STEPS will be taken by the labour movement over the next few months to improve the lot of foreign workers.
The aim is to educate workers on their rights, so they know what to do when problems such as late salary payments or housing issues arise.
The chairman of the Migrant Workers' Forum (MWF) at the National Trades Union Congress, Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, told The Straits Times last week that more details would be released 'with the new budget'.
He said MWF, together with the Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF), would 'come up with more projects and find more ways to reach out to foreign workers to help them understand their rights better'.
Another possible way to improve conditions for foreign workers, he said, is to make the general public more aware of the rights of these workers and the legislation that is already in place.
Doing this, he added, would help Singaporeans become 'our whistle blowers and help us because they are the most effective ears and eyes on the ground to throw up cases'.
He also urged the Manpower Ministry (MOM) to step up enforcement and not give employers the impression that enforcement is 'not thorough enough'.
The SNEF, meanwhile, said it already holds two large briefings a year, and smaller monthly industry group meetings on foreign workers' employment conditions. More of such meetings will be organised this year, it said.
Mr Yeo said there is an urgent need for such steps because he anticipates that the economic slowdown may bring about more problems.
In recent months, foreign workers have complained about being unpaid, unfed, poorly housed and, in some cases, even abandoned. Last month alone, there were at least five such reports.
Most recently, about 200 Chinese workers gathered outside the Manpower Ministry at Havelock Road to lodge complaints about their employers, who owed them up to four months of salary.
But Mr Yeo also had a word of advice for foreign workers who are planning to take similar action: Avoid staging large gatherings or protests.
He brought up an example of a previous case handled by MWF, in which a contractor with cashflow problems was trying to resolve the issue and eventually got a new investor. But a public protest over unpaid salaries by the disgruntled workers spooked the new investor, and he pulled out.
Asked what workers should do in such cases, Mr Yeo said they are each given a booklet in their native language when they receive their work permit. If there is a breach in the work permit conditions, they should call the MOM hotline listed in the booklet.
Another word of advice was to join a union for better protection. About 16 per cent of the over 530,000 unionised workers here are foreign work permit holders, Mr Yeo said.
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