TWC2

Paula: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Truly Expat Podcast. I'm Paula and with me is Rachel and together we are Truly Expat Podcast. In today's episode we have the pleasure of speaking with Debbie, the current president of Transient Workers Count Two, an organisation dedicated to advocating for the rights and wellbeing of migrant workers in Singapore.

Paula: We'll be diving into Debbie's work, exploring the challenges faced by migrant workers and discussing how TWC2 is making a difference in their lives. So whether you're tuning in from home or on the go, get ready for an enlightening conversation about the important issues and impactful work being done in the expat community.

Paula: Let's get started. Welcome, Debbie.

Debbie: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Rachel: much for joining us. It's great. Can you start by telling us a little bit about your journey to Singapore, how you got here, and

Debbie: Oh, um, this is a long story and much of it is immaterial to [00:01:00] TWC, too. I first came in 1975.

Debbie: I came to study. I was a student here for a year. And I met the man that I eventually married when I was here studying. We came back as a couple in 1980. So I've been living here, hmm, continuously since 1980.

Rachel: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Paula: That's 

Rachel: That's incredible. Yeah, that's a long time. You're a long term expat. That's right. Well, I'm

Debbie: permanent resident now, so maybe I So you're Singaporean? No, I'm a permanent resident.

Paula: okay, okay. You're a permanent resident.

Debbie: a big 

Paula: Yeah, yeah. And we can go into that a little bit later. 

Rachel: And so, what, what made you decide to, well, what made you want to, to start up this, this charity?

Debbie: Well, I didn't start up this charity. The charity was started a little bit earlier in the, well, it was started because of the horrendous murder of an Indonesian domestic worker. She was starved, beaten, and [00:02:00] abused, and eventually killed by her employers.

Debbie: So,

Debbie: The, there was a, a trial, uh, the two, the employers were taken to trial for her death and, um, they

Debbie: were they were sentenced to, I, I forget how, how long it was in prison for her murder.

Debbie: But what really, uh, drove people to take some sort of action was a remark that one of her neighbors made when asked, when asked, didn't you know what was going on right next door to you? He said, even if I had known, I wouldn't have done anything. That's his business, not mine. It's not my place to get involved.

Debbie: And so this kind of attitude about the death of a migrant worker was just astounding. So a number of people got together, formed a group. Originally it was the working group two. We were um, a few years later then established as a [00:03:00] charity Transient Workers Count Two because we realized this is a problem that is not going to go away quickly.

Debbie: So it's a group that needs to stay together, and so the group has been, you know, has been, has existed as a registered charity since 2004. We just celebrated our 20th anniversary.

Rachel: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Debbie: some of the original members are no longer with the group, but they're very fondly remembered

Paula: by

Debbie: those of us who are now with the group.

Paula: And so what's the mission of

Debbie: Um, it's really to look after the welfare of migrant workers and to try to guarantee them a positive experience while they're working here.

Paula: Um,

Paula: and when was, so you said that it was established in two thousand and Four. Four.

Debbie: Established as a charity, but the group was working before that.

Paula: Okay. Um, and so I guess you must have a lot of volunteers now.[00:04:00]

Debbie: We have a lot of volunteers, but as volunteers are, they come and go. We do have a lot of people showing an interest. We have some people who stay with the organization for a very long period of time. We have a lot of students, and the students will come to us while they're maybe, you know, At university, they then will have some free time before they find jobs, even those that do find jobs will often come back and volunteer with us and can continue to make a contribution.

Debbie: So we're very grateful for the volunteers that we have. But, um, Because of the program that I operate, I could tell you how many people have volunteered with my particular program within a certain period of time, but the others don't. The kinds of, some of the other activities that we do, they don't, um, record the number of volunteers.

Debbie: We do try to keep track of them, but they come and go, and we can't force them to stay. And,

Paula: yeah.

Paula: Um, so when

Debbie: has a life to move on to at some point.

Paula: And what kind of, when you say different [00:05:00] things, so what are the things that, that, uh, it's offered at the charity?

Debbie: Um, as far as the activities that we offer, um, well, what I'm mainly involved in is the meal program.

Debbie: It's called the Cuff Road Project because it started on Cuff Road. So we have a regular meal service. We provide free meals. 11 meals every week to any worker who is not permitted to work. Usually that's due to an injury claim, a salary claim, or some form of investigation. Sometimes it's an, it's a long term illness, but usually injury, salary, or investigation.

Debbie: We offer them meals. Now when we first set this up, that was 2008,

Debbie: meals were very, very important because a lot of these men were turned out on the street. I should go back a little bit to 2008. Economic downturn meant that a lot of companies had just abandoned their workers to the streets. So, walking around [00:06:00] Little India, there were probably 10, 000 or more workers who were sleeping rough on the streets at that time.

