Book Title: Migrant Workers in Singapore: Lives and Labour in a Transient Migration Regime

Publisher: World Scientific Publishing

Abstract: It has been half a decade since this article was published. Its central critique remains valid, which is that any legal framework premised upon the ability to sequester a massive migrant worker population from the general population, and thereby insulate the latter from any discriminatory impact of such a legal framework, is not viable in the long run. The backdrop for that critique was the Little India riots in 2013 [Chin and Chia, 2013], which gave the occasion for some soul-searching about the treatment of migrant workers, even if one could not directly make a connection between the riots and their labour conditions. As I argued in this article, the legal framework, which is typical of a guest-worker programme, sees migrant workers as temporary labour that can be returned to origin countries in the event of an economic downturn. Thus, there is an underlying assumption that by admitting foreign workers on short-term jobs and legalising their stay with contract-bound work permits, a receiving state could reap the benefits of migrant labour without necessarily having to bear social responsibilities towards these workers….