LIST OF DEMANDS

We have created this list of demands based on our experience of developing this project, organising  in the migrant justice space, and learning from others’ advocacy efforts.

This list is organised according to the sections on our website. It is non-exhaustive, as putting together an exhaustive list is an undertaking we are not fully equipped or positioned to do. Please contact us if you have views, ideas, or resources about these issues.

Instead, these demands are a starting point. Our movement towards more humane and rights-based systems cannot stop at the identification of these demands. We urge everyone to organise in the capacities they can towards fulfilling these demands, and to make space for migrant workers and their voices to be at the forefront of this justice movement. 

Unsafe Workplaces

  • Making remedial responses less counter-productive: Some existing responses to breaches of workplace safety fail to address the root pressures that cause work to be unsafe. The Stop Work Order, issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), is an example of a measure that ends up putting more time pressure on construction projects and increasing workplace safety risks. Government bodies must coordinate better and execute  coherent responses to problems.

  • Reforming the tender process: Safety is currently a factor in the tendering process, but its emphasis must  increase. One life unjustly cut short is one life too many; human lives don’t belong on the same weighing scale as profit. The current ratio of quality and safety against price must  be reconsidered. Moreover, tenders should be independently reviewed if they currently aren’t. 

  • A worker-centric whistleblowing process: There needs to be a safety reporting system that does not penalise (indirectly or directly) workers who step forward and speak up for the safety of themselves and/or their colleagues. Workers who wish  to change companies because of workplace safety transgressions committed by their supervisors should also be granted a transfer without the need of an employer’s letter of transfer.

Lorry Transportation

  • Abolish the transportation of migrant workers at the back of lorries. Human beings are not cargo.

Healthcare

  • Reinstate the healthcare subsidy for all MWs that was removed in 2006. 

  • For MWs to have access to their own insurance policies. This would replace the current system, where a worker needs permission and a Letter of Guarantee from their employer for certain situations, such as many investigations and interventions recommended in tertiary hospitals.

Maid Abuse

  • Work insurance for domestic workers: Currently, when a FDW is injured at her workplace—which is both her employer’s home and her own home—she gets no compensation for loss of income or for any permanent or temporary bodily harm. Only her hospital bills are paid for, usually through personal insurance bought by her  employer; but if she’s not hospitalised, or once she’s discharged, she can be repatriated. We reject the current evidential difficulties cited by MOM as a sufficient reason to not enable the most basic of work conditions: compensation for injuries sustained at or through work. 

  • Defining and protecting key work conditions in the law: Currently, FDWs are excluded from the Employment Act and do not have their off-days, working hours, annual and medical leave, and job descriptions clearly defined in the law. This provides room for abuse, as FDWs may find it hard to navigate or negotiate discretion. FDWs must receive greater labour protection in the spirit of the Employment Act, and defining those key terms is a good start.

  • Live-out arrangement: It should not be illegal for domestic workers to choose to live away from their place of employment. Currently, according to domestic workers’ Work Permit conditions , they must live in their employer’s home—a condition that gives room for domestic abuse. 

  • Standardising contracts: MOM should provide template employment contracts like those in Hong Kong, which should receive MOM’s sign-off like the In-Principle Agreement (IPA). 

  • More holistic health coverage: MOM health screenings should include the basics of women’s health according to national cancer screening guidelines, such as Pap smears and mammograms, and should be conducted with basic levels of medical professionalism, such as maintaining patient-client confidentiality for all checks/visits. 

Agents of Exploitation

  • Enabling direct-hire: In the long-run, the MOM should create a direct-hire system for all migrant workers so that middlemen can be cut out from the hiring process; this will prevent migrant workers from having to pay exorbitant agent fees. But in the meantime, MOM has to provide greater oversight specifically to maid agencies to ensure that business practices are ethical and employer-employee matches are fair. 

  • Abolishing the practice of top-up: Maid agencies can lawfully force FDWs to pay up to 2 months of additional debt every time they are ‘returned’ to the agencies by employers, which might happen for any reason. Abuse of this top-up practice is too easy and the risk falls on the FDW.

  • Abolishing the practice of displaying humans in storefronts: Maid agencies should stop ‘displaying’ workers in or near storefronts—a common practice which workers have said makes them feel humiliated and ashamed. Human beings are not goods for sale.

Data Transparency

  • Mandating systematic data collection on all migrant deaths and accidents: Current and readily available datasets are very limited, often aggregated at levels that are too general to enable detailed meaningful analysis, or lacking in scale and comprehensiveness. Important data points include names, nationalities, ages, industries, worksites, penalties issued, compensation received, and follow-up actions. 

  • Making this data publicly available for verification and research use: Clear insight yields meaningful and effective action. To aid migrant workers, their loved ones back home, and all those charged with their care (like employers and agencies), better quality data would enable constructive communications and responses. It would also allow more people of different talents and expertise to contribute views about how things can be done better, with the hope of preventing more migrant deaths in the future.

Our research yielded reports of 455 migrant worker deaths in Singapore from 1 Jan 2000—3 Aug 2022. However, the true number remains unknown and is likely much higher. This graph illustrates the scale and pattern of underreporting migrant deaths. To produce it we compared “actual” workplace deaths (defined as those in the MOM WSH reports) and “reported” workplace deaths (defined as those gathered from public sources and logged in our datasheet). Year on year the discrepancy is almost double, and this is just in the workplace death category. 

For more information on how data was collected, please refer to our Methodology section. 

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