We didn't know who else to turn to
On a Saturday morning in Singapore, more than a hundred migrant workers from India and Bangladesh arrived at the Ministry of Manpower's office in Bendemeer — not with demands, but with a quiet desperation born of two months without pay and a company that had simply ceased to exist. KPA Engineering, an air conditioning maintenance firm, had shuttered without settling wages ranging from $1,400 to $4,000 per worker, leaving the men who built its operations with locked doors and an unreachable recruiter. Their arrival at the MOM office is a familiar chapter in the longer story of migrant labor — where distance between worker and employer is engineered into the arrangement itself, and where the system becomes the last resort when that arrangement collapses.
- Over 100 workers arrived at Singapore's MOM office on a Saturday morning after discovering their employer, KPA Engineering, had vanished without paying up to two months of wages.
- Individual losses ranged from $1,400 to $4,000 — significant sums for workers earning around $600 a month — with the collective debt running into the hundreds of thousands.
- The workers' only point of contact, an Indian national who recruited them, had become completely unreachable, stripping them of any direct path to accountability.
- MOM officials processed the workers and escorted them into the building, signaling the state's acknowledgment of the crisis, but offered no guarantees of recovery.
- The investigation's success hinges on whether authorities can locate KPA Engineering's owners — a company that operated from a fixed address yet managed to disappear without trace.
On a Saturday morning in late June, more than a hundred men gathered outside the Ministry of Manpower's office in Bendemeer. They had not been paid. Most were from India and Bangladesh, employed by KPA Engineering — an air conditioning maintenance company that had operated out of Tagore Lane. By the time they arrived, the company had already closed its doors.
A worker named Sampath described what had unfolded: colleagues had raised the wage issue with management repeatedly over two months, and then, roughly four days before their MOM visit, they arrived at the office to find it locked. Their recruiter — an Indian national who had brought them into the arrangement — was now unreachable. "We didn't know who else to turn to," Sampath said.
As officials processed the crowd, the scale of the situation sharpened. At least 100 men were identified as KPA Engineering employees and escorted inside. Four spoke to reporters afterward, declining to give their names. They were electricians and air conditioning technicians. One was owed $1,400. Another was missing $4,000. Rajenderan Berthap, a 36-year-old ACMV technician, left the building at half past eleven and said officials had told him they would investigate.
What the case exposed was a structural vulnerability common to migrant labor arrangements: the deliberate layering of distance between worker and employer. When KPA Engineering folded, the men had no direct line to ownership or management — only a middleman who had vanished. The MOM office became their sole recourse. Officials indicated they would pursue the matter, but recovery depended on locating a company that had already disappeared. For now, more than a hundred men were left waiting to see whether the system could return what they had earned.
On a Saturday morning in late June, more than a hundred men showed up at the Ministry of Manpower's office in Bendemeer. They came because they had not been paid. Most were from India and Bangladesh. They worked for a company called KPA Engineering, which provided air conditioning maintenance services from an office on Tagore Lane. By the time they arrived at the MOM building at nine in the morning, the company had already vanished.
A worker named Sampath, who is from India, explained the sequence of events to a reporter. His colleagues had raised the wage issue with their bosses repeatedly. Two months had passed without payment. Then, about four days before showing up at the MOM office, the workers discovered the company had shut down. When they went to the office, the doors were locked. "We didn't know who else to turn to," Sampath said. The uncertainty was compounded by the fact that they had been recruited through an Indian national, and that person had become unreachable.
The scale of the problem became clear as officials from the ministry began processing the workers. At least 100 men were escorted into the building after being identified as KPA Engineering employees. Four of them spoke to reporters afterward, all declining to give their names. They described themselves as electricians and air conditioning technicians hired to perform maintenance work. The wage gaps they faced were substantial. One man said he earned roughly six hundred dollars a month and was owed fourteen hundred. Another was missing four thousand dollars in wages. These were not small sums for workers in that income bracket.
Rajenderan Berthap, thirty-six years old and a technician specializing in air conditioning and mechanical ventilation systems, was among those who spent the morning at the MOM office. He left the building at half past eleven. When asked about his conversation with ministry officials, he said they had told him they would investigate. Both he and the other workers expressed hope that the MOM could help them recover what they were owed.
The disappearance of KPA Engineering raised immediate questions about accountability. The company had operated from a fixed address. It had employees. It had a recruiting structure. Yet it had simply closed without settling its obligations to the men who had worked for it. The workers had no direct contact with the company's owners or management—they had been brought in through a middleman who was now unreachable. This layering of distance between worker and employer, common in migrant labor arrangements, meant that when the company folded, the workers had almost no leverage and few options. The MOM office became their only recourse. Officials indicated they would look into the matter, but the outcome remained uncertain. The company would need to be located. Its owners would need to be held accountable. For now, more than a hundred men were waiting to see if the system could recover what they had earned.
Citas Notables
We didn't know who else to turn to— Sampath, a worker from India
MOM officials said they will look into the matter— Rajenderan Berthap, air conditioning technician
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did all these workers show up on the same day? Was there coordination, or did word just spread?
It seems like word spread. One worker found out the office was locked about four days before, and that news traveled through the group. By Saturday morning, enough people knew to make the trip together to MOM.
The recruiting agent—the Indian national who hired them—why was he unreachable? Did he disappear intentionally, or was he also caught off guard?
The source doesn't say. But the structure itself is the problem. The workers never had direct contact with the company owners. Everything went through this middleman. When the company closed, that person became a dead end.
Four thousand dollars is a lot of money. How long would it take a worker earning six hundred a month to recover that on his own?
Nearly seven months of his entire salary. For someone living paycheck to paycheck in Singapore, that's not a loss you absorb. It's catastrophic.
What happens next? Does MOM have the power to force the company to pay?
That's the open question. They said they'd investigate. But if the company has truly shuttered and the owners have disappeared, enforcement becomes very difficult. The workers are hoping the ministry can locate them and compel payment, but there's no guarantee.
Is this common in Singapore's migrant worker sector?
The source doesn't address that directly. But the fact that over a hundred workers were affected by a single company closure, and that they were all recruited through an intermediary rather than directly, suggests this kind of arrangement isn't unusual.