Workers also say they don't get enough to eat; drive to raise awareness launched
By Joanna Seow, The Straits Times, 12 Jun 2015
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OVER nine in 10 Bangladeshi migrant workers in Singapore are given unhygienic food to eat.
By Joanna Seow, The Straits Times, 12 Jun 2015
Most also complain that they do not get enough food, according to a survey of 500 workers conducted by a National University of Singapore (NUS) research centre. The survey is part of a two-year research project funded by an NUS grant.
"They came to Singapore with the idea that governance is strong, so they couldn't comprehend how you could have catering companies serving really stale food that would go bad by the time they eat," said Professor Mohan J. Dutta, director of the Centre for Culture-Centred Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE).
As part of the project, a month-long awareness campaign was launched yesterday to highlight the food issues. This includes a television commercial, bus and MRT ads and a 10-minute documentary.
Prof Dutta said the group worked with an advisory board of around 12 migrant workers, who highlighted food as a key problem affecting their well-being and crafted the script and message of the commercial and ads.
One issue he and his team found was that despite clear regulations on how long food can be stored and how it should be labelled, many packets of food did not have labels. "Workers mentioned falling sick from eating the food," he said, adding that many workers reported food meant for lunch being prepared by companies 12 hours earlier.
Workers proposed some solutions:- Provide more cooking facilities and refrigerators in dormitories;
- Have better monitoring of catering companies, especially those that are unlicensed;
- Remove the middlemen who take a cut of the monthly payments for food; and
- Have employers liaise directly with the catering companies.The survey was conducted with workers at MRT stations, in Little India, at grocery stores and dormitories and through migrant worker group HealthServe, which partnered CARE in the project.
HealthServe director Wei-Leong Goh said the situation has improved in the past couple of years, with more purpose-built dormitories providing cooking facilities.
For food to be delivered to workers in a more timely manner, it would have to be dropped off at individual worksites, and that would be costlier. "If we want better conditions for workers, someone has to foot the bill," he said. "If we as a society can stomach that, then there's hope."
Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC) executive director Bernard Menon said the research findings were quite consistent with what MWC has urged employers to do - ensure the care and protection of workers, which include their meals. "The food must be held to the same standards of safety and hygiene as food for Singaporeans," he said.
Separately, a survey of 195 maids by workers' rights group, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), found that four in 10 of those who did not get a weekly day off did not receive payment in lieu. Some 20 respondents reported having no days off at all. The survey was conducted from July 2013 to October last year, after it became mandatory at the start of 2013 for employers to give maids one rest day a week or payment in lieu.
In its report, TWC2 made several recommendations to the Government, including stepping up random checks on employers to enforce the weekly day off legislation.
It also asked for maids to be given the same provisions as workers under the Employment Act so that maids are entitled to a full 24-hour rest period every week and to double their daily wage as compensation for working on their days off. The survey found that the average compensation maids received, if they did receive any, was $17.50, or around one day's pay.
Caterers, workers blame the fixers
Middlemen often vanish with the workers' money or cream off part of the money given for meals
By Joanna Seow, The Sunday Times, 14 Jun 2015
Middlemen often vanish with the workers' money or cream off part of the money given for meals
By Joanna Seow, The Sunday Times, 14 Jun 2015
There are no easy solutions to the food safety issues that migrant workers face, caterers and observers said.
Efforts to improve service are hampered by middlemen who make off with workers' money, in amounts that can go up to $100,000, several catering company bosses told The Sunday Times. Delivering meals three times a day would also not be affordable for workers.
"The situation can be improved but it will cost more," said catering company United's secretary Roger Nai. He was responding to a survey out on Thursday by the National University of Singapore's Centre for Culture-Centred Approach to Research and Evaluation and migrant worker group HealthServe.
The survey of 500 Bangladeshi workers here found that over nine in 10 say they are given unhygienic food to eat. Many also reported having to eat stale food prepared by companies 12 hours earlier.
Workers who do not cook usually purchase meals through middlemen, who collect orders and money and deal with catering companies.
But these middlemen are often the target of complaints of both workers and caterers. These men, often workers themselves, sometimes abscond with the workers' payments, leaving caterers in the lurch with losses of anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000. "Companies may not be able to invest in improving their processes without guaranteed payments," said ISO Delight business development manager Kassler Peh.
Workers also said that the middlemen cream off part of the fees they give them, resulting in the food they get being worth significantly less than the $120 to $130 they pay each month.
One solution workers suggested is being provided with cooking facilities, so that they can prepare cheap and nutritious meals for themselves.
Another solution could be to deliver food in three batches, instead of the current practice of delivering lunch along with breakfast before workers head out.
But a manager at Aysha Catering, who did not want to be named, estimated that this could cost around $45 more per month per worker.
"Workers go to different worksites and there are so many locations around Singapore," he said.
According to National Environment Agency (NEA) regulations, catered food must be time-stamped to show when it was cooked and when it should be consumed by - within four hours after cooking, and kept between 5 deg C and 60 deg C. But many caterers start preparing food for breakfast and lunch at around midnight, and it reaches dormitories at around 5am, while workers usually have lunch around noon.
An NEA spokesman said that since the time-stamping regulations were implemented in 2012, the agency has taken 13 enforcement actions against caterers who flouted the rules. It received 20 complaints on time-stamping issues.
The NEA also conducted 1,400 inspections on licensed food caterers in the first five months of this year, and more than 80 enforcement actions were taken against errant caterers.
Mr Zainudin Nordin, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Manpower, suggested that there be an avenue for workers to highlight bad practices by caterers, similar to how they can bring up salary disputes. Employers can also liaise with catering companies directly, he said. "It could give them more clout to ask for verification from caterers."
Some caterers are taking action - speeding up the food preparation process with machines that cook curry or pack vegetables, so that the food does not sit out for so long.
United's Mr Nai thinks he has another solution: food warmers that keep boxes of food heated to at least 61 deg C, so that they can be kept longer than four hours. But he has been unable to find companies willing to absorb the cost of the warmers.
"I've already brought in samples from overseas but they're all sitting in my factory," he said. "There's no place for me to get my service in."