more space freed up, so that more dormitories - with proper facilities - can be constructed ahead of the surge of foreign workers heading here for work on major projects, such as the integrated resorts.
The industry also wants dormitories to be better equipped, and for more stringent checks to ensure minimum standards in hygiene and safety.
A third item on the industry's wish list: a single government agency to oversee foreign worker housing.
As it stands now, different aspects of the issue come under the URA, MOM, the Building and Construction Authority, the Singapore Civil Defence Force, and the National Environment Agency (NEA).
The industry has grounds for concern. One stems from the Housing Board's ban last November on flat owners renting their flats to non-Malaysian construction workers.
At around the same time, the URA relaxed the rules to let foreign construction and factory workers stay in dormitories converted from warehouses, which were previously meant only for employees who worked in those buildings.
The problem was that the URA move did not ease the space crunch.
Industry experts said the URA was merely making illegal quarters for those not working in the building legal, rather than increasing housing options.
Mr Foo Kok Kiong, president of the Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees' Union, said $200 per worker was a 'reasonable' amount for employers to foot. It should cover room, food and utilities.
But he noted that some employers - especially those hiring fewer than 100 workers - were spending only $50 a worker.
He said: 'Employers rent a room from dormitory operators for $1,000 and squeeze in as many people as possible. Most dorm operators don't care and, so far, we have not heard of anyone being penalised for this.'
A Straits Times check with five dormitories, including two approved by the authorities, found many wanting. (See accompanying stories.)
For the moment, not a single industry player - be it a government agency, construction firm, union leader or dormitory operator - knows exactly how many illegal dormitories exist or where they are.
Employers who house workers in illegal quarters say they do it because of the lack of dormitories.
The space crunch gets so bad sometimes that tumpang cases are common, said Mr Foo, referring to the employers' practice of paying another employer to house their workers.
If caught using private apartments as a dormitory, an employer can be fined up to $200,000 under the Planning Act. Fines of $8,000 to $10,000 are more usual, industry players told The Straits Times.
The NEA also does some policing. It checked 53 dormitories last year and issued 14 $200 summonses for mosquito-breeding.
The Ministry of National Development is now identifying sites suitable for building dormitories and preparing them for public tender.
Home for them is...
Bu Arlina Arshad
The Straits Times
15 January 2007
Housing standards vary for the 420,000 foreign workers, excluding maids, living here, ranging from luxury dorms with high-tech security systems to illegal kampung sheds on Pulau Ubin. Arlina Arshad looks at their different living conditions.
An overcrowded house with one bathroom on Ubin
A WOODEN zinc-roofed house on Pulau Ubin was housing 25 foreign workers when The Straits Times visited it last month.
A dozen Thai, Indian and Bangladeshi workers were in the compound eating their dinner of rice with vegetables.
Others were enjoying a cigarette, drinking beer, or calling their loved ones back home.
The men, who work on the Chek Jawa coastal boardwalk, invited The Straits Times to take a look around.
Yellow boots crowded the entrance, and muddy tracks were all over the vinyl floor of the house, which had damp clothes and mosquito nets hanging haphazardly from beams.
Eighteen double-decker beds and two single beds lined two walls.
Crowded, you say? The place used to house twice the number of workers, a worker who has since moved out said.
Modern conveniences are not part of the picture. Water has to be drawn from a well and pump-filtered. Bugs are a part of the deal.
Only one toilet and a bathroom serve them all.
An old school building with rubbish all around
The aroma of curry wafted through the canteen-cum-kitchen of Ama Keng Hostel in Lim Chu Kang.
More than 30 foreign workers were whipping up dinner on portable stoves in a dining and cooking area as big as a basketball court.
They did not seem to notice the dirty puddles on the floor, or the cabbage leaves and egg shells strewn around.
Early last month, when The Straits Times visited the school- turned-hostel - which is on the Manpower Ministry's list of approved workers' dormitories - two mongrels were feasting on food scraps.
The building's window panes were old and yellow. Damp clothes hung haphazardly on beams in the rooms. To 750 foreign workers, mainly from the marine industry, this was their home.
