200 Foreign Workers Show Up at MOM

The Straits Times ran this story on 28 April 2009:

200 foreign workers show up at MOM
By Melissa Sim

When construction worker Feng Jinfu, 48, picked up his 'renewed' work permit on April 13, the China national had no idea that it was also the day the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) cancelled it.

Word has since got around among several construction industry workers like him. Thus for the third reported time in four months, MOM yesterday found its Havelock Road premises filled with a group of foreign workers wanting answers.

The 200 there yesterday also wanted their salaries and refunds on the deposits they claim to have paid their employers.

According to MOM, the reason the work permits were cancelled was because the employers had either failed to pay the foreign workers' levy, submit documents or physically produce the foreign workers.

MOM officers addressed the crowd yesterday, explaining that investigations were under way.

They also urged the workers to look for other jobs and report back next Tuesday. When about 130 of them refused to leave, the police were called in.

In a statement yesterday, MOM said the workers were 'uncooperative and behaved in a rowdy manner'. It added that it would refer the workers to the police if they were there again 'without prior appointments and without valid reasons'.

The workers, from Hokh Contract Services, Raffles Contractors and Neo-Built, were among the 800 who gathered at Kallang Pudding Road last week. About 40 from that group were taken to MOM to help with investigations. They said they were trying to get back the fees - at least $5,700 each - which they had paid on arrival here.