MOM Responds to Footage of Worker Wanting to Jump Down Dorm Block; Says He’s Leaving S’pore Today

In the last 24 hours, three videos showing a worker in a dormitory standing at the ledge of a block went viral.

The first one was posted by Facebook page 新加坡眼 Singapore Eye, and the video includes a line that says, “This footage of a man wanting to kill himself went viral today; thankfully nothing serious happened.”

There’s not much context in the video except people shouting here and there while a phone rang.

网传客工宿舍

客工宿舍一场骚动

Posted by 新加坡眼 Singapore Eye on Wednesday, 22 July 2020

The second video is a tad more disturbing, and it’s not because of the video but what a person in the background is saying.

In it, someone in full PPE was talking to the distressed man, and in the background, someone was saying, “Look, look, look, look, someone’s jumping of a building! Someone’s jumping off a building! He can’t go home anymore!

His tone wasn’t one that you’d tend to agree.

劳工营一场公开跳楼事件

一群无所事事的人关了几十天会发生什么事

Posted by 新加坡眼 Singapore Eye on Wednesday, 22 July 2020

Soon after, the Chinese version of The Online Citizen also posted the incident from another angle.

客工宿舍传出有客工企图跳楼

据客工传出短片,显示客工宿舍内发生企图跳楼事故,目前尚不知有关客工安危,待更进事态进展。

Posted by 网络公民 on Wednesday, 22 July 2020

This time, crowds of people were looking at the man who was standing at the ledge.

Now, if there’s no context, it’s easy to draw whatever conclusions you want.

So MOM has come out to explain what happened.

MOM Responds to Footage of Worker Standing on Ledge of Dorm Block; Says He’s Leaving S’pore Today

In a Facebook post, MOM said that it happened at PPT Lodge 1B dormitory on 22 July 2020.

The block that he lives in has already been cleared since 4 July 2020.

Apparently, what happened was that he had bought an air ticket back to his home country on his own, but his employer was not facilitative of his return.

That made him agitated and led to a dispute between him and his employer—so yeah, MOM has nothing to do with it.

When the incident occurred, the “the dormitory operator and FAST team on site managed to calm the worker down and resolve the issue after contacting his employer. The employer was advised to facilitate the worker’s return and complied. The worker will leave Singapore today.”

A FAST Team, which stands for Forward Assurance and Support Team (which means you shouldn’t put the word “team” after that, just like you shouldn’t put the word “card” after NRIC), comprises officers from the Ministry of Manpower, Singapore Armed Forces and the Singapore Police Force. They’re attached to the dormitories to support the dormitory operator.

In the Facebook post, MOM also “advises all workers not to put themselves in harm’s way when involved in an employment dispute.”

You can view the post here:

Moral of the story? Don’t draw conclusions so fastly.