I have 700 to 800 workers in the dormitory… It is not unusual if someone dies a natural death.

Gates Offshore director Paul Lee, employer of foreign workers

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21 Responses to “A caring society? Simply heartless”

  1. This guy’s got minister potential!

  2. Yogi Bear 29 December 2008

    Imagine a school principal declaring that he has 700 to 800 healthy students under his charge, hence it is not unusual for a student dies a natural death.

  3. useless director lee, only know how to deny when the truth is out.
    He said he had provide money and food but who knows what his employee do with the money and food.

  4. he and his company deserve to be boycotted.!

  5. I cannot believe the audacity of some…… All I can say, karma’s a bitch.

  6. Karma will come to someone like him….that’s a human life we are talking about and he can be nonchalant. Like what 1)pissed says, definitely gahmen material

  7. Wow.. is he running a farm for animals or a dorm for humans?

  8. sarek_home 29 December 2008

    Mr Ashiqn Rahmun, who slept in a bed next to him, said the dead man went to bed early on Saturday night without any dinner. He also said that Mr Kamaluddin, who forked out $8,000 to come to Singapore, had been here for two months, but had not been given any work.

    Another case like the 179 foreign workers?

    Meanwhile, about 150 workers living some 200 metres away at 440 Tagore Industrial Avenue went hungry for almost a day over the weekend.

    On Friday, the workers had refused to leave their dormitory after being handed over by a sub-contractor to their employer, Tipper Corporation. The workers wanted pay owed to them by their sub-contractor to be settled first before they moved to new lodgings at Kranji.

    Is this report saying the Tipper saga goes beyond the 179 foreign workers? Now another 150 foreign workers?

    This Tagore Industrial Area is it really an industrial area? It now looks like an area of failed industry buildings turn foreign workers dormitory.

  9. Zefly (aka Joshua Chiang) 29 December 2008

    I have seen first-hand the ‘dorms’ the FWs work in. When you have at least 200 people packed in double decker beds with only space enough for one person to move, and very frequently, very little ventilation, this is a perfect breeding place for diseases and outbreaks. One sick guy can cause the whole bunch of FWs to fall sick.

    Secondly, lunch is usually rice and dhal. I think MOM or MEWR should make it mandatory that the FWs also get proper nutrients like Vitamin D from fruits. They should also conduct regular checks on the living conditions and not just look for mosquitoes.

  10. Sicktothebones 29 December 2008

    I am sick to the bone that the so-called regulatory bodies are `blind’ to such abuses. It is a matte rof time some killer virus spreads like wildfire in these cooped up dorms and spread to teh whole community like SARS – then they will wake up.

  11. moshedyan 29 December 2008

    yeap
    life is cheap
    dirt cheap
    so
    towkay LEE
    do you have 700/800 relatives as well?
    do they dropped dead liked houseflies?

  12. 1) Pissed said “This guy’s got minister potential!”.

    For a moment I couldn’t figure out why Pissed said that. And then it hit home.
    Firstly, the familiar surname of the empire.
    Secondly, the same outwardly caring but actually “you die your own business” kind of attitude.

    I say not just minister potential, but maybe even Prime?

  13. Would MOM also ensure that the family of the deceased get adequate compensation as stipulated in Workmen’s Compensation Act or would MOM leave it to the whims of the employer (like it did for the welfare of the Tagore Industrial Area foreign workers)? Who will take the responsibility that such compensation does not get “lost-in-transit”?

  14. We are witnessing the dawn of the breed of singaporeans! Cocky! They have frogotten we are human beings. Some of us are better off financial and socially but that does not give us the right to treat human beings like this.

    No wonder the world says that our human rights record isn’t that great. This is but one example of where we are heading. We have come to be viewed in the world as thinking we we are the best in everything.

    So let’s pause for a moment and take stock of ourselves. Who we are, where we are heading and do we really want to go there. There is change going on round the world. We have to change but please lets all want to make the RIGHT CHANGE.

  15. Gates Offshore Pte Ltd
    89 Short St
    #02-03 Golden Wall Centre
    Singapore 188216
    Tel : 6336 6231

  16. “700 to 800 foreign workers” – to these (un)kind type of employers and the so-called “intelligent leaders”, these are just digits to be played with alongside the obscene zeros behind the salary figures on their fat pay checks. Honestly, I am getting very, very sick of these elites… what is our country coming to? Can’t they even say some decent right-from-the bottom-of-their-heart kind of words?

  17. this statement is simply outrageous! his coy ought to be boycotted!

  18. Sicktothebones 30 December 2008

    there are so many of these so-called manpower companies who can get you any foreign worker you want for dirt cheap rates. how did MOM allow this `syndicate’ sort of thing to sprout up? when things happen, it is between employer and foreign worker – what kind of shxx is this?

  19. pigscanfly 30 December 2008

    Natural??? What is so “natural” in this death??? unless he meant to say that it was “natural” to die off like this, as the poor worker had no access to medical aid and lived in deplorable conditions?

  20. What if the worker dies of disease & further spread it to other people? I hope his company goes bankrupt!!!

  21. it goes a complete circle after 2 centries……

    our ancestos were treated like the domitory workers then…

    in reality, mankind never really progress….we just thrive on sheer exploitation & profiteering from other poorer countries

    just sad!