Debbie: So we thought, Before that time, we had mainly been concentrating on female domestic workers. And they would come to us, they knew who we were, word of mouth, they would call our helpline. So we were dealing with them, but we didn't house them. We don't have a, um, a refuge or a shelter for domestic workers.

Debbie: Um, with men, there They were sleeping on the streets, but we were not well acquainted with the issues relating to male migrant workers. So we set up the program, we started taking statistics from them, taking information from them. The character of the workers at that time has changed over the years. So now, 16 years later, we see a very different group of people.

Debbie: But we are better. analyzing it very [00:07:00] carefully in terms of what can be done. So my point is, when we first started out, meals were essential. Right now, meals are less essential, but they're, uh, they're appreciated, it's a treat, and it gives people a reason to come to us. 

Paula: Yep. Cause I know that, um, I'm one of those people that volunteer during COVID. And unfortunately I haven't voted, uh, recently, but I will, I will. Um, um, I was giving out the tokens during that period. And there, I, I think for me, I didn't realize there was a problem in

Paula: It's in, like, it's, it's like this, there, where there's an open, where people are telling you about it.

Paula: Um, so I think what you're doing is such a great thing, because there is a massive issue, right?

Debbie: Yes, I think it really is. I think that for any foreigner or tourist who comes to Singapore, what they see looks really like an economic miracle. [00:08:00] And I, I will have to admit, it is, it is an economic miracle, but built on the backs of exploitable workers. So, There are of the 6. 01 million population, male workers, I think, number 4, uh, 428, 000 and female workers, I think it's about 250, 000 of them.

Debbie: So these are a large number of people. Those people are those with no minimum salary, no mandated minimum salary, no ability to switch jobs, easily deportable, easily replaceable. And therein lies the problem. There are a lot more problems, too, that I will go into later. But, that's what has created this.

Debbie: Since, as I said, I've been here since 1975. It was a very different, uh, situation then. In 1975, and again in 1980, I knew,

Debbie: who would volunteer to [00:09:00] work in construction. You could walk into a construction site and you could work as a day laborer. And I knew expats who were doing that just to, you know, make a little bit of money.

Paula: Yeah.

Debbie: I worked with Vietnamese refugees for a number of years. They, too, were able to leave the refugee camp and go and work in construction. Right now, it's very, very heavily monitored, heavily restricted, so that the bringing in or applying for a migrant worker to come here, there are very tight restrictions on who can come in, on what they can do when they're here, and that's why,

Debbie: um, for most expats,

Debbie: you don't have any.

Debbie: any connection with low wage migrant workers, unless you have a domestic worker in your home. But our contact with male migrant workers, you, you very seldom even have a chance to say, you know, hello, how are you? Have a nice day, to someone like that, because we don't cross paths with them. And you hear [00:10:00] about them, When they become, uh, the subject of, uh, of an investigation, they've committed a crime, they've been in an accident, or, or they've done something like recently rescued that young boy from the ledge of a,

Debbie: you know, 

Paula: I saw that! Did you see that? Oh, because Rachel's just arrived back. She's been away. Um, that,

Debbie: was the Okay. So, so this is something that we know of them only if it's something, um, uh, an act of kindness. Yeah. Um, or they are the subject of, um, an injury. Or the perpetrator of a crime or charged with a crime.

Debbie: So other than that, we don't see them as we see our neighbors, people that you meet and greet and make friends with and get to know.

Rachel: Yeah it's, they, they're, often a different part of Singapore aren't they and they sort of, it's not like somebody you would cross everyday. Um, so tell me what happened with the little boy on the, on the ledge. What happened?

Debbie: Um,

Debbie: there was

Debbie: a, I think it was a three year old boy, and [00:11:00] he was, um, I can't remember how many floors up. A crowd had gathered at the bottom of the building holding a sheet in case he were to fall. So he had apparently crawled out the window. So, um, A Bangladeshi worker saw that and decided to go into the building and knock on the door of that flat.

Debbie: There was no answer. He went to a stairwell and he climbed to a ledge just below that. There was also then, uh, a Burmese migrant worker who hooked up with him and climbed onto the same ledge. The bigger guy held the smaller guy. He reached up. He caught the man. The little, you know, the little fellow, and they brought him down to safety.

Debbie: There was a crowd of Singaporeans at the bottom. No one had attempted to do this, but these two migrant workers, who didn't know each other,

Paula: Yeah.

