AN INVESTIGATION INTO POST-ACCIDENT DISPUTE INVOLVING MIGRANT WORKERS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In recent years, much focus was placed on workplace safety and health and significant improvement have been observed. Overall workplace fatal injury rate decreased from 2.3 in 2011 to 2.1 in 2012. However, there is an increase in workplace injury rate, up from 387 in 2011 to 407 in 2012. This increase is believed to be due to the mandatory reporting of incident under the Workplace Health and Safety Act. Despite so, it is believed that there are still many incidents that are not reported. Many of these unreported cases were later brought up to the Ministry of Manpower as the foreign workers suffering from the accident were not taken care of by their employer Thus, this dissertation seek to find out what issues foreign workers faces after an accident and what motivated them to leave their employer. The literature review documented a series of cases which depicts how some foreign workers were treated after an accident. A survey was conducted to understand the magnitude of this problem. A total of 60 injured foreign workers were interviewed. These interviews provided insights of the workers perspective on their conditions after incurring a workplace injury. It was found that the main reason for foreign workers to leave their employer was because of the fear of being repatriated. This will put them in a position worse than before as most of them had incurred some form of debt to secure their current job.