On the early morning of 18 July 2023, three lorries piled up in an accident on Kranji Expressway. 26 migrant workers who had been riding in them were taken to three different hospitals after sustaining injuries. The very next day, a car collided with a lorry on the KPE. 11 people were taken to the hospital, including 10 migrant workers from the lorry.
Meanwhile, a mere two weeks ago in Parliament, the Singapore government chose again to reject an adjournment motion by MP Louis Ng to ban the ferrying of workers on lorries. Senior Minister of Transport Amy Khor said the government agreed that it “would be ideal” not to transport workers in lorries, but then went on to repeat the same tired excuses, like how there were “not enough drivers with the necessary license” and “not enough private buses”, as if this were not issues that could have been resolved years ago.
The feeble steps that the government has taken so far – which they claim increases safety on lorries – are grossly inadequate, and a mere distraction from what is plainly the right thing to do – ban ferrying workers on goods lorries. The simple fact remains that good lorries were never designed for human transport – they are not safety tested for human transport, and they violate the dignity of workers, who are exposed to heat stress and heavy rains on the road, always anxious if they will reach their destination safely.
The government’s inaction is further inexcusable given the wide range of transport alternatives that so many other countries rely on to transport workers in similar industries, including high tech-bus scheduling and shuttle services that allow companies to share buses, mini-buses, goods-cum-passenger vehicles, and more.
In 2020, the minimum amount of foreign worker levy the government collected in the industries that ferry workers in lorries would have been at least 1.1. billion dollars. The government can use some of this levy money to support smaller companies that may face start-up challenges with transitioning away from lorries and towards safer transport options.
But when, instead of confronting the issue with the gravity and urgency it requires, the government engages in handwringing and theatrics about “trade-offs” and the “acute pain” to industry that would be caused by banning lorries, we have no choice but to conclude that they simply do not care about workers’ lives, or the real, acute pain that injured workers and grieving families thousands of miles away experience every year because of our unconscionable choices.
Over the years, more and more voices have called for an end to transporting workers in lorries, including rights groups, health and safety experts, MPs, and migrant workers themselves. In a Straits Times article in 2021, NTUC assistant secretary general Melvin Yong stated that “there is a perfectly viable alternative to transport our migrant workers – in buses, equipped with seat belts”. A people’s petition in 2020 to ban lorries garnered over 40,000 signatories in a single week. It is abundantly clear what the people want – it weighs heavily on ordinary Singaporeans’ conscience that we put workers at risk every day, while we travel safely in buses, taxis, cars and the MRT. Does it not weigh on the government’s?
Between 2011 and 2020 alone, 58 workers on-board lorries died in road traffic accidents, and 4765 were injured.
How many more workers will be injured while the government continues to have “difficult conversations”? How many more years must we mourn these completely preventable deaths? What will it take before the dignity and the basic right to safe transportation is restored to our migrant brothers?
If our Ministers would not put their children in the backs of lorries, then they have no business putting other people’s children – our migrant brothers – in the backs of lorries.
Migrant workers’ lives matter. And they certainly matter more than their bosses’ profits.
We, the undersigned, call on the government to:
a) immediately ban the ferrying of migrant workers on lorries;
b) set up an MOT initiative to support companies that may face challenges with transitioning towards safer modes of transport
#HumansNotCargo
MARUAH Singapore 