2005 October
MOM Advice on Wage Payment Updated
A standard MOM online publication, 'A General Guide on Employment of Foreign Domestic Workers' has been updated to reflect changes introduced earlier in 2005 in the regulations concerning the timing of wage payment. A new sentence has been inserted stressing that the worker must be paid on time; we have highlighted it in the reproduced section below:
Wages should reflect the scope of work agreed upon. You must pay your worker her salary due to her each month, no later than 7 days after the last day of that month. You can either pay your worker by cash or credit her wages directly into her bank account. If by mutual agreement you are to keep the bank account book, she must be given access to the book to check that payments are credited regularly. You must also keep a record of the monthly salary paid to your worker, and you should be able to produce this record at the request of a public officer.
Where appropriate, you should consider giving your worker a periodic wage adjustment. This is to reward her for good performance and loyalty in service. Apart from monthly wages, you could also consider offering your domestic worker a contract gratuity. The sum of money, which is to be negotiated between you and the worker, could be paid to her upon conclusion of an agreed period of employment, which should not be longer than the validity of her Work Permit. You will find that these incentives may result in a more motivated domestic worker who would serve her contract diligently and effectively.
The text should be updated in the next print version, unless it already has been in a very new edition. This is titled 'Employing Foreign Domestic Workers'.
Comment
The toughening of the government's position on this issue is a response to a rise in the number of cases of non-payment from a low figure of 98 in 2000 to 231 in 2003 and increasing. In 2004, for the first time, the MOM went after a non-paying employer in a legal action, with the result that Enilia Donohue was ordered to pay $3,580 to Achdaniah, her 19 year old Indonesian worker.*
Late payment and non-payment of wages are common complaints of foreign domestic workers, as TWC2 knows from research undertaken in 2002-2003, and from experience since then.
Responding in 2004 to a written question from Nominated MP Braema Mathi, Acting Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen replied that 231 domestic workers had filed claims for unpaid wages in 2003, up from 214 in 2002. Of the 204 foreign domestic workers whose claims were dealt with in 2003, including those carried forward from 2002, 92 had their cases resolved successfully and recovered $132,000 owed to them. Sixty-five either reached a private settlement with their employer or were found to have no case. Another 35 domestic workers dropped the matter. ('Hansard', 27th February 2004).
The minister said that those who did not pursue their cases included 'some whose employers were facing severe financial hardship after losing their jobs or failing in their businesses and the amount claimed was small'. The MOM was still investigating the remaining 12 claims; in some cases, the process was protracted by the counter claims of employers.)' **
Groups concerned with the rights of foreign domestic workers, including HOME and TWC2, have helped a number of women to pursue claims for non-payment of wages, with the cooperation of the MOM. This is also a matter raised by embassies of sender countries.
An article by Sim Chi Yin in 'The New Paper' ('I felt angry that I couldn't do anything', 11th November 2003) drew public attention to the issue when it highlighted the case of Lourdes Tiniclan, who worked for the same family for 14 years, only took one holiday to go home in all that time and whose records of payments made to her showed that she was owed $20,250. Following mediation, her employer (who was reported to be surprised when she walked out 'because she had been like a member of the family') agreed to pay her $14,000, in instalments.
TWC2 welcomes the moves to discourage non-payment and underpayment of wages, but we consider that the problem is far from solved. What can be done by domestic workers who have not been clearly informed of their entitlement to prompt payment, and whose employers deny them access to information and help by denying them time off and not allowing them to go out? What is to be done about non-paying employers who take their workers to the airport or ferry and send them home? In the past, very few workers who had been sent out of Singapore were in a position to bear the costs and inconvenience of returning to pursue repayment through mediation, and none have so far done it through litigation, as far as we know. What can be done about ex-pat employers who leave Singapore before their workers' contract is finished and don't pay them?
We suggest that empowerment of foreign domestic workers is the vital element in these instances. They need to be well briefed about their rights either before they enter Singapore or upon their arrival. They should be told when they enter Singapore that if they are not paid their wages regularly, they should contact the MOM and ask for its help; if their employers prevent them from doing so, and an attempt is made to send them home against their wills without being paid, they should approach any police officer or immigration official at the point of departure and say that they wish to get help from the MOM to recover the money they are owed.
This underlines the necessity for all foreign domestic workers to have time off by right and to be able to leave their employers' premises during that time. It would mean that they could seek redress more easily; mediation would be undertaken earlier in the development of the problem, which would help employers who had genuinely fallen into financial difficulties and experienced problems paying; it would virtually abolish the problems of workers being sent away without being paid or left unpaid by departing employers, because, once every week, the worker would have the chance to take measures to remedy non-payment before she came to those points.
* 'Boss fined for not paying maid for 1 1/2 years', Elena Chong and Wong Sher Maine, 'Straits Times' 20/10/'04. It must be added that this was not purely concerning non-payment of wages. The employer was also charged with employing a foreign worker without a valid work permit. In December 2001, after Achdaniah had worked for Donohue for only three months, the MOM cancelled her work permit because Donohue had not paid the monthly levy. She was not told about this, and continued working without being paid, until by August 9th 2003 she was owed $4,630. Her employer paid her $1,050 when she pleaded guilty to the charges and the court ordered her to pay the balance. It would appear that Achdaniah was taken on when she was 16 years old and 'paid' $200 a month. Donohue was fined $12,075 for illegal employment (equivalent to two years and eleven months' maid levy - rather more than her employee was due to be paid) and $3,000 for non-payment of wages.
To summarise: it seems fair to comment that it was positive that the MOM went after an errant employer in this way and sent a message out to anyone thinking of evading payment and positive that Achdaniah should recover all the payment due to her, but there seems to be something unsatisfactory in an action that results in the state receiving fines totalling nearly four times as much as the wronged worker recovers. It must also be said that the lesson some bad payers might take from this case is that they will be less likely to be pursued in the courts if they keep up levy payments, but cheat the worker.
**From final draft of TWC2's forthcoming book, 'Dignity Overdue'.