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When a 3-meter (10ft) deep sinkhole opened on a busy Singapore road on Saturday, swallowing a black Mazda, construction workers from a nearby site immediately responded.
The workers retrieved a rope from their work site and tossed it to the female driver, who had managed to exit the vehicle.
In less than five minutes, they successfully pulled her to safety.
“I was scared, but my only thought was that this woman had to be rescued first,” construction site foreman Suppiah Pitchai Udaiyappan told reporters.
Footage of the event rapidly spread on social media, with many praising the workers as heroes.
Mr. Udaiyappan is a “migrant worker,” a term used in Singapore to describe the 1.17 million laborers who come to the wealthy city-state from lower-income countries like Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar.
The vast majority hold low-paying and labor-intensive jobs that Singaporeans typically avoid.
This is not the first instance of migrant workers acting as first responders to save lives in Singapore. In April, four workers helped rescue children trapped in a shophouse fire.
Their recent actions have reignited discussions about the rights – or lack thereof – of low-wage laborers in Singapore.
Singapore’s rapidly growing economy relies heavily on these workers, who constitute nearly three-quarters of the country’s foreign workforce. Many are employed in sectors such as construction, marine shipyards, and manufacturing.
While Singapore lacks a minimum wage, advocacy groups report that these workers earn as little as S$300 ($233; £175) per month, residing in crowded dormitories often located far from residential areas.
They frequently face abuses by recruitment agencies and employers, including overwork, unpaid labor, and inadequate living conditions. These issues are well-documented, but activists claim that little has changed over the years.
“Today, you celebrate them. Tomorrow, you will revert to generalizing them as cheats, liars, and dirty,” social worker Suraendher Kumarr wrote on Instagram, responding to the sinkhole incident.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, their living conditions were exposed when worker dormitories became virus hotspots, with hundreds of workers testing positive daily.
This sparked public discourse about their living conditions – issues that advocates had warned about for decades – and authorities subsequently took steps to improve dormitory standards.
Another persistent issue, brought to light again by the sinkhole incident, is the use of flat-bed trucks to transport these workers.
“There is something poignantly poetic about the fact that migrant workers, likely transported on the backs of lorries, went out of their way to save a Singaporean in her car,” said Mr. Kumarr, a member of the rights group Workers Make Possible.
Singaporean laws prohibit individuals from traveling on the cargo decks of such trucks, except in medical emergencies. However, it is permitted if they are employed by the truck owners.
Sometimes, as many as 12 workers are packed into the back of a flat-bed truck without seatbelts. This is a cost-effective option for many employers who also use the trucks to transport goods.
However, this practice has led to numerous accidents, some resulting in fatalities.
In April 2021, two foreign workers died and more than a dozen were injured when the lorry they were in crashed into a stationary flat-bed truck.
In 2024, at least four workers were killed and over 400 injured in similar accidents.
Activists have long advocated for a ban on this mode of transportation – an issue that has been repeatedly debated in parliament – but little progress has been made.
The Singaporean government consistently states that while it encourages companies to transport workers on buses, a complete ban on such trucks is not feasible for small businesses.
“Many of them could be forced to shut down, causing workers, both local and foreign, to lose their jobs,” a senior minister of state told parliament in February.
“It will also lead to delays for critical projects like [public housing], schools, hospitals, and [train] lines, and result in higher costs for Singaporeans.”
Activists criticize authorities for reducing workers’ rights to mere economic considerations, noting that other countries that heavily rely on migrant workers, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have outlawed transporting people on trucks.
Mr. Kumarr suggested that levies collected from foreign workers could be used to subsidize other modes of transport without passing costs on to businesses and consumers.
Jaya Anil Kumar, senior researcher with the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics, another organization advocating for migrants’ rights, said that the government’s rhetoric “preserves the status quo [and] places disproportionate power in the hands of employers, over the lives and livelihoods of migrant workers.”
A ban on lorry rides is just one of many changes that advocates have been calling for, including a living wage, stronger whistleblower protections, and subsidized healthcare.
Despite dedicating decades of their lives to Singapore, these workers lack the means to establish permanent roots due to the type of work permit they hold, which differs from that of foreign professionals and executives.
They cannot qualify for permanent residency, regardless of how long they have worked in the country. Mr. Udaiyappan, who directed last weekend’s sinkhole rescue, has been working in Singapore for 22 years, for example.
Work permit holders also require government approval to marry Singaporeans – another issue that activists have highlighted for years.
“Legislative change has been slow because there has been insufficient political will to enact impactful change,” Ms. Anil Kumar stated.
Earlier this week, authorities presented the seven workers involved in the sinkhole rescue with commemorative coins, with a minister of state describing their actions as “a very good example of how migrant workers help society in general.”
However, many have criticized the move as tokenism.
“No amount of ‘thanking’ them for their heroism should excuse the exploitative economic model that oppresses them every day to sustain the lives we live in Singapore,” said Mr. Kumarr.
Many echoed these sentiments on social media, stating that the men deserved more acknowledgement. Some called for monetary rewards and even permanent residency to be granted.
Singapore’s manpower ministry stated to the BBC that it is “encouraged to receive feedback calling for more forms of appreciation” for migrant workers but did not address the specific suggestions raised.
“Their everyday acts of care and bravery deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated as part of who we are as a community,” the ministry’s spokesman said in response to queries.
The migrant rights group Its Raining Raincoats has raised S$72,000 ($55,840; £41,790) from its own fundraiser, which will be divided equally among the seven men.
“So many times, we have seen how these migrant workers risk their own lives to rescue many citizens, including children, from dangerous situations,” said AKM Mohsin, who runs an activity center for Bangladeshi workers in central Singapore.
“They make the news and are held up as excellent examples of humanitarian work, but their own humanity and human rights are constantly being violated at their workplaces, in how they are transported, and how they live,” Mr. Mohsin said.
However, there has been an increased awareness around migrant worker issues over the years.
Advocacy groups and the government have organized activities that bring workers and the broader community together.
Mr. Mohsin, for instance, runs a space for migrant workers to write, dance, and play music – Singaporeans have helped translate and publish their works, and often provide an audience for their performances.
But some activists say most in the country still see migrant workers as a class that is separate and inferior to the local community.
Many live and work in industrial areas that are often further away from the city’s residential regions.
In 2008, some 1,400 residents in Serangoon Gardens, an upper middle-class neighborhood, petitioned against the construction of a migrant worker dormitory near their homes.
To placate them, authorities reduced the size of the dormitory and built a separate road for workers to access the dormitory.
“We basically see them as a different class of people. We expect to be served by them and believe that is the reason they are here,” said Alex Au, vice president of advocacy group Transient Workers Count Too.
“Servants are supposed to leap to the aid of their masters.”
Local officials admit “loopholes in emergency planning” and say the incident is a painful lesson that serves as “a wake-up call”.
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