I think the first point to say is that the dorms, at least the MOM regulated dorms are probably the best deal you can find in Singapore period to house people.

Each foreign worker has to pay about ~$120-$150 per pax for a month. That is about 3 dollars a day at max. Well you can't beat that price for a shelter overhead and basic living conditions with about 20 people to a room and around 15 people to a toilet or so. During peacetime they (the FWD) also buy food at about $150 per pax per month, for much worse food than what the govt is providing for free now. So the current situation is probably very very cost effective. I think the emphasis has to be that the cost is really low. Obviously this is not the best comparison but even when you stay in hostels overseas, for a bed in hostels for about 8 -  12 person per pax, the cost at lowest is probably about $15/day. Of course there are some long term savings and differences in quality / bedmaking / check in check out .etc .etc but that is still 5x more expensive. *if figures are wrong tell me pls* 

Another fact of the matter is that the FWD housing and such in Singapore might be comparable to their own housing conditions back in their home country. I think at the very least it is not a massive downgrade -> because if it were too massive a downgrade they wouldn't come. And it is definitely true that it is a pretty rational decision that the fwds are making with complete enough information on the pay and generally what kind of situation they are getting into. That is to say that the vast majority of them are not being swindled (and cases where there are swindling .etc. should and will probably be dealt with). So it is true, generally, that coming to Singapore and working in "dismal" conditions (to us) is actually a benefit to them.

The next point is of course whether the current situation can be better by paying more. And there is much to be said for restructuring away from cheap foreign labour in the long term future and taking less advantage of global inequalities.

So.. This is a huge systemic issue. The current foreign worker situation is only possible due to these massive systemic global inequalities. And I daresay that this situation has been around probably since the start of human civilisation, or if not so strong a claim, at least for sure since industrialisation and colonisation.

So imagine that Singapore institutes super duper good policies for foreign workers with good enforcement .etc. I'm not gonna suggest any policies but lets assume that the effect is that the wages and working conditions significantly improve. Well what happens is that the level of the foreign workers will increase - because there will be greater competition for the limited number of places in SG and the places will highly likely decrease because each place will be more expensive. 

So probably those with degrees from their home country and such will probably still be able to find roles here and be remunerated better which is good for them. Those that ultimately dont know English much and or are entirely unskilled, there will no longer be a market for those people in Singapore. And ultimately these people have more means, and those with less means will ultimately not gain anything from Singapore at all.

This makes it look good, for the Singapore population, for the people looking at Singapore. Looks like we take care of the foreign workers and have a more equitable society.

However, this is inefficient - we still have need of tasks that are required to be done by unskilled labour -> And we will be paying "over skilled people" to be doing the same tasks (even allowing that some of it may be automated). It is two sorts of inefficiency I think, both of paying more and having overskilled and I suppose that because it is paying significantly higher than market rate (worldwide) there will be people that can profit from the situation - probably agents, who control these "good jobs". Because if there are many people willing and able to be paid $600 for the job and the job pays $1000 due to artificial external regulations, it will lead to incentive, e.g to pay $200 a month to get the job or whatever for whoever is the gatekeepers be it official or unofficial. It makes it like winning the lottery.

There is an argument to be made that if these low pay low skill jobs don't exist, people will be forced to gain skills. Probably. But if you are looking at it on a global scale, there will always be other countries that will happily take advantage of low skill low paying labour.

So I think that due to the unchangeable fact of global inequality and the many factors that lead to it, Singapore is not in the position to lead any efforts to change it. We can only position ourselves to be competitive within this situation. If we artificially inflate wages and/or conditions through legislation, we will merely be subsidising a select few lucky ones - more likely middle men - using our taxpayer revenue. This really is the unfortunate reality of a globalised world.

Think of it in another way - nobody would suggest to one company to artificially increase wages and conditions if there is no economic benefit (i.e the increased wages and conditions does not lead to increased output. If it does then obviously the economic incentive is sufficient reason to do it and you don't need like other rights-based reasons) in a competitive sector because the ultimate result of that is just the company being less competitive and so they are subsidising lucky employees of that company. This is especially so if they all companies are hiring from the same pool and there is nothing to differentiate them - things that i argue holds in the global situation for foreign low-skilled labour now.

There are other considerations - of course if you can get all companies/country to raise because you are the largest employer and everyone has to follow your move that helps. If you are happy just to get good reputation for helping those that are lucky enough to make it in to your company/country while those that are outside essentially get the same bad deal that works too i guess.

Fundamentally I think this idea that we can legislate improved worker conditions to improve the lives of workers (as a whole) is misguided due to the fluidity and competition in the global labour market. Even a most successful scheme will amount to making working in Singapore a hot commodity due to what essentially amounts to handouts (compared to globally) provided by Singapore's tax base. And, competition for these handouts will most likely lead to them being funnelled somewhere away from the workers to middlemen.

TL;DR don't legislate improved worker conditions because it is not worth spending taxpayer dollars in the best case, on the lucky few that make it to Singapore, in the more likely case, middlemen which will profit from the increased competition to get to Singapore. As a qualifier, I am not saying we shouldn't legislate at all - it has to be done gradually and in line with global working conditions (we can lead slightly probably). What I have outlined is on a sliding scale so the country will have to decide between these tradeoffs and Im just generally suggesting that in a discussion about legislation, these tradeoffs are under-represented (tho I'm reasonably confident the sg govt is well aware of them lel).

Ok so much for not legislating. What can we do then?

As a side note: Let me also say that if you are quite alright with the global poor being out of sight out of mind in countries other than Singapore, the current system in trying to keep them out of sight out of mind within Singapore should fundamentally be quite attractive to you. I don't see much relevant differences unless it is some sort of guilty conscience that you are benefiting and you want to pay no part in it - in which case i suppose you can take actions to assuage your guilty conscience but it would be hard to convince society/the majority to join in based on that reason alone.

I suppose one of the things we can do will be like market based solutions - > which includes reforming the economy though if we replace all low-wage low-skill workers we are basically just closing our eyes to the problem of global inequality and poverty because they don't appear in our backyard anymore and we are not responsible nor culpable for their conditions since we have nothing to do with them.

Well if you could get more out of spending the same amount (or slightly more) those will be the most "actual gains" and could be transmitted globally too. We can also probably change the social dynamic to detach dignity from salary. I dunno man, do you think we could be accepting of people who lives in slums even while letting them remain in slums?

Perhaps there is also the charity option which, if you look at it in the long run, should kind of lead to a same kind of artificial inflating much like legislation but this will not happen so quickly because it will not be as quickly factored into cost-benefit analysis.

Actually I don't have big solution because it seems like that would have to solve global poverty and/or inequality. Perhaps it would be good enough to just help those that come to our shores, understanding that they are the lucky few, understanding that there will be masses that are just like them but unlucky, understanding that some of the money spent to "help" them will go to middlemen and just be content with helping the lucky few? Though it seems to me that it would be better then to spend this money directly helping the global poor.

I wonder though, perhaps one other idea is to create a sort of non-profit, government-controlled money remittance company - I believe that online technology is going to bite the leeches controlling money remittance soon though, to cut out the middle men -> and also perhaps for agents for them to come to Singapore too. We could also maybe look into providing them some sort of education beyond just working such that they may go back and be agents of change e.g financial and/or business strategy?