Links - 2nd May 2020 (2) (Migrant Workers in Singapore)

Renson Seow - "With regards to the allegedly poor conditions at foreign worker dorms. The test is to compare against our oldest military barracks. If the standard of the said barracks is good enough for our men for 2 years, then foreign workers should not be asking for anything better. The providers of infrastructure can only do so much (e.g. provide sufficient toilets to at least meet the aforesaid old military barracks standard). The rest is up to the men (e.g. piss in the toilet that is provided, not on the floor). If our military men can be disciplined enough to do that, these workers can too. They are adults, not children."
Comments from elsewhere: "I used to work for a company who hired about a hundred foreign workers. The company housed them in a mom approved dormitory whereby 12 workers were staying in a 110 m2 unit. The company bought brand new lockers, mattresses, double bunk beds, new cooker hobs in a freshly painted and cleaned unit. When we conducted our 6th month survey, the units were nowhere like the condition they were handed over at the beginning with roaches everywhere. The workers had also thrown out all their mattresses in favour of plywood. The company had to conduct monthly inspections and threatened the workers with fines for them to do proper daily housekeeping. Even then, the standard of cleanliness is very far from what you would expect from us locals. When I talked to the workers, they just said that their standard of hygiene is like that back home."
"The cleaning company for the dorms managed by my boss also my building cleaner. The cleaning company boss give up the new tender for the dorm because cleaners cannot tahan. Chicken bones also can throw inside kitchen sink."

GPGT: Bhais having the time of their lives cause of Covid! - www.hardwarezone.com.sg - "I am in the construction industry and I can tell you that living standards and welfare have improved compared to 10 years ago. The photos/videos circulated on social media which depicted overcrowding and squalid living conditions are the anomaly. Most dorm operators nowadays limit their room occupancy to 10 per room, and the level of cleanliness can be compared to army bunks. MOM regulations have tightened over the years, which in turn discouraged dorm operators from flouting the rules. Since the infection clusters at dormitories started popping up, MOM has gone bonkers and started to increase the frequency of refuse removal and cleaning of the common areas from once to three or four times daily. Those at the infected dormitories have their hot meals distributed within an average of one hour and a half. They even have TASTING sessions to ensure that the food suits their taste"
To SJWs, accounts from non-famous people about how construction worker conditions are alright are untrustworthy because they are anonymous, but we must trust anonymous accounts of how terrible the conditions are

The Economist explains - Why it is so hard to fix India’s sanitation | The Economist explains | The Economist - "The World Bank links one in ten deaths in India to poor sanitation... In 2014 the government pledged to end open defecation by 2019... Improved coverage does not guarantee greater usage. A survey by the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics in 2014 found that in 40% of households with a working toilet, at least one family member preferred to defecate outside. People in villages often fail to acknowledge that a lack of sanitation is a problem. Many use toilets only in emergencies, worrying that the pits will clog up quickly when, in fact, they are meant to last a family of five about ten years. Caste division plays a part, too. Villagers are loth to empty latrine pits manually, a task relegated historically to dalits (formerly untouchables). Some consider defecating in the open to be a sign of virility, and believe a stroll to the fields aids digestion. Toilets, often the only concrete structure in the house, are used as a storeroom for firewood, grass, chickens, cow-dung cakes and food grains, or double up as goat-sheds or even temples. On-ground implementation is patchy, too. Families who receive a toilet-building subsidy do not always build one."
Amusingly, someone countered with dysentery in the Middle Ages. Presumably medieval European kings were responsible for their subjects not following 21st century hygiene standards, just as the Singaporean government is responsible for migrant workers in Singapore having poor hygiene.
Possibly even better, someone else made a comparison to kopi tiam toilets and claimed that this reminded him a little of HDB estates in the early morning before mostly Indian cleaners cleaned them
The irony is that if the Singaporean government actually policed them, the same people would bitch about racism, oppression and authoritarianism

Safer sanitation and hygiene | UNICEF Bangladesh - "The knowledge of key hygiene messages is high in Bangladesh, but the practice of effective handwashing, the most effective hygiene behaviour, is very low.Just about 59.1 per cent of people practice handwashing with water and soap at critical times, found the 2013 UNICEF survey.Conventional sewerage systems are absent in all urban areas except Dhaka. But even in the capital city, only 1 in 5 people are served by a sewer network.The safe disposal of faecal matter generated in rural and urban areas is recognised as a major challenge by the Bangladesh government.Only about two out of five households practice safe disposal of child faeces, despite implications that lead to illness and death of children. One in four pit latrines is unhygienic and without lids to seal away faeces from the environment.There are solid links among diarrhoeal diseases, stunting and sanitation. Unimproved sanitation can lead to faecally transmitted infections like diarrhoea, intestinal inflammation and worms."

