Centre hopes to help more migrant workers with mobile office

SINGAPORE — The Migrant Workers’ Centre (MWC) yesterday launched a mobile office to extend outreach to foreign workers here.

The mobile office, in a Nissan Cabstar lorry kitted with chairs and tables as well as office equipment including a fax machine, printer and iPads, will extend the centre’s outreach beyond purpose-built dormitories and workers’ recreation centres.

The MWC, a collaboration between the National Trades Union Congress and Singapore National Employers Federation, has two centres at Serangoon Road and Geylang.

MWC chairman Yeo Guat Kwang said the mobile office will enable the organisation to head to various locations such as smaller dormitories, workplaces and other areas where workers congregate. It will also be useful in cases involving a big group of workers, he said.

“Instead of building more physical centres, I think it will be more practical for us to have a mobile centre which we can deploy regularly and station somewhere. More importantly, this will enable us to reach out to workers (where they work, play and live),” said Mr Yeo at the launch at the Penjuru Recreation Centre for migrant workers.

The mobile office will also boost the MWC’s surveillance capabilities and allow unfair treatment of foreign workers to be detected earlier, said Mr Yeo.

The lorry, which displays the centre’s 24-hour helpline number (6536 2692), will be managed by two MWC staff.

MWC executive director Bernard Menon said more calls have been made to its helpline, from about 20 per day in July last year when it became a 24-hour service, to 30 to 40 calls per day. Most callers enquire about matters such as the calculation of overtime pay, he said.

Indian construction worker M Chelladurai, 30, said it would be useful for the MWC to go to workers in need of help — such as when groups of workers are not paid their salaries or when those who are injured are left in the lurch by their bosses.