WTC Wrap: 7 November 2026

I am, once again, extremely sleep-deprived as I write this. It is, once again, self-inflicted. Also, I can't stop playing Meowdoku. These things may or may not be related.

(1)

Another migrant worker is at risk of getting kicked out of Singapore. Ripon Chowdhury first came to work in Singapore when he was 22 years old. That was 16 years old. Many non-citizens who have lived and worked in Singapore that long would have applied for, and possibly obtained, permanent residency by now. But Ripon can't do that, because he's a Bangladeshi on a work permit—not an "expat", but a "migrant worker".

Still, Ripon has thrown himself into Singaporean society, organising arts and cultural activities for migrant workers and advocating for solidarity between migrant and local workers in the struggle for dignity and better labour conditions. In 2018, he founded Migrant Workers Singapore (MWS), a group that aims to help migrant workers socially integrate into Singapore. MWS has also become a credible and powerful voice in advocating for migrant workers' rights and calling for systemic change—Ripon was even featured in a Straits Times article on people speaking up for workers' rights in Singapore. In September, Ripon released a video on MWS's Instagram page calling for a minimum wage for all workers.

On 1 October, Ripon's employer informed him that the Ministry of Manpower had rejected the routine renewal of his work permit. No explanation was given; it seems MOM expects Ripon to just accept, after having worked here for the better part of two decades, that he is suddenly "ineligible".

Ripon's current work permit expires on 21 November. Unless it is renewed, he will have to leave Singapore.

This is, infuriatingly, a familiar story. Zakir Hossain Khokan, a well-known poet and outspoken advocate for migrant workers, was forced to leave Singapore in 2022 after having worked here for 19 years. The government had taken exception to a poem, published on his Facebook page, that he'd written from the perspective of migrant workers in a locked-down dorm during the Covid-19 pandemic. When questioned about their refusal to renew Zakir's work permit, MOM issued a statement with a particularly mean-spirited conclusion:

The ability of a foreigner to work in Singapore is not an entitlement. Mr Zakir has been permitted to work in Singapore for a long time, though he was a long-time activist. His work pass has since expired. He cannot prolong his stay when he no longer has a job in Singapore. He has over-stayed his welcome.

Then there was Uddin MD Sharif, another poet, writer, and organiser who had worked in Singapore for 16 years before he was unceremoniously sacked by his employer after a mysterious harassment campaign. MOM and the police looked into the harassment of Sharif's employer and the harasser's claims that Sharif taken out loans from unlicensed moneylenders. They failed to identify the harasser, but also found no evidence of Sharif taking out such loans. Yet it was still Sharif who paid the price through the loss of a work permit. Even an appeal to Prime Minister Lawrence Wong didn't work.

And now it's Ripon's turn. After so many years of hard work, it's obviously unfair and awful for his permit renewal to suddenly be rejected. But this isn't just about an individual migrant worker. This is about the abhorrent way Singapore treats people. We want their bodies and their labour, but not their full humanity. We see people as "manpower" to be managed, and dispose of them when we think they've "outstayed their welcome". And we don't even bother to give them a decent explanation.

Ripon shouldn't have to leave Singapore. He's done nothing wrong. Migrant workers should have the right to be vocal about their working conditions, and to fight for labour rights in solidarity with all other workers.

Workers Make Possible have setup an online petition calling for Ripon's work permit to be renewed so he can continue to stay and work in Singapore. Sign it below.

(2)

Well, this is a right mess. MOM is investigating 45 companies for alleged work pass offences, where false declarations might have been made and workers might have been illegally deployed. This is not a small kerfuffle: investigations have so far uncovered 270 workers, employed by contractors and sub-contracts of SATS, whose documents weren't in order. Some were Employment Pass holders but working as baggage handlers, and unsurprisingly it turned out that their salaries and occupations had been falsely declared to the authorities. Other baggage handlers also had work passes that didn't match what they were actually doing.

The number of workers implicated in this is high enough that SATS has had to redeploy workers and make adjustments to make sure that operations can still run at Changi Airport (a.k.a. Singapore's pride and joy).

In such a situation, I think it's entirely justified if migrant labour rights groups like Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) want to say "I told you so":

We don’t know why it has taken MOM so long to unearth the problem when we wrote about it months ago. We wrote that foreigners were being hired on Employment Passes as Logistics Managers when their daily work was as manual labour. The two men who told TWC2 about it said the monthly salary that their employer declared to MOM was $8,000, but in fact they were paid $1,500. Job title, occupation and salary would be the details employers would have had to submit to MOM when applying for Employment Passes (or other kinds of work passes) and if these details were false, then the employers would stand accused of making false declarations.

