Bangladeshi workers in Singapore feel the crunch
Porimol Palma
Bangladeshi expatriates have started experiencing job cuts in Singapore due to slowdown in businesses, especially in the shipping and construction sectors, following the global financial meltdown.
“We’ve received information from the Bangladesh mission in Singapore that a good number of our workers are jobless because of delay or slowdown in shipping sector,” Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury told The Daily Star.
He however did not give any specific number of the workers losing jobs.
His statement was evident in The Straits Times, a Singaporean daily, which reported yesterday at least 55 Bangladeshis employed by construction sub-contractor Tunnel & Shaft began returning home in debt after working there for seven months or less.
The workers were recruited last year in anticipation of two major projects estimated to be worth $20 million. But the projects have been delayed due to the economic climate, and the company says it cannot afford to keep idle workers.
Tunnel & Shaft is now sending them home for two months with the hope to bring them back when the economy picks up. It also worked out a deal to give each worker a flat compensation of $1,000.
However, if the workers are re-employed by the company, they must return $500 each.
The workers are mostly concerned about their financial situation, as many of them had taken loans between $7,000 and $9,000 each and are still in debt.
Jolovan Wham of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, an NGO in Singapore, said hundreds of laid-off shipyard workers have approached them in recent months with payment and employment issues.
Wham cited a case of 30 Bangladeshis, who were due to leave this week after their employers told them there was no work for them. They received their salaries only after the Ministry of Manpower’s intervention.
Expatriates’ Welfare Secretary Abdul Matin Chowdhury said some NGOs in Singapore extended assistance to a good number of Bangladeshis who want to stay there.
The Bangladesh mission in Singapore is also trying to arrange alternative jobs for them, but so far nothing could be done, he added.
“We are thinking of negotiating with the higher authorities in Singapore about the issue,” Chowdhury said.
He went on to say that the government has already instructed the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training not to issue emigration clearances to the jobseekers going to Singapore without contacting the Bangladesh embassy.
Meanwhile, Jolovan Wham said foreign workers in Singapore are given little real protection.
“They can complain to MoM [Ministry of Manpower of Singapore], but this does not amount to much; once their work permits are cancelled, they must go,” he said.
Leader of a migrant rights forum in Singapore Yeo Guat Kwang said: “No matter how bad times are, companies must adhere to the terms and conditions they have promised the workers.”
Courtesy: thedailystar.net
