Josephine Teo: Dorms designed for communal living where workers socialise and interact closely

Speaking at a virtual press conference yesterday (15 May), Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said that worker dorms were designed for communal living, where the workers socialise and interact closely every day.
However, she acknowledged that new measures will now have to be implemented to segregate workers so as to prevent overcrowding. “Going forward we will have to see how best to make adjustments,” she said.
“In the existing dormitories, we will have to, right now, implement new measures such as setting up facilities to segregate the workers, and also do things like prevent overcrowding at the communal facilities.”
She explained that things are much clearer now as the understanding of the COVID-19 virus evolves. This is especially so when it’s clear that the virus can spread asymptomatically.
She noted that the virus can spread in many different settings, like at construction sites, social settings from karaoke sessions to shopping, and “within households, within families”.
“In particular where many people live together, regardless of the room arrangements or the hygiene standards, the transmission risk is higher,” she added.
In luxury cruise ships and an aircraft carrier where hygiene standards are considered very high, the virus would still spread. “Because many people live together… transmission risk becomes higher,” she shared.
She said her ministry now aims to reduce the numbers in dorms, even though it will be a gradual process.
“That is the aim and we will progressively try to do that. We have to be mindful that this does put quite a lot of pressure on the arrangements at the dormitory, so it will take time, and it largely depends on how soon we can identify appropriate places to build up capacity to house the workers who would otherwise have returned to the dormitories.”
Netizens blame Josephine Teo
Despite the hard work put in by Mrs Teo and her ministry to try reduce the number of migrant workers living in dorms, many netizens blame her for failing to stop the huge spread of COVID-19 cases among migrant workers in the first place.
In particular, many pointed to an incident in Feb when the Manpower Ministry warned employers of sending workers to hospitals to have them tested for the coronavirus (‘Coronavirus: Employers who send healthy workers to hospitals for Covid-19 test may get work pass privileges suspended, warns MOM‘, 19 Feb).
“Employers who act irresponsibly by misusing medical facilities may have their work pass privileges suspended,” it said.
The move scared many companies of sending migrant workers as well as the workers themselves of going to hospitals, even if they’re not well. Many migrant workers borrowed heavily to get to Singapore and they didn’t want to risk losing their work permit and getting sent back.
Some angry netizens have even started an online petition asking Mrs Teo to resign so as to take responsibility of the migrant worker fiasco. As at noon today (16 May), close to 7,000 have signed the petition:
Resign Mrs. Teo