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SINGAPORE : The Manpower Ministry (MOM) wrapped up the debate on its budget on Friday by announcing measures to strengthen the management of foreign workers in Singapore. It also stressed the need to enhance workplace safety and health across all sectors.
Foreign workers in Singapore constitute almost one-third of the total workforce and employment agents play a key role in managing them.
However, there has been a spike in the number of errant employment agencies over the last two years.
There are currently some 2,300 employment agencies as at the end of last year.
Last year, MOM received 1,280 complaints from employers, foreign workers and members of the public, regarding employment agency malpractices - an 80 per cent increase compared to the year before.
Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Manpower, said: "By making it an offence for persons to knowingly engage an unlicensed employment agency, we intend to break the collusions involving kickbacks between employment agencies and errant employers."
On the cards is raising the standards and accountability of people who work for the employment agencies.
The ministry also wants to ensure adequate deterrence on some of the penalties imposed.
This will involve increasing penalties for some offences to impose costs that commensurate with the large potential gains from malpractices.
Mr Lee said: "The maximum penalty for operating an employment agency without a licence at S$5,000 pales in comparison to the fees that some foreign workers pay to come to Singapore. We can all look forward to many progressive changes to the employment agencies regulatory framework in this coming year.
" We hope to ensure better compliance and improve the standard of recruitment practices among employment agencies in Singapore. In doing so, Singapore will remain a choice destination for experienced and skilled foreign workers."
MOM also agrees with Members of Parliament who feel more can be done to facilitate better matching between employers and foreign domestic workers. At the last count, there were nearly 196,000 foreign domestic workers in Singapore.
This means that about one in every five homes in Singapore relies on a maid to help out at home.
Among the improvements proposed is a standard bio-data template for the industry, so that employers have enough information when choosing a maid.
Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Manpower), said: "MOM will be engaging the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Skills Training to introduce a Settling-In Programme that includes lessons on Singapore's culture, norms, financial management and stress management."
The courses, to be held on weekends at some community centres, will start from May.
Mr Hawazi added that workplace safety and health for all workers will be another area of priority.
He said: "In the course of MOM's work, we have seen cases where stakeholders failed to engage their SME subcontractors to ensure that work was carried out safely.
"We would like to stress that whilst work can be outsourced, the duties of principals to ensure that work is done safely cannot be outsourced.
"Being the person who engages the contractor, the principal has the responsibility to hire the right subcontractor for the job, and ensure that it is able to carry out its work not only competently, but also safely.
"We will thus be amending the Workplace Safety and Health Act (WSHA) later this year, to ensure that principals remain accountable for the safety and health of the employees of their contractors and subcontractors, whether or not they direct the work."
The construction and marine sectors accounted for 63 per cent of the workplace fatalities last year. MOM said it will continue to address the challenges in these two risky sectors in 2010.
Besides addressing sector-specific risks, it will also work with industry to tackle riskier work activities conducted across several sectors.
Mr Hawazi said that last year, the industry took the helm and formed two task forces to improve the safety of work at height and crane operations.
The task forces identified gaps in safety management and made recommendations ranging from capability building, promotion and outreach, to regulatory issues.
MOM has been working closely with the industry to implement the recommendations.
From September next year, the WSHA will be extended to all workplaces.
This means that some 1.4 million workers from 16 industry sectors will be covered by the Act. - CNA/ms
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