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THE Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will prosecute marine company Tipper Corporation for failing to pay the salaries of over 400 of its workers on time, leaving them homeless and hungry.
Tipper and two of its sub-contractors, S1 Engineering and UPNB, will also be prosecuted for illegally deploying foreign workers hired by Tipper to other companies, the ministry said in a statement released yesterday.
The MOM is also investigating two other firms - Gates Offshore and Goldrich Venture - for not paying their workers' wages, and legal action against them will be considered once probes are completed.
All five companies have been barred from hiring new workers by the ministry until investigations are over.
The MOM could not say when it expected to wrap up investigations and haul the wrongdoers to court.
Tipper's workers had been left without work, pay, food and lodging last month.
At the time, Tipper, which builds barges, said that though the workers were registered under it, the sub-contractors had been responsible for paying them.
It said that the sub-contractors had abandoned the workers in retaliation against a court case it had brought against them in November last year, for $3.5 million owed in project fees.
But it has since accepted that the workers were ultimately its responsibility.
Tipper's general manager, who declined to be named, said yesterday that the company hoped to pay the workers their salary arrears - amounting to about $1 million - by this month.
The 421 foreign workers under Tipper have agreed to receive their salary arrears through instalments, the MOM said.
About 160 of them received their first instalments last Friday, it added.
All the 276 workers under Gates Offshore and Goldrich Venture have also been fully paid the wages owed to them, the MOM said.
The MOM told all the workers involved that they can choose to return home or be placed on a list of foreign workers available to be hired by other employers.
Tipper's general manager said some of its workers had already been given work and deployed to shipyards.
Gates Offshore and Goldrich Venture are also being probed by the ministry for allegedly failing to provide medical care to workers who had reported sick.
A 28-year-old worker employed by Gates Offshore had died two weeks ago in a dormitory in Tagore Industrial Avenue also used by several other companies, including Goldrich Venture.
The worker had suffered from chicken pox shortly before his death, and had not received medical attention.
Upon inspecting the dormitory, MOM officers found it to have breached rules of acceptable housing for workers, and told the dormitory operator, Gates Offshore, to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals or to shut it down.
It also warned the companies that had housed their workers there and ordered them to relocate their workers to approved dormitories.
More than half of the workers living there have been relocated since the middle of last month, the MOM said.
The rest have to move out by Jan 21, or the MOM will prosecute their employers.
When contacted yesterday, director of both Gates Offshore and S1 Engineering, Mr Paul Lee, would only say that if there was any wrongdoing, he would be 'answerable to the authorities'.
