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Ask some of the million poorly paid foreign workers what they think of the success of Singapore - I'm sure the story won't be quite as glowing.
by melbourne_mat 6y ago
Ask some of the million poorly paid foreign workers what they think of the success of Singapore - I'm sure the story won't be quite as glowing.
- ekianjo 6y agoA lot of non-residents are actually going there for a better pay in the first place.
- dav43 6y agoI guess it raises the question - in the instance of say FDW (Foreign domestic workers, who live with a number of families in Singapore) - just because it’s legal, does it make it right? I don’t know. Majority of maids live in 1.5m x 1.7m rooms, get paid ~450USD a month (anecdotal guess), are female and see their own kids for maybe two weeks a year, work 6 if not 7 days a week. Is that a society we should aspire to?
- finolex1 6y agoIs that better than not allowing any such workers in at all (looking at most of Western Europe and the USA)?
- ekianjo 6y ago> Is that a society we should aspire to? Let people decide for themselves what is best for themselves. We are not in the position to judge what is good/appropriate for everyone.
- melbourne_mat 6y agoAnecdotal of course but there are stories of foreign workers being promised one thing then receiving something else when they get there. It's difficult to complain when you can be sent home for doing so. This kind of employment arrangement which is very open to exploitation is not unique to Singapore. Where I live there are similar programs for foreign farm workers and the are also stories if exploitation. However the scale of it in Singapore is enormously larger.
- ekianjo 6y ago> Anecdotal of course but there are stories of foreign workers being promised one thing then receiving something else when they get there. It's difficult to complain when you can be sent home for doing so. It's possible but very unlikely to be a problem over the long run with the means of communication nowadays. Everyone (even poor people) have access to mobile phones and can warn their peers/friends/communities if they happen to fall in such a trap.
- melbourne_mat 6y agoHonestly I don't know any issue in the real world that has been solved this way. Just because much of the world has a mobile phone doesn't mean they are getting the right information at the right time.
- AniseAbyss 6y agoIsn't that something you can say of all countries? Ask someone in a Baltimore social housing project what they think of their country.