More than 40m Pakistanis defecate openly: Unicef - "More than 40 million people in Pakistan do not have access to a toilet, forcing them to defecate in the open, which in turn is a major contributor to stunting in the country, a top Unicef official said."
Someone claimed Bangladesh and Pakistan were not culturally similar to India because they had separated from India, and that it was a mistake to also say China and Japan were culturally similar.

FiveStarsAndAMoon - Posts - "Before these dormitories were built, they lived in worse conditions (this was like pre-2008). To save costs, employers would house them at sites where they worked, these were then unregulated. The government then started to build dorms, but locating them was not easy. Singaporeans didn't want them anywhere near their places of residence. Residents of Serangoon Gardens even launched a petition called "Not in my backyard"...
Right now people are demanding the government to:
• Deport them immediately
• Prevent them from hanging out with their girlfriends (whom are likely maids)
• Asking why the government is wasting resources and devoting healthcare equipment to them
• There is even a rally to get them sent back to their countries
• Asking why do we even care about other countries citizens"

Yi Ran Ding - "大家都在白白付出，我说这个话是有道理的，首先客工营里中国人是和印度人孟加拉人住在一个房间里的，中国人的安全意识很强，每天都戴口罩，在房间里也戴着，可是印度人孟加拉人不戴，我们已经自发的组织送进去不少于20000个口罩了，里面的同胞也发给印度人孟加拉人，可是他们拿到了口罩只是戴一下子拍个照片就摘下来了，到处乱走，还被政府允许在客工营里打篮球，10来个人一起打，他们跑步传出的气息传染病毒🦠更快，送饭去的印度人也不戴口罩，手套，你们说客工营能不泛滥成灾吗？我提议过把中国人和这些印度人孟加拉人分开住，他们不听话，不戴口罩，每个宿舍也不能像安置个炸弹似的，也不能给他们集体打篮球啊！你们说对不对？这就是客工营里的真实实况。"
Of course, the SJWs are very upset at this primary source testifying about Indian and Bangladeshi foreign worker living habits in Singapore. One said he was reporting it to Facebook for "hate speech". It's easy to pretend that "racism" is ignorant when you ignore facts you don't like and you conspire to remove evidence

Kakis' Club - "Due to differences in geographical location, people from different countries of the world have different eating habits. Different cuisines and dishes may be different in different districts of the same country.Some people like to eat rice-fish. Someone likes bread. Again, some people like to eat half cooked food. People's taste in food depends on the eating habits of the regions and countries and cultures. After eating the same food for a long time, many people can no longer be able to adjust with different eating habit.Again, those who have to travel to different countries or come to different places for work can get used to many kinds of eating habits. but in this case, it requires time to adapt or adjust a food habit. So, no one can suddenly change their eating habits. Gradually one has to adapt to the new food from new environment. Otherwise it will have a physiological and psychological effects on human life. It is not easy to change a habit like food that peoples life are depends onto it.Following the outbreak of the corona virus in Singapore, the government has announced a lockdown of the dormitories. At the same time, the government has announced that all workers will be paid during their stay in the dormitory and will be provided with food. It is natural that there will be some problems in providing food to this huge number of workers. Even so, the Government is successful in this aspect.Bangladeshis and Indians like to eat spicy curry with rice and pickle. But in their supply of food, they were not considered nationalities in some way. Many workers have been given half-cooked vegetables with little rice which they are not accustomed to eating. I am not questioning the quality or nutritional value of these foods and I have no doubt about it.But Bangladeshis and Indians are not accustomed to eating these foods and many have thrown them in the dustbin. Several of my migrant brothers have updated photos of these “foods in dustbin’” in different groups on Facebook, complaining about that... its very easy to be a “John behind the Keyboard”... Ripon Chowdhury"
Apparently if migrant workers don't like the free food they are given despite short notice and throw it away, it is the fault of those providing the food
Some people claimed the problem was that they were being given spoilt food. If so, the writer is massively incompetent in not even mentioning this, since most people would agree that they shouldn't be given spoilt food and so would agree with the writer if this were the issue mentioned

