At the risk of cluttering your comments with information about Uzzal, let me add a bit more detail to his story.

MOM says that 80% of the work injury cases are resolved within three months. I assume that means within three months of lodging the case rather than within three months of the injury, but the figures from TWC2 offer a different perspective. More than 1,500 injured men who lodged work injury compensation cases have sought TWC2’s help in 2012 through the food project in Little India (which is where we first met Uzzal). At any one time, more than 13% of the men with injuries have been waiting more than one year since the injury for the injury compensation case to be resolved. That’s a snapshot of what you’d find, with about 40 to 60 men at any given month who are still waiting more than a year after their injury. Very few of those who come for help are housed and fed by their employers, so their first priority is food.

Admittedly we see the more serious cases at TWC2. Not necessarily the injuries, but the men’s cases are complicated and obstructed by many other issues. Here’s what deranged Uzzal’s compensation claim.

Contesting the Injury

In Uzzal’s case the employer hoped to cast doubt on the injury based on the medical notes from a small clinic in Little India. The doctor from this clinic noted an injury to the left eye, when in fact the injury was to the right eye. I assume that the doctor made a simple mistake in noting which eye was injured, but the employer used this discrepancy to discredit Uzzal’s claim and support the doctor’s professionalism. In the company’s letter to MOM dated 26 July 2012, the employer wrote:

“It is shameful and unbelievable that the injured was a grown up adult at the time of injury with great paid, failed to alert and notified the doctor if he had been given wrong treatment. Dr. X has been our regular doctor for our injured workers and has never goofed up in his diagnosis and I urge your high office not to be cowered by the rhetorics (sic) in the submission as I am standing by the side of truth based on facts to the best of my knowledge, of which the evidence had already been submitted earlier to your office.”

This letter doesn’t make much sense, but you can see what the boss wants to say: Uzzal is lying about the injury. The diagnosis from Tan Tock Seng is that Uzzal was blinded in the right eye, but the company objected because Dr. X noted an injury to the left eye. It’s not likely that Uzzal, bleeding and in pain, was mistaken about which eye was injured: more likely that the doctor made a simple mistake.

Several co-workers were present when the accident happened, but they were threatened with termination and repatriation if they spoke up, so the support of witnesses was lost to Uzzal.

Lost Passport

The company held Uzzal’s passport, as is the common albeit illegal practice for employers of foreign workers. At some point the boss asserted that he had returned the passport to Uzzal, forcing Uzzal to lodge a police report so that the document could be replaced. The police report dated 26 January 2011 states simply and to the point:

“I wish to report that my employer M/s Zheng Yang Construction Pte Ltd have lost my passport. That is all.”

Uzzal’s work permit expired in February 2011. In order to have a special pass issued, he needed to show his passport. It’s possible that the boss was thinking that the lack of a passport would put Uzzal in a difficult position, and possibly result in him being detained as an illegal overstayer. Uzzal needed to pay S$800 for the police clearance in Bangladesh (the actual fee may be lower, but palms must be greased), and another S$200 for the new passport to be issued by the Bangladeshi High Commission. His new passport expires in August 2013, which will mean another $200 for the extension if this case isn’t finished by that time.

No Insurance, No Payment

Uzzal only found out that the company had no insurance for him when after the labour court meetings started, some time in 2010. It’s not possible that MOM was unaware of this, as it’s one of the requirements. The WIC Guide for Employers states:

Every employer is required by law to maintain adequate Work Indjury Compensation (WIC) insurance for
• All employees doing manual work, regardless of salary level and
• All employees doing non-manual work and earning $1,000 or less a month.

The lack of an insurer was also evident in the 28 February 2011 Notice of Assessment, which listed Zheng Yang Construction both as employer and as payer. The notice states that payment of $67,950 (this doesn’t include medical leave wages or medical expenses) must be paid within 21 days of the date of service if no objection is received within 14 days, and that the claimant should notify MOM within one month from the payment due date if the amount is not received.

What does Uzzal want? He emphasizes that in addition to his compensation, he wants to go home.

In the highly dignified tone, A. Andres has once again, achieved Empty Talk!

Empty Talk- the art of saying something and meaning nothing; used by politicians and self-ennobling hacks alike. (Although it does, at times, make one seem like a fking moron.)

With the belief that True facts are not true enough, Andres, an apparent master of the english language, seeks to qualify different degrees of facts by terming the REALLY REALLY true facts “real facts”, and the REALLY REALLY REALLY true facts “collaborative facts”. A milestone in the history of semantics, it seems.

It’s easy to just point our fingers at the government and say that they are doing a terrible job. For sure they need to take the lead and set the direction but as a society the responsibility lies with us. It’s probably easy to also point the fingers at our education system and say that the schools are not doing their job in developing a gracious society but hey who should be the ones teaching values? Should it not start with the family?

Electing the people to government, be it PAP or otherwise is not the magic bullet. It is time for us to be involved and take ownership. Unfortunately Uzzal’s case is not the first and will also probably not be the last. I appreciate what people like Alex is doing, contributing their time and efforts. Just wondering how we can broaden the approach to generate more awareness and hopefully, we can see a more gracious Singapore in time to come.