COVID Dorm Outbreak: Has Singapore Learned To Treat Its Migrant Workers Better?

VICE.com,  “The government thought last year’s dormitory outbreak was only a public health emergency. But the reality is far from that.”

By Heather Chen, 3 June 2021

Bangladeshi construction worker Nasri was among tens of thousands of migrant laborers in Singapore who tested positive for the coronavirus last year after an outbreak swept through crowded dormitories, prompting impassioned calls to improve labor conditions for them in the Southeast Asian city-state.

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While the recent cluster was contained relatively quickly due to increased measures like routine testing and immediate isolation, deeper issues still need to be addressed.

Hamid and other migrant workers are not just concerned about COVID, but their personal safety and welfare in general.

He spends hours on the road every day, cramped together with at least eight other workers at the back of open-air lorries that ferry them to and from work sites like “cattle”. In Singapore, migrant workers are prohibited by their employers from using public transport while on the job.

Hamid said that seat belts are not provided for workers in the lorries, offering them little to zero protection from intense heat and rain, as well as collision with other vehicles. Critics say the lack of safety standards has led to fatal road accidents involving migrant workers on highways.

In a parliamentary session held in May, senior state minister Amy Khor from the transport ministry rejected suggestions to ferry workers in mini-buses or buses with compulsory seat-belting, arguing that further regulatory changes would cause “more acute pain” to the industry which was already dealing with fallout from the pandemic.

“It would be ideal for lorries not to carry any passengers in their rear decks but there are very significant practical and operational issues on top of just cost considerations, which is probably why internationally, it is (a common) practice,” she said, pointing out that tougher non-compliance safety penalties and rules on guardrails and canopies had been introduced years ago.

“Further regulations will likely have impact on the completion of various building projects and it will spell the demise of some companies and the loss of workers’ livelihoods.”

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