SINGAPORE — Sometime in 2021, migrant worker Miah Mohammad Afzal saw a traffic accident before his very eyes — a motorcycle crashing into a stationary lorry that was picking up a group of his colleagues.
It happened by the roadside where he was waiting with his other colleagues to be picked up by another lorry, which arrived minutes after that accident.
“At that time I was thinking, if this accident happened two minutes later, then I’d also be on the lorry, and I also would have been injured,” he told TODAY, adding that while he felt grateful for narrowly escaping harm, he felt “very sad” for his fellow workers.
Little did he expect that a similar misfortune would befall him just months later, when a car crashed into the lorry that was ferrying him and a colleague as they sat in its rear deck.
While the other man managed to hold on to the side of the vehicle, Mr Afzal, then 28, was flung a few metres out of the lorry.
The accident, which struck Mr Afzal at the prime of his life, resulted in over 250 days of hospitalisation leave and left him with mild cognitive disability and retrograde amnesia, and a permanent injury to his hip and pelvis.
With his mother unwell and the injury claim process dragging out, Mr Afzal returned to his hometown in Bangladesh, where he now tries his best to get by with helping out at his family farm.
“I cannot do hard work like before… Right now, I feel like I’m 40 or 50 years old,” he said, adding that people around him could also notice the decline in his health and ability to do physical work.
Mr Afzal is just one among thousands of workers who have been injured, maimed or killed in accidents involving lorries the past 10 years or so, while the practice of ferrying workers on the rear decks of such vehicles have been endlessly debated on for at least over a decade with nary a progress.
A few other migrant workers who spoke to TODAY recently — mostly under anonymity due to fear of reprisals — lamented how their pleas to employers were met with indifference at best or on many occasions, threats of deportation.
“I cannot open (my) mouth…boss will say: ‘This one, I will send back already’,” said one worker from India who worked as a lorry driver in the construction industry for five years, before recently moving to a different industry. He added that riding on the back of lorries “is not just dangerous, it’s very, very dangerous”.
The long-running debate on the issue of safer transportation for foreign workers was reignited recently, following two such accidents and a parliamentary adjournment motion filed by Member of Parliament (MP) Louis Ng in July, asking for a timeline towards legislating a ban on ferrying workers at the back of lorries, and some interim measures in the meantime.
Two petitions were also raised by members of the public and non-government organisations (NGOs) in July, followed by a joint response on Aug 1 by 25 business and trade associations.
While reiterating the business fraternity’s commitment to workers’ safety, the statement by the business groups cautioned against any form of immediate legislation, warning people to brace themselves for traffic jams, higher costs and “a change in social compact” if they insist on hastily changing the way workers are transported.
The statement inevitably drew flak from members of the public, with some accusing businesses of prioritising profits over human lives, trying to push the bill (and blame) on society, and dragging their feet given that the debate has been going on for so long.
Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh also reacted negatively to the statement, saying that the business groups “are resorting to scare tactics to support their cause”.
“We should not be misled by their campaign,” he wrote in a Facebook post.
On the Government’s part, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) and government partner agencies issued a joint statement on Aug 2, reaffirming their commitment to workers’ safety while highlighting that a big push that threaten the ability of businesses to stay open may put employees’ jobs at risk, besides other “knock-on effects” on society like more expensive or delayed infrastructure projects.
“We want to safeguard both safety and livelihoods of our workers, and have worked closely with stakeholders on a suite of additional safety measures,” the joint statement said, highlighting incremental steps taken over the years.
Amid the renewed debate, a few local companies shared with TODAY the extent of their cost concerns, and other operational challenges they had experienced in trying to switch to safer transport modes.
At the same time, most parties lobbying for better treatment of workers — including NGOs focusing on the welfare of migrant workers — said they empathised with the challenges faced by businesses.
Ms Jewel Yi, co-lead of ground-up movement Covid-19 Migrant Support Coalition, acknowledged how difficult it is to be an employer in Singapore and that cost issues would “affect the rice bowls of people on the ground”.
While “we definitely do not and should not demonise” employers in this debate, she stressed that the main point that safe transport proponents are making is “whether the cost concerns of employers should outweigh the lives and limbs of workers”.
While the issue is pressing, and perhaps even overdue, the advocates are not demanding an instant overhaul of the long-running practice.
MARUAH Singapore 