Getting into the hostel was easy. Visitors, mostly workers from nearby hostels, patronise the hostel's provision shop for beer and tidbits.
It appeared women visitors are a usual sight too. Workers would not say who these women are, but offered the tip that to enter the premises all you had to do was to saunter into the shop and 'pretend to buy things'. A man near the security post did not bat an eyelid when this reporter strolled in with a worker.
Hostel manager Eric Yeoh blamed workers for the dirty conditions. The place is scrubbed with high-pressure water hoses in the evening and cleaners do the job during the day, he said. 'Some workers don't use the toilets...and throw their rubbish all over the place.'
A run-down factory with many problems
In a secluded corner of Kim Chuan Drive stands a run-down workers' quarters.
At SGF Dormitory, blue canvas sheets pass for window curtains. Shower stalls are covered with green slime.
Mosquitoes have been found breeding there thrice between 2005 and last year.
That last transgression brought the dormitory operator composition fines of between $200 and $2,000.
The National Environment Agency checked the three- year-old place again last November and declared it to be in 'satisfactory condition'.
But a month later, SGF was in trouble again, this time with the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), which had been tipped off by The Straits Times: The dorm did not have a Fire Safety Certification; it had illegally converted the first-storey kitchen- cum-dining area into sleeping quarters; it was storing LPG gas without a licence.
For the three offences, they were issued with three notices of Fire Safety Offence, amounting to $1,500.
Last November, The Straits Times saw workers hosing themselves down in the open in a dimly-lit backyard because no bathroom had been provided for them on the first floor.
And with only four hoses available there, some workers were waking up at 4am to shower - or going without it.
In the sleeping quarters, double-decker beds were placed so close that only a narrow space was left between bunks.
Beds were found in the first-floor units, which were supposed to be cooking areas.
When The Straits Times revisited the dorm last week, few improvements were seen.
Dorm director Seah Kim Tek, 58, insisted he has addressed some of the authorities' concerns.
He claimed that: he had written to the Urban Redevelopment Authority for approval to convert the first floor's kitchen-cum-dining area into sleeping quarters; he had told the fuel supplier to get a licence for storing LPG tanks; he had also told the dorms' tenants to have no more than 60 workers in each of the 10 three-storey units.
But The Straits Times counted 100 beds in one unit. Mr Seah said: 'I only rent them the space. The tenants bought and arranged the beds themselves. They are stubborn and problematic. I am going to tell them to get out by the Chinese New Year.'
When asked if he was going to provide shower stalls and toilets for workers on the first floor, now that it was going to become sleeping quarters, he said: 'They shower at their construction site and then come here. Or they can go upstairs and shower.'
He was referring to the four shower stalls and six toilets on the upper floors.
Asked why workers were cooking in their sleeping quarters, he said, exasperated: 'I told them not to, but they still do it. What do you expect me to do? They refuse to cooperate!'
When asked why the toilet walls are green with slime although he had four cleaners and why canvas sheets were being used to keep out the rain, he replied: 'I can put air-con, provide fans, put up windows, but why do up the place so nicely? The tenants are not going to pay so much, and the workers are going to spoil the things.'
He reckons he has paid about $4,000 in fines since the dorm opened. Meanwhile, he is getting another more fire-safe design plan drawn up for submission to the SCDF.
He blamed his cleaning contractor for not fumigating the place regularly, government officials for 'digging out a mosquito larva hiding behind the brick', and his cooking-gas supplier for putting LPG tanks on the premises.
The workers were not spared in his blame game. He said they had filthy habits and were always squeezing in more people than allowed.
He said: 'These tenants beg you and dump all their sick and accident cases here. Then 'temporary' cases become permanent. I tell them: 'Only 40 to 50 workers a unit, no more, tolong!' '
He was forthcoming about another 'sin' - that, until late last year, the dorm had no water supply for fighting fires.
He said: 'I plan to curi (steal) water from the PUB pipe because PUB didn't want to supply. But there's no fire so, no need to steal. I am an honest man, I won't hide anything from you.'
A spartan shack with no beds initially
For two months, four men slept on thin mattresses laid on the cardboard-lined floor, in a Pulau Ubin kampung house the size of two Housing Board bedrooms.