The Singapore Daily - Posts - "Kokila Annamalai Slams Incompetent MOM, Labels Employers Uncaring, For Continuing To Ignore Feedback Of Fasting Migrant Workers, Providing Them With Improper Meals"
"No gravy. It's obvious they need gravy right."
"Till today ..does one don't know Indian ONLY EATS AUTHENTIC INDIAN FOOD ..?? Not Malay , Chinese curries .???? How can we consider them one of us ..OR ..maybe that's how they also will treat us if we were Quarantine ..??????"
Amazingly, someone said they should be given the same food as VIPs

The dorms are not the problem – TWC2 - "Workers hardly ever complain about dorms... in the same period when all of Singapore was talking about dorms and dorms, the workers were not bringing the topic up in conversation with us. They were the people experiencing the lock-down inside dorms, confined to their rooms for 20 – 22 hours a day, in stifling crowded conditions, but it doesn’t really come up when they call or message us.Instead, they are anxious about salary and related issues.Other issues, such as exorbitant agents’ fees have not gone away, but in the present situation, they are not as urgent as getting paid for March and April... The one topic that workers raise and which also appears in the general Singaporean discourse is that of food. Under lock-downs, dorms now serve catered food (there may be a few exceptions I don’t know of). There have a lot of complaints from workers about quality, cultural suitability and portion size. However, we also have a sense that the situation varies widely from dorm to dorm, and even from week to week. The complaints may be coming from only some dorms, or some company employees, probably related to management issues of the meals supply chain in those dorms or companies... Of course, the best way to keep payroll cost down is to not pay salaries at all, or to undercalculate them and short-pay... there are innumerable stories about recruitment costs or agents’ fees. For first-time workers, they could be $8,000 or $10,000 in order to obtain a job paying a basic salary of just $400 a month. In other words, the prospective worker sinks in 20 – 25 months’ worth of salary in order to “buy” the job. If the employer has pocketed all of that — not always because the agent also takes a cut — the employer would in effect get free labour for 20 – 25 months.After 24 months, the Work Permit is up for renewal, and another opportunity comes up to ask for another payment.How does this make any sense to workers, then? Well, to be clear we’re talking about unethical employers, not all employers. So the situation varies considerably from one company to another... Consequently, workers always hope for lots of overtime work, so that they can at least live on that, and recover their sunk cost as soon as possible... I must stress, we’re talking about unethical employers. TWC2 believes that in fact most employers try to look after their employees within their means, but the trouble with allowing unethical employers to get away with it is that ethical companies then have to compete against them to win contracts.
The counterfactual posited - that with migrant workers with better conditions, Singapore wouldn't have such a bad outbreak and the economy would be better - isn't inevitable. Many countries without large amounts of migrant workers are seeing bad coronavirus outbreaks, and given how inter-connected the world is (especially Singapore, whose economy is extremely open), it's not clear the economic damage would be much less without migrant workers and their being infected
The minimum wage argument (deatable) is suddenly thrown in after talk about abuse (which probably everyone would agree with). Yet countries without a minimum wage aren't boycotted or criticised for that. So that is conflating the issues.
I've no idea how it makes sense to call the foreign worker levy income tax

Food-tasting sessions and free Wi-Fi: What inter-agency teams at dorms have done for foreign workers’ well-being - "they made sure that the food is acceptable to the residents, which included foreign workers employed in industries providing essential services. This is by having “food-tasting sessions”, where representatives from different nationalities give feedback on the taste and quantity of the food, said Supt Tan, the 35-year-old assistant director of Interpol’s cyber strategy and capabilities development.For Bangladeshi workers, the Migrant Workers Centre engaged a Bangladeshi chef to cook dishes for his compatriots... this includes ensuring that the residents can remit money to their families.“They can be locked down, but they cannot be prevented from sending money home. There are livelihoods at stake,” SLTC Tan said.His team managed to get approval for a remittance company to enter the gazetted compound to provide the service... They also set up free Wi-Fi access within the workers’ rooms, which keeps them occupied and allows them to keep in touch with their families back home... “I told my family, ‘We are safe. The Singapore Government takes very good care of us’”"

The problematic ways of Migrant X Me; a social enterprise accused of promoting poverty porn, tone-deaf captions, questionable methods and saviourism.
Basically it's bad to have a first hand view of migrant workers' lives. We can only depend on what liberal activists tell us, since they have digested the 'facts' and given us indisputable conclusions. If you're not on the liberal side, make one minor mistake like being mistaken about something and you're an irredeemably bad person and condemned for the rest of your life (if you're Joe Biden it's okay though)

莫丽蜜 - "Pizza Hut Singapore to donate 3,000 pizzas to migrant workers for Labour Day"
"If there are 300 000 workers, how much of a pizza does each worker get? Write your answer as a fraction."
This is why we can't have nice things