Tag Archives: Employers

The theft was only discovered on 26 October last year, just a day before the maid, Michelle Maloom Abucay, was due to return home after her mother died. As her employer's were retrieving her passport form the house safe, they discovered personal items and cash totaling about $25,000 missing. Further checks from the employers revealed that other items, such as a Louis Vuitton sling bag, five branded wallets, a black Chanel handbag and a brown Coach bag, worth a total of $15,000, were also missing from the master bedroom wardrobe.

The sentence seem hardly enough for what they had done. The prosecution, which is asking for the maximum sentence of one year’s jail for both, is appealing. The couple are on bail of $3,000 each pending the appeal. Both of them had starved their domestic helper with only two meals a day at their previous condominium home at Boulevard Residence in Cuscaden Walk, causing the 40-year-old's weight to drop from 49kg to 29kg over a 15-month period. The two meals consisted of two to three slices of plain white bread and one to two packets of instant noodles in the early hours of the morning, and five to six slices of plain white bread in the late morning or early afternoon. Their domestic helper also had to ask for permission to drink water, which was just straight from the tap.

The survey about salary increases in Singapore really brings out the stark reality between what employees want, and what employers are willing to give. Seems like 20% employees polled indicated that they expect a 6-10% increase in their salary, while a further 14% expect a 10% or more increase. This is in stark contrast to employers, where only 8% of employers expect to award a 6-10% increase, while only 3% plan on awarding more than a 10% increase.

Employees have incentive points that are docked when they submit a medical certificate – recorded as casual MC – for common ailments such as cold and cough. Everyone starts with 10 points each year, which are progressively deducted and all lost once 12 casual MCs are accumulated.

A Filipino reader has sent us an email about her life as a foreign domestic worker and a Christian cell group leader for other maids in Singapore. She wishes to raise awareness that many of her fellow Filipino domestic workers are not given enough time to rest and to attend to their religious services.

It is time to have a FDW employer association to empower employers and to offer collective inputs to other stakeholders. Furthermore, a non-profit organisation can be a vehicle for dealing with and seeking redress from, employment agents and FDWs. The association can even be the single stop for sourcing and managing FDWs for employer members thereby bypassing the employment agents. The association can also help members in other allied areas such as childcare, elder care, etc. all of which are hot-button issues in our daily lives.

I just want to share some of the observations that I have made about maids in Singapore. Filippinos are mostly arrogant (hao lian), vain and tell alot of lies. They like to work for expat ah mohs. Look down on Singaporeans, middle class or lower. Indonesians always blur and tell lies type, must push them, not hardworking, not thorough in their jobs. Not so smart like Filippinos but more humble. Myanmar, mostly are of better character (at least 60% will not steal). English ok, some bad. They are also very rigid and "one sided" mind, stubborn.

In Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally speech, he said that fathers will get two weeks of paternity leave, up from one week. The government would pay the employee's salary for this additional week, although the scheme will be rolled out first on a voluntary basis. While many parents, fathers especially, cheered the government's announcement, some employers have already begun to express concerns about such pro-family policies.

According to Global workforce expert ManpowerGroup, the top 5 hardest job positions to fill in Singapore are accounting and finance staff; sales representatives; engineers; secretaries (including receptionists and administrative assistants); and, marketing, public relations and communications specialists.

90% or 9 in 10 Bangladeshi workers in Singapore, who mainly work in construction, say that the food they get from their employer's caterers is usually unhygienic and insufficient for their needs. This finding stems from a survey conducted with 500 Bangladeshi migrant workers, which was led by a team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS).