My friend spotted me in a news feature and that got me thinking....
Friday, May 16, 2014 @ 10:00 AM PERMALINK
After a friend spotted me in a feature on migrant workers in Singapore, it got me thinking about my journey volunteering for TWC2.
Many people have asked me why migrant workers? Why spend my time volunteering to help a cause that is neither glamorous nor warm and fuzzy.
When put on the spot, I've always struggled to answer this question. Just how do I explain my motivations to people without boring them or coming across like a total tool?
Today, I will attempt to. Fair warning, it may still kinda boring to some of you but I've tried my best to tone down on the toolish-ness. I've even added a TL;DR version down at the bottom, for all you rushy Rons.
I guess there are a couple of reasons to what led me to decide to help out with TWC2 and has kept me helping out with the cause for over a year.
1. My experiences with migrant workers while working part time in F&B and logistics.
My first job in F&B was when I was 16. Since then, I've continued to work in F&B. At some point during my teenage years, I also picked up a part time job in logistics customer service.
Both industries rely heavily on migrant workers. As time passed, I made friends with my colleagues and found out that while I complained about 8-10hr work days and my salary of $6-8/hour, my colleagues often did 12-14hrs/day at a way lower per hour pay. As a part time worker, I had the choice to decide on my leave and off days, had I been a full time worker, it wouldn't have been very different.
At one of the companies I worked at, foreign workers got an average of 2-4 days off a month and if you worked out their per hour pay, it was really dismal. Leave was dictated based on when the boss wanted to grant it to them.
At any point, I was free to quit. However, these workers would have been sent home the moment they quit their positions. There was a real power imbalance and the more I got to know these workers, the angrier I felt for them.
However, the general sentiment of many of my colleagues was that they still regarded themselves as the privileged ones. They had safe jobs, roofs over their heads and (what they regarded as) mostly fair pay.
It still seemed like the (very) short end of the stick to me but when I started helping out at TWC2, I realized why they felt this way. There are indeed migrant workers out there who suffer way worse living and working conditions.
I know many people will say that I was lucky to have met decent foreign workers, that's why I have a good impression of them. The truth is, I have met BOTH my share of bad and bad foreign workers. I have worked alongside them and with those who I can work with, I've become friends with. Those whose work ethic or personalities I find undesirable, I put up with for the reasons of work and nothing more.
EXACTLY how you would treat Singaporean colleagues.
For all of you that thumb your nose at the possibility of making friends with migrant workers, consider that perhaps the problem is YOU. Perhaps it is your preconceptions that is keeping you from working or viewing these human beings are people to be friends it. Perhaps your judgement that all migrant workers are bad seeds is coloured by your biases.
2. The refusal to believe that workers 'ask for this' or 'do this to themselves' by making the decision to come to Singapore to work
I've come across people in Singapore who have this idea that these workers 'ask' for their circumstances by falling prey to unscrupulous agents or paying through the nose for a chance at 'making it rich in our country'. (Almost no one is making it rich BY THE WAY. If they are, they are being unhumanly frugal and I ought to get some tips)
These Singaporeans chide workers for being stupid and deserving what they get since they had the gall to believe the grass is greener on the other side. Some say that since they are so unhappy, they should just go home.
This makes me very angry.
To all of you, I'm glad that your circumstances have been good enough for you NOT to have had considered having to do menial labour overseas. I'm glad the circumstances you have been met with in this life have no forced you to look for work overseas, work that you will still take even though you know you will be treated as a lesser human being.
I'm glad that your education provides you the stability to get high paying jobs in our society. That you have yet to feel the burden of having to be the bread winner of the family.
I've met many workers who have at university education or who have disrupted their education to come to Singapore to work in construction because their families need the money.
I've also met workers in their late 30s and 40s who have remained in Singapore for YEARS trying to earn as much as they can for their families back home.
While you judge how stupid they are for trying to make their own lives better, remember that these men and women are also children, parents and spouses. They are individuals who care so much about their families that they risk it all to come to a foreign country to work.
If your loved one was the one doing it, would you say they were stupid? Would you blame them to agreeing to unequal terms in order to get work? I somehow doubt it.
3. The inability to accept this common excuse: 'But if I never hire them, they will be suffering back home with no job what. So I'm actually doing them a favour'
Part of me helping out with TWC2 is so that I can play a part in helping people to understand that this issue with the ill-treatment of migrant workers shows that we are still so backwards as a society.
Hiding being excuses like this to justify low wages and supporting rules that violate human rights.
You are NOT their savior, what you are really doing is kicking a person when they are down.
If you don't pay workers fairly or grant them the rights they deserve, you are a menace to society. You may be right, these workers may have no other choice but to put up with you but that doesn't make you merciful, it makes you a tyrant.
4. The belief that as a human being (thus a building block for society) that I owe it to help people understand that we are ALL the same.
As the cliché goes, we all bleed red. I hope that with the little that I do with TWC2, I can show people that these migrant workers are just like us.
Like us, they deserve to be treated fairly. They deserve to be paid what their work is worth. Skilled workers deserve the mobility to change employers and get better jobs.
I understand that this is a lot to absorb. Many of us have been brought up with ideas passed on by our families on how to regard foreign workers. Some of is have had bad experiences with them. It's not an excuse.
Weird men have approached me multiple times, one even tried to grab me; so far they've all been Singaporean. Should I judge all Singaporean men based on this?
During my time helping with TWC2, I've also learnt things that I didn't know. I've been exposed to think about issues that have never crossed my mind before. I have been surprised at the lack of legal protection migrant workers get in this 'developed' country of ours.
There is NO better time to start learning and changing. Buying into stereotypes is for the uneducated, are we not better than that?
TL;DR: I volunteer my time at TWC2 to continuously learn how to be a better human being and in the hope that my journey will help peers become better people too.
By the way, here's the feature that my face is in. If you want to see me looking cock-eyed and really unglamorous, you are going to have to watch the whole thing to spot me.
Although, since it's a great feature done by Al Jeezara, you really should just watch it anyway!
Til next time kittens!
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