Jobless migrant workers protest in Singapore again

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Saturday, 28 February 2009

Reuters

A group of around 100 Bangladeshi migrant workers gathered outside Singapore's labour ministry on Friday, urging the government to give them work and retrieve overdue pay after they were laid off by shipping firms.

Protests are rare in Singapore, where public speeches and demonstrations are banned unless they are approved by the government, or take place at a designated place called Speaker's Corner.

A representative for the Bangladeshi workers said they were promised a monthly salary of at least S$400 and a work permit of 2 years. But with no work or pay for 4 months, they felt they were in danger of being deported.

"We don't want to go back to Bangladesh. We take loan, we cannot pay, we die," said Rahman, who gave up his farming job in Bangladesh and took a loan of S$7000 from money lenders back home to pay an agent fee to work in Singapore.

Fifty workers gathered at the ministry earlier this month.

Local advocacy group Transient Workers Count Too said such gatherings would become more common in Singapore as workers were not being fed enough and were just sitting in dormitories, amid Singapore's worst ever recession.

"The mood is that we are seeing a lot of people coming forward -- hundreds -- they don't have work," said the group's Shelley Thio. "We are going to see a lot more of it -- they are being shortchanged."

Singapore's shipyard, construction and manufacturing industries were once red hot, hiring almost 800,000 migrants in 2007. But as the economy slid into recession last year, demand for labour dived and major projects were cancelled or delayed.

"If developers can't get money to pay construction companies, subcontractors down the line will get affected too," said Chew Chin Hui, who heads a local building firm.

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-38247620090227

Read also:
50 migrant workers protest at MOM over job (16 Feb 09)
Local activists arrested for supporting Burmese cause (12 Jan 09)
224 Chinese foreign workers protested outside Ministry of Manpower against unpaid salary (30 Dec 08)

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Comments (6)

Sun 01 Mar 2009 8:36 AM | wayne - Illegal Assembly?

Shouldn't these 50 count 100 count as illegal assembly as well?

Sun 01 Mar 2009 11:19 AM | exSINgaPOORean - Why like this?

A group of just 16 decent Singaporeans who are among them a lawyer, N.S. men, PhD lecturer and degree holders gathered together, are now charged and definately will be sent to jail by the PAP kangaroo court (already one of them is in jail) for illegal gathering bec. they gathered with a "cause".

Time and again you see groups of more than 50 foreign "workers" gather in and OUTSIDE the MOM also for a cause (wants MOM to act for them...isn't it a cause) and not a single person is arrested. Instead they are assisted by the MOM and possibly the police.

The CASE can "protest" at the same place for the same "cause" of Consumer Rights and only a day later than the SDP, and no arrest. Instead they are praised by the ST and PAP.

Even the FT workers who has not served a single day of N.S. have more rights than any Singaporeans.

Enough is enough of the old fox Lee Kuan Yew's bullying of his own citizens.

After loosing Sin $300 billion he still has the chick to arrest his own citizens who dare to vocie up. Singaporeans on the whole are condemned not by others but by Lee Kuan Yew himself...he will continue to look down on his own people treating them like dogs (which has less rights than any human being including FT workers....without any dignity.

I just saw the old show Die Hard 3 and for just US$140 billion one can buy all the gold reserve in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York! And Lee Kuan Yew and his DAUGHTER-IN-LAW (yea, the related and connected one) lose about US $220 billion! More than all the hard solid GOLD reserve in USA. Sin$100,000 per Singapore citizen!

If you see the show, you can see how elaborate a scheme the thugs used to rob the Federal Reserved Bank.

Well the "white collar" thugs are better this time in stealing from Singaporeans who sheepishly trusted an old fox Lee Kuan Yew.

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth" Albert Einstein.

Sun 01 Mar 2009 11:35 AM | g_e - It's my party and I'll arrest if I want to...

A protest gathering of more than FOUR people! Gasp! Eh, that's against the law.

Why hasn't the riot squad been called in to arrest all 100 of them and why haven't they been charged with conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace?

After all, the riot squad was deployed to seize the 4 highly dangerous SDP criminal protestors outside a government building not so long sgo, so why one law for poor FTs and another for equally poor opposition members?

Anything to say Shanmugam? Fatty Woon? Lee Kuan Yew? Belinda Ang? Anybody?

Sun 01 Mar 2009 3:28 PM | exSINgaPOORean - More to come!

I bet that there will come a time when 1,000 Indian workers assemble in little India and 1/3 march to MOM, 1/3 march to ParLEEment and the remaining 1/3 march the Istana to demand for the same deal.

The China Chinese workers will do the same. That include those 10,000 Chinese whores who would demand for better "treatment and pay" and free medication for treating their VD and AIDS.

Then finally the most feared group stick their head out...the Vitcongs in Singapore. The wild wild West in the past 40 years have tasted these Vitnamese fury when they arrive as refugees. Now these 50,000 of so Vitcongs in Singapore will definately show their colours if they cannot get jobs. They have no fear of all those N.S army and police boys nor the Gukars.

They are quick to learn three lessons which are to their advantages:

1. They learn the trick that only though protests then they can get their demands met quickly.

2. Also they know the running dog govt. cdare not arrest them nor dare not deport their leaders or spokesmen.

3. They have more rights than local Singaporeans and the Singapore police is afraid to arrest them, the above-the-law FTs.

Why they are so brave...while if they go back to their own country they will be killed by the loan sharks. It is a dead-end for them.

So wait till more Singaporeans meet their dead-ends...cannot withdraw thier CPF even though they need their money now to feed their families. More will act like the FTs.

"If you chase the dog against the wall, it will bite back". Chinese proverb.

Mon 02 Mar 2009 2:08 AM | jbeji

to Anna,
r u going to speak for them again just like the way u wrote e letter to Town Council, maybe this time u shuld write to their company and 'legitimatize' protest, interestly, they are allow to do so...anyhow, what is ur cause, is this the Singapore that you want to build?

Mon 02 Mar 2009 5:27 AM | | Muhammad Shamin - Learn from them...

We natives should learn from these Banglas and Chinamen. They protest when their rights are trampled.

TAP THEIR "TALENT" AND "SKILLS" on how to do it.

Salam Reformasi!