Rilek1Corner

Tag: foreign workers

  • Fined $72,000 For Hiring Foreign Stall Assistants Without Valid Work Passes At Geylang, Tampines And Toa Payoh Bazaars

    Fined $72,000 For Hiring Foreign Stall Assistants Without Valid Work Passes At Geylang, Tampines And Toa Payoh Bazaars

    A 40-year-old Singaporean man has been fined S$72,000 for hiring Indonesians without valid work passes as stall assistants at three pasar malams (night markets) last year. Between Jun 1 to Sep 16 last year, Sao Wei Loon employed the 19 social visit pass holders to work as assistants at food and beverage stalls in bazaars at Geylang Serai, Tampines and Toa Payoh, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said in a press release on Wednesday (Jun 28).

    The illegal employment lasted from three days to more than three weeks. The MOM’s director of employment inspectorate at the foreign manpower management division, Mr Kandhavel Periyasamy, called this a “particularly egregious” case of illegal employment as Sao had illegally employed a large number of foreigners on social visit passes. Sao was convicted of eight of the 19 charges after pleading guilty on Tuesday. He will serve the default sentence of six months’ imprisonment in lieu of the fine.

    In the last two years, 109 employers were convicted for illegal employment offences according to the MOM. Those who hire foreigners without valid work passes can be fined up to S$30,000 and jailed up to 12 months. They will also be banned from employing foreign workers, the MOM said.

     

    Source: Channel News Asia

  • Jafri Basron: Singaporean Malay And Chinese Stallholders Cannot Survive In Changi Business Park

    Jafri Basron: Singaporean Malay And Chinese Stallholders Cannot Survive In Changi Business Park

    There are TOO MANY INDIANS at the Changi Business Park that lead to failures in business selling Chinese and Malay foods.

    There are many buildings at CBP and almost every building have their own food courts.

    I observed that many stall-holders selling Chinese or Malay food would fold-up after sometimes due to poor business environment as there are few locals working in the vicinity . Hiwever, Indian food stall-holders is doing a roaring business there.

    Each time a stall becomes vacant, another Indian food stall would open. Whether it is indian vegetarian food, north indian food, south indian food, chapati or briyani rice will be available.

    In some of the food courts; more than 80% of the stalls are selling Indian related food.

    I would like to take this opportunity to urge Singaporeans to open up their eyes and look hard at the present situation.

    Singaporeans will soon be squeezed out of their own country if they continue to support the PAP Government who is more inclined to the foreign Indian community due to the CEHA agreement materialised between Singapore and India. In the afreement, Singapore government has to allow thousands of Indian workers to work and lives in Singapore and this takes up many jobs which is supposed to be filled by Singaporean.

     

    Source: Jafri Basron

  • Jobless And Unpaid By Employers, Bangladeshi Workers Faces Daunting Fate

    Jobless And Unpaid By Employers, Bangladeshi Workers Faces Daunting Fate

    At least six Bangladeshi workers may have to go home as soon as next week, if they are not able to find a new employer.

    Their previous employers, HBB Engineering and C-Plus Engineering, owed them between four and eight months’ pay.

    In total, 31 workers from the two companies have been affected.

    While the workers have received a portion of their pay, some have been out of work since January after their work permits were cancelled by their employers.

    Though the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) informed them that they had two weeks to approach any employment agency for help, the workers have not been able to find alternative employment.

    A spokesman for MOM said the six workers will have the remainder of their salaries paid through insurers later when they either find a new employer or when they return home.

    But the workers will be going home to a mountain of debts they’d hoped to pay off with a steady job in Singapore.

    Mr Prodhan Abdur Razzak, 36, was an excavator operator with HBB Engineering. He came to Singapore last May and stopped receiving his salary in July. He said his employer cancelled his work permit in January.

    He has received $1,773 – half of the pay he is owed by the company – but has a $4,700 debt to pay off back home, consisting of a bank loan he took to pay agent fees to travel to Singapore and medical bills incurred by his family.

    The Straits Times reported on March 10 that the companies are being investigated by MOM.

    Mr Razzak, who comes from the Chandpur district in Bangladesh, told The New Paper: “I asked my boss for some money to pay the medical bills, but he always said he had no money.

    “I even cried but, in the end, I had to borrow from a friend to pay the bills.”

    Mr Razzak added that his S Pass expires on March 30.

    His is one of 4,500 salary-related claims involving foreign workers that MOM has received every year for the last three years. MOM said more than 95 per cent of claims are resolved every year.

    Non-profit organisation Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) told TNP it handled 376 salary cases last year and the 2017 figures already look set to surpass this number.

    Mr A.B.M. Rafiqul Islam, the owner of both HBB Engineering and C-Plus Engineering, was not contactable for comment yesterday.

    Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC) chairman Yeo Guat Kwang told TNP that, while the centre is able to actively source for employment for the workers through its network of industry associations, the “success rate is generally not high” and called for a “multi-stakeholder, collaborative approach” to the issue.