Debbie: then, um, said about this rescue mission, and so it made the news. Now it's wonderful that it did, but migrant workers are a lot [00:12:00] more than that.

Paula: I

Rachel: yeah, for sure. But it, it paints a good, a

Debbie: Oh,

Rachel: well, certainly, yeah. Think because

Debbie: I've also seen newspaper articles where someone held an umbrella for an old woman as she left the bus shelter to get on the bus. 

Paula: So what other activities do, does it offer?

Debbie: Okay. We're mainly an advocacy group. So we do, we do research. We look into various aspects of migrant workers. We talk to some of the, a few of the other migrant worker groups. We speak to the Ministry of Manpower, to the government.

Debbie: Um, so this is mainly advocacy. We have some direct services, which is like our food program. We also organize outings for workers. Um, on a fairly regular basis about, we recently took them to of the bird park, and before that the aquarium. Usually we depend on donations to provide tickets for those kinds of things.

Debbie: We [00:13:00] organized a group of paddlers for the dragon boat race. That was earlier this year. So it was hard to get workers to spend regular Sundays practicing for the dragon boat race. But they did fairly well.

Paula: Yeah.

Debbie: We also do outreach. We speak to, um, students, university students, secondary students, sometimes other smaller groups.

Debbie: So any group that, you know, asks for us to come and give a talk about migrant workers, we will do that. And we, um, we have caseworkers. We have, um, Two full-time, paid caseworkers and volunteers who volunteer under them. We have a helpline that people are answering almost all the time.

Paula: Oh, okay.

Debbie: So the helpline, the workers can write or call in and any language.

Debbie: We do have translators to deal with, um, Bengali,

Debbie: Tamil, and [00:14:00] Burmese. And we have Chinese speakers as well. So they can either write or call. So we have people, our volunteers will usually give information, but our caseworkers will take over if they need some kind of assistance with, with our problem. And we do outreach, the kind of outreach which is go out into the community.

Debbie: We'll go out to uh, the recreation centers or to the dormitories and pass out leaflets or put on some kind of an event where they get to know us.

Paula: Okay. So they know that there's an

Debbie: Yeah, but I think that the main way that people do get to know us is through our Facebook pages. We have, um, English, of course, but Bengali, Tamil, and Burmese Facebook pages.

Debbie: And we provide a lot of information there, and we invite people to call or come to our office, or, you know, visit us for whatever they may need.

Paula: Okay. I think what we'll put in is we'll put, um, lots of your links into the show notes so that people can get in [00:15:00] touch with you if they want information or want to help.

Debbie: think for your listeners, our, um, our website would be the best place to go. We have stories, news stories, almost every week that are all about migrant workers, either a particular issue or an individual worker.

Debbie: And I think that's the best place for You know, for the workers, we try to be a little bit more fun and upbeat in order to grab their attention and actually to tell them about any new legislation that may, uh, that may apply to them.

Paula: And

Paula: do you need, um, do you need a certain type of volunteer to come and help? 

Rachel: Regular. 

Paula: Laughter

Paula: Regular 

Debbie: and long term. I should say, we have some volunteers who do the bare minimum, but they show 

Paula: Yeah. 

Debbie: And we have other volunteers who come with a certain expertise. If they don't show up, [00:16:00] they're not very useful, but there's a lot to learn. There are, it takes a lot of practice before you know how to untangle the problem that this person might be 

Paula: Yeah. 

Debbie: And time really helps. Time and experience really helps. So that's why we We request that our volunteers, uh, say for instance for my program, that they volunteer once a week for at least 6 months. Now we can't ensure that they do, but we usually know that they leave better informed and more interested in this issue after having volunteered.

Paula: Because I know that a couple of the, there was a couple of girls that we used to go, I used to volunteer twice a week, once in the morning, once in the evening, and the girls in the evening were students, psychology students, um, that they said they learnt from, um, someone must have come to the university and explained what was going on, and they wanted to make a [00:17:00] difference, and they wanted to help, which was kind of nice, right?

Paula: But they obviously had a lot more experience in, in, um,

Paula: issues

Paula: than I did, because they were local. They were two local students that were really lonely. I wonder what happened to them. They probably might be still there. 

Rachel: still there. What

Rachel: are, what are the most common problems that, with the migrant workers that you find?

Debbie: Injury and salary. So when, when I first started, it was mainly injuries because, uh, when a, when a person was injured, this was pre COVID, a lot of times the employer would then turn the person out of the dorm.

Debbie: Or just say, you're on your own. I'm not going to do anything to help you. So very often that person had problems accessing medical care, making sure that, you know, he got regular treatment for whatever it was, and going through the process of work injury compensation to get compensation for his injury, um, assuming that it resulted in some kind of permanent incapacity.