It is important, however, not to get sidetracked by the nitty-gritty of what the 45 employers did wrong. The more important question, from a public interest point of view, is why it went undetected for so long until it’s grown to involve 45 companies and 270 workers, such that cracking down now, at this late stage, jeopardises operations at the airport, putting Singapore’s reputation at risk. Bad employers there will always be; what’s important is whether a country has effective systems in place to identify them and prevent them from making mischief.

As TWC2 points out, the problem isn't confined to SATS and its contractors/sub-contractors:

Just a week ago, another group of 240 foreign workers were in the news. They had not been paid for a number of months. The twist to that story was that these workers were hired by two companies, Process Maintenance Solutions and Jurong Technical & Construction, as Process Sector workers, a sector which MOM has characterised as one involving plants “manufacturing of petroleum, petrochemicals, specialty chemicals and pharmaceutical products.” Yet, these workers reported being made to do landscaping work along Orchard Road, mosquito fogging at the Tuas Water Reclamation Works, and construction work at Singapore Polytechnic. Some of them had been employed for nearly two years, so it appears that the abuse of Work Permit sector conditions has been going on for a long time.

(3)

Fadli Fawzi of the Workers' Party got into it a little with K Shanmugam in the House recently. The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported in September that an Israeli delegation had travelled to Singapore and met with the Ministry of Home Affairs (paywalled). Last month, Fadli submitted this parliamentary question:

To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether Singapore discussed with Israeli officials on addressing illegal settlements and settler violence in the West Bank during a recent meeting, and if not, why not; and (b) whether Singapore requested that the meeting be secret, and (i) if so, why and (ii) if not, why a correction order under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act was not issued against Haaretz's reporting.

In his written response, Shanmugam said that "discussions focused on operational and security-related issues, and did not extend to broader foreign policy matters. Singapore's positions on such matters are addressed through the appropriate foreign policy channels, including by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs".

The response ended with questions (challenges?) to Fadli:

If the Member believes that MHA should use such engagements to raise broader concerns about the policies or conduct of the country concerned, then he should say so clearly. He should also clarify whether he believes this principle should apply only to Israel, or consistently to all countries with which MHA engages. For example, when MHA holds operational discussions with other Middle Eastern or Asian countries, should we also raise the concerns Singapore may have with their conduct or policies? If that is the Member's position, the Government would be interested to understand how he proposes that such an approach would serve Singapore's overall interests.

Fadli gave a Personal Explanation in Parliament earlier this week to respond. You can read it in full on his Facebook page:

My view is simple: settler activity and illegal territorial expansion in the West Bank, and especially settler violence, are grave violations of international law and threats to international security. When engaging foreign counterparts that may be implicated in such issues, MHA should raise concerns about their policies or conduct that relate to security and law enforcement, as and when relevant. Furthermore, our operational and technical cooperation in law enforcement and security matters must be conducted in the context of our overall national interests and fundamental principles, which includes our commitments to international law. Additionally, the Haaretz article had named two officials in the Israeli delegation, Hanamel Dorfman and Rafael Engel, both of whom have been linked with the settler movement that builds illegal outposts in the West Bank. Given this context, I believe that it would have been relevant to clearly reiterate at this meeting Singapore’s principled position that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and our deep concerns about settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

This approach is "absurd and novel", Shanmugam scoffed. He accused Fadli of trying to send "two messages to two different audiences": (1) to demonstrate to Singaporeans that WP cares about the national interest, and (2) to signal to the Malay-Muslim community that the government is "unprincipled and soft on Israel".

"That's what this question and the subsequent explanation is all about—getting people to view our international relationships through the prism of race and religion," Shanmugam said.

Regardless of whether you agree with Fadli's position, I find it extremely infuriating whenever the government frames the issue of Palestine as one of race and religion. One look at the pro-Palestine movement in Singapore will show you that it is not solely a Malay-Muslim concern. Singaporeans of all stripes have been horrified, disturbed, outraged, and heartbroken by what's going on, and demanding steps to ensure that Singapore isn't complicit, and leverages our long-standing relationship with Israel to do whatever we can to demand the end of the violence and oppression. Demanding an end to genocide is not the sole preserve of a particular race or religion!

This weekend we are listening to the soundtrack of Red, White & Royal Blue in honour of Alex Claremont-Diaz's Texas strategy. It was all in the binder, folks.