Centipedes crawled in twice.
When the Malaysians asked their employer, Ban Chuan Trading and Engineering, for beds, they were told there was no money for that.
One worker was aghast. He said in Malay: 'I have worked in so many places in Malaysia, and there have always been proper beds and taps. This place is the worst.'
He and his three roommates are cleaners at the Outward Bound School.
Since they started work there, three of them have had falls or injuries requiring medical attention.
One of them said: 'Our boss told us that he would pay for only the first medical treatment. If we meet with more accidents, we will have to foot the bill.'
The men's lodgings are free, but they have to take a 30-minute bicycle ride to work. The bicycles were given to them.
The men were told that their food would be paid for, but have so far been paying for their own meals.
Their biggest grouse: that their employer was holding on to their passports.
When The Straits Times contacted Ban Chuan, its project manager, Mr Anand Sanmugam, said he did not know the men did not have beds. But by Dec 16, after The Straits Times' check, beds had been sent over.
As for the promise of free food, Mr Sanmugam said it was not in Ban Chuan's employment contract.
He also said the company was holding the men's passports for 'safety', but that he would return their passports on Dec 22. As of last Thursday, this had not happened.
Mr Sanmugam also denied that the company had refused to pay for the men's subsequent medical bills
A secure, well-equipped dorm with cable TV
Foreign workers staying at a Jurong dormitory must tap their access pass or have the veins in their hands scanned by electronic sensor gates before they are allowed into their dormitory.
A security guard stands at the gates of 58, Penjuru Place to keep strangers out. A full-time management officer looks after daily operations.
The 6,000-or-so marine and manufacturing workers who live at the Penjuru Dormitory 1 are lucky compared to their peers living in sub-standard lodgings elsewhere.
There is a well-stocked minimart, a canteen selling Indian and Bangladeshi food, a multi-purpose hall and meeting rooms for employers and their workers. There is also a fitness park.
Each of the 384 units is equipped with its own kitchen, two toilets and a laundry area. Cable television is also available.
Up to 18 men can live in each unit. Each has a locker for his belongings.
Located near shipyards, petrochemical industries and factories, the dorm is the latest of four dorms run by Mini Environment Service. Penjuru Dormitory 2, coming up next door, will house another 6,000 workers by the middle of this year.
Employers pay $110 a month for each worker they place there. Workers, however, pay for their own food and utilities.
Mr Haja Najbudhin, 27, from India, for example, spends $300 of his $800 monthly pay on utilities and food.
MES executive director Lakshmanan S. said the workers have to abide by house rules, which means no gambling and drinking, among other things.
What workers' dormitories should have
Guidelines for standalone dormitories, according to the Code of Practice on Environmental Health:
• If the dormitory does not provide a separate space for cupboards or lockers, the minimum room space should be 4 sq m per person. Otherwise, it is 3 sq m per person.
• The room must be adequately ventilated and lit.
• Adequate number of toilets and sanitary fittings shall be provided. For construction sites with living quarters, a water closet, wash basin, urinal, bench and hanger must be provided for every 15 men or fewer.
Guidelines for workers' dormitories within industrial buildings and warehouses, according to the Urban Redevelopment Authority:
• The workers' quarters shall not exceed 40 per cent of the gross floor area of the building.
• The number of workers must comply with technical requirements of other agencies, including the National Environment Agency and Fire Safety & Shelter Department. The total number of workers shall not exceed 500.
• Dormitories should be located away from residential estates.
Space crunch
- The Straits Times, 15 January 2007
Industry wonders where to house 50,000 foreign workers heading here
Wave of 50,000 foreign workers will sweep into Singapore in the next few years as major construction projects get under way - but housing those now here is already a big headache.
Many of the 420,000 work permit holders here, excluding maids, are being put up in illegal lodgings, often with sub-standard facilities.The Manpower Ministry (MOM) website lists 31 commercially-run workers' dormitories and 34 lessees of temporary workers' quarters scattered across the island.
These are 'off-site' quarters, which mean a daily commute for what the industry players estimate to be 120,000 residents they house. Standards and living conditions vary at these approved quarters - described by the industry as the best.
The snag: Many are full and have long waiting lists.