    “MWC plans to partner the industry associations, as well as the MOM, in exploring and considering additional measures that the stakeholders may take to improve our system to better assist and facilitate migrant workers to secure alternative employment,” said Mr Yeo.

     

    Source: www.tnp.sg

  • MOM: Retrenchment In Singapore At 7-Year High Since 2009 Financial Crisis

    MOM: Retrenchment In Singapore At 7-Year High Since 2009 Financial Crisis

    The number of workers laid off in Singapore hit a seven-year high in the first nine months of 2016 – the highest since the global financial crisis in 2009, figures released on Tuesday (Dec 13) by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) showed.

    A total of 13,730 workers were retrenched in the first nine months of this year, an increase from the 10,220 retrenched during the same period last year and the highest since the first nine months of 2009 when 21,210 workers were laid off, according to the ministry’s quarterly labour market report.

    During the third quarter, 4,220 workers were retrenched, down from the 4,800 laid off in the previous quarter but higher than the 3,460 retrenched in the same quarter last year.

    Professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) were more likely to be made redundant, the MOM report said. These workers formed the majority (73 per cent) of Singapore residents laid off during the quarter, and those with tertiary qualifications also formed the bulk of resident layoffs.

    The overall unemployment rate remained unchanged at 2.1 per cent. Among Singaporeans, the unemployment rate was 3 per cent in September, down from 3.1 per cent in June, and among residents, it was 2.9 per cent, down from 3 per cent.

    However, more job seekers were taking a longer time to find work, with the resident long-term unemployment rate rising to 0.8 per cent in September, up from 0.6 per cent a year ago and the highest September rate since 2009.

    Total employment shrank by 2,700, the first decline in more than a year, MOM findings showed. The decline was primarily due to contractions in the manufacturing and construction industries, affecting mainly work permit holders. Over the first nine months, total employment grew by 14,500, but it was the lowest such growth since 2009.

    “The contraction in total employment, heightened redundancy levels and decline in job vacancies to unemployed ratio reflect the current subdued global economic conditions and ongoing economic restructuring,” the ministry said.

    It added that tripartite partners will continue to help affected workers look for new jobs.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Uniquely Singapore Or Another Fiasco?

    Uniquely Singapore Or Another Fiasco?

    There are more than 2m foreigners in the island of 3.5m population. Several hundred thousands of these foreigners from half past six countries and half past six universities are gainfully employed, happily employed, replacing the supposedly better qualified Singaporeans in their jobs. And the Singaporeans, the experienced and well qualified, the young graduates, are crying for jobs. They are unemployable, underemployed, they are mismatched!

    And all we heard of is that it is all because of mismatch. And these jobless Singaporeans are told to go overseas to find their rainbows. Not in Singapore. They are mismatched, they are misfits in their own countries. Their hundreds of thousands dollar education and degrees are useless, cannot eat, cannot find a job. They are only good enough to compete overseas, forget about in the US and Europe if they can’t even find a job in home town, unable to compete with half past six degree foreigners.

    They should go to third world countries to sell their skills and earn cheap currencies. And don’t think of coming back, don’t think of earning and saving enough to be able to survive back home. The cheap currencies they earned will become cheaper when brought home to spend in the world’s most expensive city. They are failures in Singapore and how could they expect the third world countries to hire them and pay them well? Even if they wanted to, they could not afford to.

    Singapore is not for Singaporeans. Singaporeans are only good enough to work in third world countries. And the govt knows that and are helping them with a lot of courses and training programmes to equip them to survive in third world countries. Probably they will teach them how to lower their expectations, how to live life in a third world countries, how to get use to third world standard of living, how to tighten their belts.

    Singapore is good only for foreigners, especially those from third world countries. These are the highly skilled and trained talents Singapore needs, with half past six degrees. Though they came from half past six universities, they have no mismatch problems. They matched beautifully with the needs of this first world city. The proof, a few hundred thousands of them are already here, employed in jobs that mismatched Singaporeans cannot do.

    Did anyone say Uniquely Singapore? With so many silly mismatched PMETs, what more proof is needed to confirm that Singaporeans are daft? The daft Singaporeans don’t even know why they are unemployable, why they became mismatched, misfits. The only thing they know, is that they are told that this is the reason. And everyone accepts this silly reason with no further question asked. Several hundred thousands of half past six foreigners are fit, not mismatched and taking over the jobs of the misfit Singaporeans. To laugh or to cry?

    And we are boasting about having three of the world’s best universities run by foreigners, the bulk of the academic staff and administrative staff is foreigners. I am waiting for the Parliament to be taken over by foreigners and pronouncing that Singaporeans are misfits to be in Parliament and should go elsewhere to live. This is only a matter of time.

    Where is the real mismatch?

    Chua Chin Leng aka Redbean

    *The writer blogs at My Singapore News.

     

    Source: www.tremeritus.com