SINGAPORE: In an Instagram video on Wednesday (June 24), the local workers’ rights group Transient Workers Count Too addressed the issue of unpaid migrant workers having approached the Ministry of Manpower for help earlier this week.
Reporting from CNA said that there were 100 such workers from KPA Engineering and SK Industries who went to MOM’s services centre at Bendemeer on Monday morning to ask for aid after failing to receive their salaries for months, and they were no longer able to contact their bosses.
Since then, these workers, as well as 300 others with unpaid wages, will receive help from the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC).
However, Alex Au, the vice-president of Transient Workers Count Too, asked why it had taken so long for MOM to act on the issue. He said that six workers from KPA Engineering had already approached TWC2 in 2025 and earlier this year over unpaid wages. The group then helped the workers file salary claims. In an earlier post, he said that TWC2 had alerted MOM regarding the company’s salary issues.
“So in a way, there was an early warning signal that this company is in trouble. Why did it take a hundred migrant workers approaching the Ministry of Manpower for serious action to be taken?” Mr Au asked.
He then went on to say how workers’ conditions in the United Arab Emirates are different, in that under the UAE’s wage protection system, employers must deposit funds equivalent to workers’ salaries every month. This is then paid by the bank to workers, guaranteeing that they receive what is due them.
Should any employer fail to make these monthly deposits, it is the bank’s responsibility to report this to the authorities, giving officials an early warning that a company may have cash flow problems.
“We don’t have to wait for a crisis to hit when workers start marching to the Ministry,” Mr Au pointed out.
In his earlier post, he underlined that this type of situation is not new, and there have been similar problems in the past when company owners become uncontactable and therefore cannot be made to pay workers the back pay that they are owed.
The director of SK Industries and KPA Engineering, as well as another company with unpaid workers, VVR Plant Engineering, is said to have left Singapore.
And while the affected workers have been given financial assistance, Mr Au pointed out that this is neither sustainable nor scalable.
Instead, as TWC2 has pointed out for some time, a more permanent fix is needed.
“Rather than falling back on compassion and financial assistance, we need a systemic fix: a salary insurance scheme which guarantees that workers receive their fair wages,” he said. /TISG
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