As many as half the workers are housed in on-site quarters. A small-scale Singapore Contractors Association Limited (SCAL) survey of 230 construction companies housing 12,000 workers found that half of these workers were in on-site lodgings.
While these quarters do not need planning approval by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the stand-alone, off-site ones are bound by the Code of Practice on Environmental Health.
The code requires each worker to have at least 4sqm of space if no lockers are provided, and 3sqm with lockers. The room also has to be adequately airy and lit.
The URA bars foreign workers from occupying private apartments and landed residential properties, but dormitory operators reckon a quarter of work permit holders here are flouting this rule.
Dormitory operators and employers want to see more space freed up, so that more dormitories - with proper facilities - can be constructed ahead of the surge of foreign workers heading here for work on major projects, such as the integrated resorts.
The industry also wants dormitories to be better equipped, and for more stringent checks to ensure minimum standards in hygiene and safety.
A third item on the industry's wish list: a single government agency to oversee foreign worker housing.
As it stands now, different aspects of the issue come under the URA, MOM, the Building and Construction Authority, the Singapore Civil Defence Force, and the National Environment Agency (NEA).
The industry has grounds for concern. One stems from the Housing Board's ban last November on flat owners renting their flats to non-Malaysian construction workers.
At around the same time, the URA relaxed the rules to let foreign construction and factory workers stay in dormitories converted from warehouses, which were previously meant only for employees who worked in those buildings.
The problem was that the URA move did not ease the space crunch.
Industry experts said the URA was merely making illegal quarters for those not working in the building legal, rather than increasing housing options.
Mr Foo Kok Kiong, president of the Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees' Union, said $200 per worker was a 'reasonable' amount for employers to foot. It should cover room, food and utilities.
But he noted that some employers - especially those hiring fewer than 100 workers - were spending only $50 a worker.
He said: 'Employers rent a room from dormitory operators for $1,000 and squeeze in as many people as possible. Most dorm operators don't care and, so far, we have not heard of anyone being penalised for this.'
A Straits Times check with five dormitories, including two approved by the authorities, found many wanting. (See accompanying stories.)
For the moment, not a single industry player - be it a government agency, construction firm, union leader or dormitory operator - knows exactly how many illegal dormitories exist or where they are.
Employers who house workers in illegal quarters say they do it because of the lack of dormitories.
The space crunch gets so bad sometimes that tumpang cases are common, said Mr Foo, referring to the employers' practice of paying another employer to house their workers.
If caught using private apartments as a dormitory, an employer can be fined up to $200,000 under the Planning Act. Fines of $8,000 to $10,000 are more usual, industry players told The Straits Times.
The NEA also does some policing. It checked 53 dormitories last year and issued 14 $200 summonses for mosquito-breeding.
The Ministry of National Development is now identifying sites suitable for building dormitories and preparing them for public tender.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Be My Guest Worker
By Philip Martin
The American Interest, Jan/Feb 2007 issue
Link to article here.
The American Interest, Jan/Feb 2007 issue
Link to article here.
Genuinely
new ideas are rare in international political life, particularly new
ideas that happen also to be good ideas. One such prospective new idea
has been slowly rising and has recently taken on protean aspirations.
That idea is to expand international labor migration as a means not only
to boost economies in the developed world, but also in the developing
world, especially through the expansion of remittances (money sent by
migrant workers to relatives in their home countries). The hope, too, is
that by expanding legal migration, illegal migration, with its host of
public health and security liabilities, can be sharply reduced. This new
“big idea” has come to be characterized as a “win-win-win” proposition:
Migrants win by earning higher wages; recipient countries win with
additional workers to expand their own productivity and affluence; and
sending countries win through remittances and the return of workers who
have gained skills abroad.
If this big new idea sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. If migrant labor is to be controlled and temporary, then we are talking about guest worker programs. Guest worker programs have a history, and this history shows that both the economics and the sociology of migration are not so easily controlled. Some good could come from this big new idea, but only if the lessons of the past are understood. In particular, the hope that expanded legal migration will depress illegal migration will be cruelly dashed unless governments work cooperatively to create clear incentives and disincentives, respectively, for legal and illegal migration. This is not easy to do. It would also be a huge mistake to see migration policies as a cure-all form of development policy.
