Maids get 'bank guarantee'

Published Date: 03 October 2006

MOM moves to ensure maids get their dues, prevent abuse

Loh Chee Kong
cheekong@mediacorp.com.sg

A NOTORIOUS Singapore stereotype — the maid suffering abuse in silence or getting her salary deducted without good reason — may soon have to be revised.

Starting next month, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) may randomly ask to interview your maid, to find out how she is being treated or whether she is facing any problems. In other words, maids new to Singapore may be able to confide in the authorities.

What's more, she along with other migrant workers — including those in the construction sector — may opt to receive salaries in their bank accounts. There would then be records to determine if she has been paid adequately and in time.
It's not all a one-way street, though. To minimise the surprises sometimes sprung on employers, maid agencies will have to share a foreign domestic worker's (FDWs) employment history with those who want to hire her.

The steps are among those being taken by MOM to ensure that maids are sufficiently protected and to smoothen the sometimes-prickly relationship between employers and their FDWs. The initiatives apply to new maids as well as those already working in Singapore.

The random interviews that MOM intends to conduct will afford extra protection to those working here for the first time. It will keep employers on their toes, especially since maids are timid and more prone to being bullied when they first come here, observers said.

Welcoming this move Mr Yeo Guat Kwang, chairman of National Trades Union Congress' migrant workers forum, said: "The first three to six months of the FDW's stay in Singapore is the most critical period. The random interviews with FDWs working here for the first time is very useful to enable the MOM officers to understand their situation better and help prevent abuse. We would like to suggest that MOM also consider random checks on first-time employers."

A softer touch has also been put in place. Starting this month, MOM has launched a bi-annual newsletter for FDWs, which would be sent to their employers' homes. It will educate the maids on their rights and responsibilities and teach them how to work safely even in high-rise buildings.

Employers, too, will receive a guidebook from next month that will spell out what is expected of them.
This includes prompt and proper payment of salaries which the maids will be now able to accept directly in their bank accounts.

MOM said that the bank records of salary payment "will be of benefit to both employers and their foreign domestic workers, especially in the event of any salary dispute". It added that migrant workers could choose to continue their current payment arrangements if they wished to.

This could also encourage maids to start some form of saving, added NTUC's Mr Yeo.
Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) had recently conducted a survey in which several maids had complained of unreasonable deductions from their wages.

Said its president Braema Mathi, a former Nominated MP: "It is very important that the bank books be kept by the maids. And if the bank can help to send the money directly back to their family's bank accounts, it would be even better."
The employment histories that agencies will have to share with an employer could prove useful, too.
According to MOM, these would contain general information such as the number of employers that a maid had had, and the duration of each employment period.

However, Ms Mathi felt that the employment records should show the reasons for the termination of a particular maid's contract or why was she transferred. Mr Gordon La Faber, president of the Association of Employment Agencies of Singapore, said that making the employment records available would also help the agencies "have an idea" of the job history of maids who are returning from overseas stints.

While happy with the new arrangements, Ms Siti Muyasarh, an Indonesian maid who has been working in Singapore for the past decade, expressed some reservations.

Said the 31-year-old: "There are some employers who are already paying their maids through their bank accounts but they hold on to their bank books."

But Madam Anne Koh, who employs a maid, felt that the employers should be allowed to set up a joint account with their maids, so that legitimate deductions can be made when they chalk up large expenses like telephone bills.

"It's just to play safe that before they leave, you have the option to deduct the money from them," said Mdm Koh, who lauded MOM's move to educate the employers and their maids.

Ms Muyasarh added: "There are many new maids who are clueless about their rights and they are scared. They don't dare to say no to their employers' demands, even when it is against their own safety."

A step has been taken to change that.

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