Debbie: So we [00:18:00] would offer food and sometimes housing to people like that. Post covid, a lot of workers were shoved back into their dorms.

Debbie: So

Debbie: I would say that the number of workers, male workers in dorms, um, would easily have doubled after covid because the government had been looking for a way to sort of clear up these so called free range workers from residential areas and putting them where they could be contained.

Debbie: Surveilled and monitored. And so once in dorms, they, they were locked down for a lot longer than the resident population. And so they couldn't go out, they couldn't do anything, they could, when they could finally go to work, it was only dorm to work to dorm. And for many people, it's still pretty much like that, because the dorms are situated quite far from any public transportation.

Debbie: So it costs money. to get to the bus stop and then to get to the [00:19:00] bus to get to the MRT and then to get to any place else. So it's not every worker that has that kind of spending money.

Paula: And you also see all those workers of a night, doing those night shifts.

Debbie: Well, of course, construction is going to go on 24 hours.

Debbie: Yeah.

Paula: Good,

Paula: and I guess they don't, I mean, they'd be sleeping during the day, so, it's a tough one.

Rachel: Yeah. And I find it interesting. Do they have, they don't have medical insurance, like they, the, the employers don't provide a medical insurance

Debbie: by law, they have two forms of insurance. One is for workplace injuries and one is for non workplace injuries.

Debbie: But just because you have insurance, there are still employers who would like to deny that that was a workplace injury and say, Nope, I have no record of you being at work that day.

Debbie: So, I would say that's less of a problem now than it was before, but the employers would still rather, rather not have, um, a workplace [00:20:00] injury on their record, on the employer's record, and would rather not have to pay.

Debbie: don't know if you all have been through, um, had medical treatment in Singapore, but as an expat, it's very . Expensive. As a Singaporean, you might get up to 80 percent subsidy. As a permanent resident, you should get about 20 percent subsidy. As a migrant worker, no subsidy. So when the employer sees that his worker, let's say, has, you know, a smashed finger, a broken arm, something like that, he's paying several times more than he would pay for someone in his own family. And so he's thinking, I don't want to pay. And It's, it's easy enough when you have something that is discernible by x ray. When you have broken bones and blood, we know there's an

Paula: there's no injury, yeah. But

Debbie: if you have an internal injury, or something that needs an MRI, a scan that might cost over a thousand dollars, it's much harder.[00:21:00]

Paula: And 

Debbie: you have to pay the money.

Paula: Yeah. Because, um, yeah, because medical here is quite expensive.

Debbie: I

Debbie: think it's, coming from America, I think it's expensive, but it's fair.

Paula: Yeah, yeah, whereas coming from Australia, I find it really expensive. Like, MRI is a thousand dollars.

Debbie: Yes, yes.

Paula: went and got one. So, I, yeah.

Rachel: yeah.

Rachel: And so, but they should be recompensated from the medical insurance, shouldn't they? Or they, they just don't want to use their 

Debbie: Well,

Debbie: I'm not saying that this happens a great

Paula: Yeah.

Rachel: Okay. But

Debbie: it does happen.

Rachel: Yeah. Okay.

Debbie: Um, so it does happen that the claim might be under investigation for a very long period of time. Um. If, if no one is willing to stand up for the injured worker, because he knows that he might lose his job if he says, Yes, I saw him fall.

Debbie: Yes, I saw, I saw the accident

Paula: So it's in

Debbie: indisputable. So. Yeah, so it's in dispute, and during that time, when it's in dispute, he would not be receiving [00:22:00] his, um, MC wages, and his, 

Paula: uh, 

Debbie: uh, compensation, well no, he, he will have to be, yeah, yeah, he will have to get that, his compensation will be put on hold. But, that's one problem, the other problem is salary.

Debbie: And since we've been doing a lot more work in the past few years on salaries, we've come to realize, well, it was only in 2016 that salary slips became mandated.

Paula: Oh,

Debbie: Before that, we would see pencil scratches on the back of an envelope. which had some numbers, but it wasn't itemized, and it wasn't clear who this was for, and there was no way of ascertaining that the numbers on the outside of the envelope corresponded with the cash inside the envelope.

Debbie: So, that was what passed as a salary slip. So, in 2016, it became mandatory for the employers to produce an itemized salary slip. Um, from our, um, [00:23:00] Uh, surveys recently, a significant number are still not receiving,

Debbie: um,

Debbie: itemized salary slips. So that really disadvantages them if they want to make a salary claim.

Debbie: So we find that there are a lot of people, even when they do have salary slips, it may be in dispute, it may be confusing to the men, or it may not help them to try to, um,

Debbie: claim that they've been underpaid. So we have a lot more people working on salaries these days, and so our, the number of people with salary claims has risen dramatically, largely because our volunteers and our caseworkers have increased knowledge about, about, um, how to do this.

Debbie: And we find that even salary claims, um, it's difficult to persuade a worker to make a salary claim claim. If he's only been working a short time.

Debbie: I haven't even spoken yet about recruitment fees. [00:24:00] So recruitment fees are probably the harshest thing that affects migrant workers. In general, they pay about 20 times their basic salary in order to get the job. So that means that for quite a long period of time, for approximately 20 months, assuming no money goes to the family, they will be paying off a 

Paula: They're 

Debbie: So that money isn't money that they had. It was money that was borrowed from banks or money lenders. Or, you know.

Rachel: Your payday loans. Yeah. That sort of thing. Yeah.

Debbie: at high interest rates.

Debbie: So this is something, it's this indebtedness that holds them to the job. So if the company goes bankrupt and is clearly not able to continue to hire the worker,

Debbie: then they have a good reason to file a salary claim. But if they could continue work knowing that they are being underpaid, they might want to continue that for a [00:25:00] considerable time because they don't know what's going to happen once they file, whether they're going to receive the money that they're claiming back, and they're not sure whether they will be able to get a new job.

Paula: Wow.

Debbie: So there's almost no job mobility. There's job mobility in very limited circumstances. So you lose your job, you go back, you're more heavily in debt.

Rachel: Wow.

Paula: I know.

Debbie: So, there was recently one man, he showed me he had his plane ticket back to Bangladesh, um, scheduled, and I said, you'll be in trouble if you don't get on that plane, because your employer can file . Um, a police report saying that you have absconded, and you're then an illegal overstayer, and you'll be in trouble, and he said, I'll be in much bigger trouble if I get on that

Paula: that plane.

Debbie: So

Debbie: it's hard not to sympathize with people like that.

Rachel: that. Yeah, sure.

Paula: I mean, each case [00:26:00] is, is, is. There's something with each case,

Paula: right? 

Debbie: each case. Each case. Such a

Rachel: is an 

Debbie: family. Yeah. Each case is not just one man. Yeah. But it's a man who's supporting his parents, his wife, his children, his brothers, his sisters, and maybe cousins and aunties and uncles.

Debbie: So they have all of those people, some of whom may have contributed to his. The fees that he paid to get the job, so they're waiting for money. But others are waiting for medical care for the elder people, education for the younger people, all those other things that families need to 

Rachel: Wow,

Rachel: it is really complicated, isn't it, trying to, like you said, you need to have some patience and you need time to unpick each problem that they have.

Rachel: It's really, really incredible. Yeah. Yeah.

Debbie: And, you know, what, what we try to do is try to show

Debbie: kindness and

Debbie: understanding, but also compassion. Keep in mind what we can do and what we [00:27:00] can't. 

Paula: Yeah, that was 

Debbie: You've paid large amounts to these people who've scalped you over the recruitment fees. We can't do anything about that. But this is something that we can do something about. So we try to whittle it down to something where we do have a little bit of, uh, leeway. 

Paula: Do

Paula: you work with domestic workers anymore, or is it

Debbie: foreigners?

Debbie: We do. We do. We have, uh, a few cases.

Paula: Yeah, but not, but it's kind of turned, and it's mainly foreign workers

Debbie: now. Yeah. Yeah. I think the domestic workers might be maybe 5% of our cases. 

Paula: because you hear stories.

Paula: You know, it's very confronting.

Debbie: Yeah. They're not covered by the employment Act. Okay. So they have less coverage than the male workers do, but the main thing is we don't have a shelter.

Debbie: And so

Paula: Is there any shelters in Singapore?

Debbie: Another organization home?

Debbie: Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics.

Paula: Yep.

Debbie: They do have a shelter.

Paula: [00:28:00] Okay. 

Debbie: And

Debbie: so they are well equipped to, to deal with any of the legal problems as well as to house the workers.

Paula: Okay.

Rachel: And what are some of the other organizations that you work with?

Debbie: Um, I would say HOME and HealthServe, they mainly deal with health issues. So we work together with those two organizations in dealing with the Ministry of Manpower. So what is it that we need from the Ministry of Manpower? What we often need is, um, more information so that we can ascertain where the, let's say the status of the injury case or, you know, what's, what's happening or what sort of investigation is going on.

Debbie: So we work with them on that. I would say some of the, the, there are many other organizations that act mainly as charities by giving things. And, you know, we're, we know those organizations, and we're, it's fine that they give, but there are other [00:29:00] organizations that aren't attempting to deal with legislation and regulations.

Paula: Mm. And so if someone's listening out there, how can they help if they can't give their time to? Is there other ways? Can they donate? Is there a way to donate? Through your 

Debbie: Look at our website. Okay. One of the top things is how to donate.

Paula: Oh, okay.

Debbie: perfect. Yeah.

Paula: And are you able, do you do events to raise money?

Paula: No. No? It's just all through donation?

Debbie: Yes. Yes. We have some large foundations that keep us pretty well funded.

Debbie: If people want to donate, it's okay. But I think that we're not very good at holding those large events. None of us really like to do that. It costs a lot.

Paula: Yeah.

Debbie: Maybe you make money, maybe you don't. So we don't want to spend our efforts. We would rather spend our efforts working directly with workers. We have, um, every December, we have a big event where we [00:30:00] invite, um, various groups of domestic workers and various of the male workers together and we have a big lunch and kind of a party.

Debbie: So, we used to ask people to donate a certain amount so that migrant workers could come, you know, say a certain amount for, you know, per seat, and they don't come, then they give the seat up for the migrant worker. People can donate in that way, but it's mainly so that we have fun with the domestic workers and the male workers.

Paula: Do they, um, because I know Diwali is just around the corner. Um, are they, is there events for them for Diwali?

Debbie: We're not organizing an event,

Debbie: but 

Paula: they can go to Little India? Is there something on in Little India? 

Debbie: Yeah.

Paula: But

Debbie: Anybody

Paula: for, I know, yeah, no, but I mean, yeah, I know I love

Debbie: You should go.

Paula: But is it, is there anything especially for them? Not really?

Debbie: Um,

Debbie: I don't know of anything. I know that we are doing, we have an [00:31:00] outreach program on Thursday, Deepavali. And so we're handing out some things and we're handing out leaflets about us. But there's another restaurant that is offering free meals to people. And, you know, they don't care if those people are migrant workers or not.

Debbie: But I think that if you go to Little India, you will see lots of, um, lots of migrant workers there. And I think that a lot of the things that are set up for everybody, they're also open to, uh, to, to migrant

Debbie: workers. 

Paula: That's nice. Um,

Debbie: but we have in, well, we do have individuals, so I think we have a lot of supporters, um, sometimes individual supporters, just um, what was it, the other night, one Indian woman came with sweets and said, here are Deepavali sweets, give them out.

Debbie: We have about a hundred people coming every evening for our meal program. And so, you know, we were passing it out to them. And if ever we have more than, say, a hundred things, we'll pass it out to passers by. [00:32:00] So we position ourselves in kind of a crowded area where, you know, our, our own clientele, our own beneficiaries come and talk to us about their case, where, you know, how to move forward, what's happening now, got some new documents, that kind of thing.

Debbie: But we also have people who sit down and say, I'm asking about my brother who's in Bangladesh. This is the problem. What can, what can we do? So we don't,

Rachel: it based?

Debbie: it's, um, on Royal Road in front of. kind of a popular restaurant. We rent the room upstairs, which we use for some of our activities. So we have a room upstairs, which we, we hold our own activities, and on Sundays we turn it over to two different groups of domestic workers.

Debbie: These are not domestic workers in trouble, but they are sort of a, a network of domestic workers. Indonesian workers and Filipino workers who use it for their, their classes, their, their socializing. It's mostly, you know, [00:33:00]classes in their own organization. And we turn it over to a group of Bangladeshi musicians in the evening.

Debbie: So, so we use that, but where we're working, we're down on the street, because on the street, we're in full view of everyone, and people come and, you know, rubberneck and say, what's going on here? We hand out cards,

Rachel: Yeah. And we say, This is who

Debbie: we are, this is what we

Rachel: And where is Roll Road? I

Debbie: it's right off of Dsca Road.

Debbie: It's not far from Faroh Park. It's two blocks

Rachel: Little India. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. It's

Paula: where I was handing out the

Debbie: tokens. Yes. It's a different restaurant. That restaurant was taken over by a different

Paula: Oh, was

Debbie: Now it's called the Bangla Restaurant.

Paula: Okay. Oh, okay. I know exactly where

Paula: you are. That's excellent. Is there anything you think that you would like to get out, um, and, and tell anyone that we haven't already covered? 

Debbie: Um,

Debbie: let me see. Well, I will say for anyone who's willing to volunteer, you can't [00:34:00] just walk in because we have a process, you know, and we really don't want to spend too much of our time.

Debbie: holding hands.

Paula: Yeah, yeah,

Debbie: So we have once every two months, we hold a session. We call it the heartbeat session where we introduce all the different ways that someone can volunteer. The next session is going to be the 5th of November. Please sign up, call the office. You know, get your, put your name down and you know, there's no, um, uh, there's no requirement to follow up, but at least you can find out what the options are and you can choose a team if you'd like and then follow up beyond that with the introduction to that particular team.

Rachel: Okay, that's really good to know. Yeah. And so every two months or the next one will be in January? Yeah. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Around about the same time?

Debbie: Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Early, mid January. Yeah,

Rachel: Okay. That's good to know. Fantastic. That's awesome. Yeah. [00:35:00] Yeah. We love that. Um, I know when you first get to Singapore and a lot of the people who, who come here and they're on dependent passes and they can't work or, or for whatever reason are always looking for something to do, that's really meaningful. 

Debbie: We love those people.

Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We love those people.

Rachel: those people. Yeah. So, I think that's really good and it gives people an idea of what they can do when they get here and, yeah. Yeah. So, they can just dedicate like maybe one day or an afternoon a week just to help out.

Debbie: Well, that's true. You can do that, yeah. So, some people will volunteer in the office, and, you know, I think you learn a lot when you're in the office.

Debbie: You're sort of overwhelmed with information, because you might be manning the helpline, or dealing with walk ins. But I like to meet with people in person, because there's a lot more that goes on. When you see someone [00:36:00] in person,

Rachel: For sure. Yeah.

Debbie: call into the helpline, we say, What is it that you, how can we help you?

Debbie: You know, no, we can't get snakes out of your house in Tamil Nadu.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah.

Debbie: Um, but, you know, when they come to us, they might throw out their papers, and we're looking through it, and you know, it's, you don't need this, you should throw this away. And wait, look, here's an important document, we need this, this is what we've been looking for.

Debbie: So they may not know. What are the documents that are really useful? And also by talking to them, we can tell, are they really distressed? Or, you know, there's something else that's going on. Should we look into something else? And we find that, you know, there's some people that don't have money for food, don't have money for transportation.

Debbie: We, you know, we can help out with those small things too. At least that's something that will help keep the guy going.

Debbie: while we're trying to sort out the rest of it. But I would say that, you [00:37:00] know, for us, if there were easy job transfer, um, that would set, that would solve a lot of the problems. I don't think I mentioned the basic salary for, for male workers, 500 a month. And, you know, with overtime, they might make 800 a month. For domestic workers, maybe 500 to 600 a month. No overtime, no matter how many hours you work. So, this is, uh, Not enough.

Paula: Yeah. It's 

Rachel: It's not

Debbie: it's not a decent wage, and, um, you know, even the Pope, um, we didn't slip him any money to say this, but he did make a comment about migrant workers, they should be paid a decent wage.

Debbie: And the MOM responded to that by saying, it's a market economy, and this is what the market can bear. But what they didn't say was, for the employer, the employer has to pay the levy. So for the basic skilled [00:38:00] construction worker, the levy might be twice his wage. It's 900.

Debbie: Yeah, a month per person.

Paula: Wow, it's still a lot more than a domestic. 

Debbie: Yes,

Debbie: it is, it is.

Rachel: And that goes to the government?

Debbie: It's government revenue, yeah. It's not money that is, you know, specifically tied to any migrant worker, you know, facility. Thank you. You're welcome.

Rachel: Wow.

Debbie: Well, I mean, nor should it be necessarily. It's a way to, um, control the number of migrant workers. So, companies are tied to, um, a ratio.

Debbie: You have to hire a certain number of Singaporeans before you can hire migrant workers. That's to ensure that there is work for Singaporeans, that you're done, not just Yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. And, uh, and so, it's a way to One of the other deterrents to hiring migrant workers, because there is no mandated minimum salary, is the levy.

Debbie: That is mandated, and if you don't pay the levy, the worker has to, [00:39:00] the worker can't stay. So for domestic workers, what is it, 300? 350? Yeah. So what I would recommend is anyone who hires a domestic worker should pay her agency fees. Rather than Mostly, most agents will tell you to deduct it from her salary so that the employer pays directly to the agent.

Debbie: They say just pay her maybe 20 a month and then for the first six to eight months you just pay to the agent. So I'm glad to see that surprised look on your face.

Paula: I'm

Paula: gobsmacked. 

Debbie: Yeah. So if everyone were to pay the agency fee for the migrant, for the domestic worker, people might start to question that amount. Now, with the male workers, it's far more complex, because a lot of the money is paid before they arrive. You know, we've heard up to 20, 000, but 10, 000 to 20, 000 to buy the job?[00:40:00]

Debbie: money. It's criminal. 