Guest worker programs can play a role in better managing labor migration, but they should be thought of as a last or lesser, not a first, resort. The best way to deal with illegal migration issues is to pass good laws that don’t flout economic realities—and then to enforce those laws. The best way to deal with development is to change economic realities—that is, to generate development inside poor countries, rather than to export their human capital to rich ones.
- See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
If this big new idea sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. If migrant labor is to be controlled and temporary, then we are talking about guest worker programs. Guest worker programs have a history, and this history shows that both the economics and the sociology of migration are not so easily controlled. Some good could come from this big new idea, but only if the lessons of the past are understood. In particular, the hope that expanded legal migration will depress illegal migration will be cruelly dashed unless governments work cooperatively to create clear incentives and disincentives, respectively, for legal and illegal migration. This is not easy to do. It would also be a huge mistake to see migration policies as a cure-all form of development policy.
Guest worker programs can play a role in better managing labor migration, but they should be thought of as a last or lesser, not a first, resort. The best way to deal with illegal migration issues is to pass good laws that don’t flout economic realities—and then to enforce those laws. The best way to deal with development is to change economic realities—that is, to generate development inside poor countries, rather than to export their human capital to rich ones.
- See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
Genuinely
new ideas are rare in international political life, particularly new
ideas that happen also to be good ideas. One such prospective new idea
has been slowly rising and has recently taken on protean aspirations.
That idea is to expand international labor migration as a means not only
to boost economies in the developed world, but also in the developing
world, especially through the expansion of remittances (money sent by
migrant workers to relatives in their home countries). The hope, too, is
that by expanding legal migration, illegal migration, with its host of
public health and security liabilities, can be sharply reduced. This new
“big idea” has come to be characterized as a “win-win-win” proposition:
Migrants win by earning higher wages; recipient countries win with
additional workers to expand their own productivity and affluence; and
sending countries win through remittances and the return of workers who
have gained skills abroad.
If this big new idea sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. If migrant labor is to be controlled and temporary, then we are talking about guest worker programs. Guest worker programs have a history, and this history shows that both the economics and the sociology of migration are not so easily controlled. Some good could come from this big new idea, but only if the lessons of the past are understood. In particular, the hope that expanded legal migration will depress illegal migration will be cruelly dashed unless governments work cooperatively to create clear incentives and disincentives, respectively, for legal and illegal migration. This is not easy to do. It would also be a huge mistake to see migration policies as a cure-all form of development policy.
Guest worker programs can play a role in better managing labor migration, but they should be thought of as a last or lesser, not a first, resort. The best way to deal with illegal migration issues is to pass good laws that don’t flout economic realities—and then to enforce those laws. The best way to deal with development is to change economic realities—that is, to generate development inside poor countries, rather than to export their human capital to rich ones.
- See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
If this big new idea sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. If migrant labor is to be controlled and temporary, then we are talking about guest worker programs. Guest worker programs have a history, and this history shows that both the economics and the sociology of migration are not so easily controlled. Some good could come from this big new idea, but only if the lessons of the past are understood. In particular, the hope that expanded legal migration will depress illegal migration will be cruelly dashed unless governments work cooperatively to create clear incentives and disincentives, respectively, for legal and illegal migration. This is not easy to do. It would also be a huge mistake to see migration policies as a cure-all form of development policy.
Guest worker programs can play a role in better managing labor migration, but they should be thought of as a last or lesser, not a first, resort. The best way to deal with illegal migration issues is to pass good laws that don’t flout economic realities—and then to enforce those laws. The best way to deal with development is to change economic realities—that is, to generate development inside poor countries, rather than to export their human capital to rich ones.
- See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
From the January/February 2007 issue:
Be My Guest Worker?
- See more at: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
If this big new idea sounds almost too good to be true, it’s because it is. If migrant labor is to be controlled and temporary,
then we are talking about guest worker programs. Guest worker programs
have a history, and this history shows that both the economics and the
sociology of migration are not so easily controlled. - See more at:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=228#sthash.AiIFNcwg.dpuf
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