Paula: Yeah, it's a lot of money for anybody let alone

Paula: someone

Paula: on minimum wage,

Paula: right?

Debbie: No, there's no minimum

Debbie: wage 

Paula: it's in yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean

Debbie: know what you mean.

Paula: on a lower

Rachel: also quite crazy, like you say,, When we think about, like, going to work, and you work for, you're a really good worker, and you work for one employer, and you don't work that well with that one employer, but for another employer, you could work so much better, because it's, it's sometimes a chemical thing if you don't get on with somebody.

Rachel: You know, like, That should be, they should be able to transfer to a different company without having to go home and then reapply and all that sort of thing. Like it just doesn't make sense.

Debbie: Well, it does make sense from an economic point of view.

Rachel: yeah,

Debbie: Because if you could, if, if you're going to change employer, part of it is dynamics, part of it might be location, part of it might be salary. Another company is willing to offer you a [00:41:00] higher salary. So for these workers, we have found that since we started working with male workers, um, 500 was paid for.

Debbie: of standard basic salary. Nowadays, 500. It hasn changed.'t 

Paula: Oh, okay.

Paula: You mean like it just hasn't changed over time at all? 

Debbie: hasn't changed 

Paula: Wow.

Debbie: at all. Right. Wow. Right. And I've had people approach me in public places and say, Hey, hey, hey. My father was working here 20 years ago. He was making 500. Now I'm here working. I'm only getting 500.

Debbie: Why is that?

Paula: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Paula: That

Rachel: is crazy. There's no inflation in that. Pardon?

Paula: do they get fit?

Debbie: The employer can deduct that from the salary.

Paula: You're kidding.

Debbie: Can deduct a number of things from the salary. So but, but I would say that now that so many of them are staying in dormitories, many of them rely on catered meals. And the catered, the cost of [00:42:00] catered meals is, I've seen as low as 130, but I would say maybe 150 is more common for catered meals.

Debbie: one

Debbie: month's worth of meals. So you can imagine the quality of that food. So what we see over a long period of time is deteriorating health

Debbie: among

Debbie: the male workers who only have these catered meals to rely on.

Paula: chunk of their salary.

Debbie: Well,

Debbie: It's a chunk of their salary if it's deducted, but whether or not it's deducted, the food is,

Debbie: quality of 

Paula: be working those long hours in this heat,

Debbie: Right,

Paula: you know, dressed in complete, like I've seen

Debbie: The PPE. Yeah,

Paula: like I struggle in shorts and a t shirt, and I see some of them wearing those big, thick pants and top, I don't know, it's just, yeah, it's a whole different, I think more people need to know about. This sort of thing, you [00:43:00] know,

Debbie: If, if they volunteer with TWC too,

Paula: they will. Yes.

Debbie: will definitely come to know about these things.

Paula: Um, you

Paula: have been a wealth of knowledge for us,

Rachel: just sitting here and hearing

Rachel: all now. Yeah, it's pretty.

Paula: So thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Cause I know how busy you are, um, to come and just, and share all of the knowledge for TWC too.

Paula: Um, because it's something we should know about.

Debbie: well,

Debbie: I, I, I feel that way, too, because, um, expats are in a privileged position here.

Debbie: Actually, Singaporeans are also in a privileged position

Paula: here

Debbie: And I think a lot more thought should be turned towards migrant workers,

Debbie: Who are

Debbie: a significant number of, as I said, it's, you know, it's quite a large number. 

Paula: And so much, and they do so much, right? All this stuff wouldn't

Rachel: The roads, the buildings, everything. 

Debbie: Singaporean would ever take any of these jobs. 

Paula: Yeah.

Paula: Yeah, 

Rachel: jobs. Yeah. For sure. [00:44:00] No. It is. It's been really grounding. And, um, awakening, actually. That's just crazy. Thank you so much for all that you do. Yeah.

Debbie: It's not just me. Not just me.

Rachel: me. Yeah.

Paula: mean, you've come and you've

Debbie: it's a wonderful group of people. And I, I have to say that some of our volunteers also come for the community of the, the volunteers.

Rachel: Oh yeah, so it's like a family? Yeah. Oh, that's lovely.

Debbie: why we like people to stay a long time.

Rachel: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is nice.

Paula: if you want to get, um, involved, then obviously we'll put the links in our show notes.

Rachel: The 5th of November?

Paula: and 5th of November, there's a new recruit.

Debbie: Call the office and book a spot.

Paula: Yes.

Paula: do.

Rachel: Yeah. And we'll put that information in the show notes.

Debbie: Okay. Thank you very

Paula: Thank you, Debbie.