MOM, Get Tough On Errant Maid Agencies & Maids’ Mistreatments Of Employers. Enact Laws To Protect Employers.

Employers are calling on the Minister/ MPs of Manpower to enact tougher laws against errant FDWs’ mistreatments of Employers, and unscrupulous maid agencies’ practices and enact laws to protect Employers.
 
Dear Madam Josephine Teo (Manpower Minister in-charge), MPs Mr Zaqy Mohamad and Ms Low Yen Ling,
 
We are a group of employers in Singapore who employ foreign domestic workers to do household chores for us.
 
However, more and more of us employers have been suffering in silence due to increasing numbers of rogue agencies and foreign domestic workers (FDWs) who have been getting bolder and more obnoxious in their demands.
 
FDWs who come to Singapore to work in recent years no longer share the same work ethics and working attitudes as those who came to work in Singapore about 5 years and more ago. We read more and more about FDWs who make headlines as a number of them either kill, assault, abuse or hurt and perform black magic on the vulnerable whom we hire them to take care of.
 
The domestic helper scene in recent years has been appalling as standards of overseas foreign domestic help have been declining steadily. Yet, salaries paid out to these FDWs have been steadily on the increase, as demanded by FDWs and their respective embassies.
 
These are just some of the problems employers face on a daily basis in recent years:
 
1. Increasingly demanding / lying / incompetent/ lazy FDWs with irresponsible, disrespectful and even dangerous behaviour
 
• Worse, it is with great distress, alarm and even incredulity to read, hear or know about FDWs who make a plethora of unreasonable demands. These FDWs have been getting more vocal, outspoken, more demanding and unreasonable in their demands.
 
• What is unacceptable is the standard of FDWs has deteriorated and regressed appallingly. Many are not serious about coming here to work and some lie and run away at the slightest attempt by employers to correct their slack and incompetent or wrong work attitudes.
 
• Some have taken to lying about being mistreated by employers like not getting sufficient food, being harassed by male employers, not having respectable or acceptable sleeping conditions or hours, but when checked and verified by the relevant authorities like the police or MOM, have been found to be slanderous and falsely accusatory.
 
• Some of the FDWs’ excessive and unreasonable demands are totally unwarranted and uncalled for if these FDWs are really serious about coming here to work include: free 24-hour wifi access, official off days for public holidays in Singapore, on TOP of their weekly days off, 24-hour off days on their designated off days, private bedrooms and refusing to sleep in the same room with the children they are supposed to care for, free access to their mobile phones 24/7, holidays overseas with their boyfriends, marrying boyfriends in Singapore, or even refusing to do certain household chores like cooking, walking the dogs, caring for children, etc.
 
• Some FDWs endanger the lives of young children or teenage girls, especially little girls when they take their young charges to meet their boyfriends while these FDWs are supposed to be spending time doing household chores instead, and when their employers are away at work. Some FDWs invite their boyfriends home and engage in sexual intercourse in their employers’ homes. Is this acceptable? Is this even right? Would you tolerate this?
 
Some employers even discovered their foreign domestic workers secretly took photos of their employer’s children and shared these photos with their foreigner boyfriends, thus putting the lives and privacy of the family and their children’s lives at great risks.
 
We highlight a very recent case where an employer discovered her FDW took nude photos of her daughter in the shower and sent these photos to her boyfriend. This distraught mom immediately lodged police report.
 
2. Pregnant
 
• There are reportedly a high number of FDWs involved in sexual relationships and even those who are married with children. Many of these FDWs spent a big portion of their time sexting with the men (in some cases several men) in their employers’ house, during work hours, even neglecting children they were supposed to be looking after.
 
Some employers discovered their FDWs working as prostitutes and when confronted, the FDWs admitted they wanted more money. When FDWs get pregnant or contract sexually transmitted diseases, who pays for the consequences? The repatriation?
 
It should not be the responsibility of the Employers who are against their FDWs’ choice to fool around with men and excessive and irresponsible usage of the handphones, when they come here to work as domestic workers and their expenses are all paid for by employers. Employers usually informed FDWs the house rules before they start work, or accept the job, and FDWs are even reminded repeatedly to behave and do their work properly.
 
Such blatant breaches of house rules and dishonouring of agreements show a flagrant disregard of authority and violations of rules by FDWs. Should MOM and Employers tolerate this?
 
3. Excessive help and rights extended to FDWs:
 
• Human rights organizations for FDWs have also been indiscriminatory when it comes to helping and encouraging errant FDWs who run away from, lie and accuse employers falsely, choosing to believe in fabricated tales or not conducting proper checks to establish the accuracy of some so-called “facts”.
 
• One of these Foreign Domestic Workers’ rights groups is named FDW in Singapore (Working conditions) on Facebook which consists of both employers and FDWs in the same social group on Facebook (there are many more FDWs than Employers in this very large group of close to 35,000 members) . The FDWs in this forum group are extremely vocal and actively call out for and encourage many of our FDWs to simply “run away to HOME” and “fight for your rights against employers!”, often indiscriminately.
 
• Many of the posts are centred on questioning the validity and relevance and challenging the rationale behind many of these government ratified domestic policies governing our nation Singapore. This serves on many occasions to cause unhappiness among many FDWs working in Singapore and serves frequently to incite rifts and arguments between FDWs and employers, often encouraging FDWs to take action against their employers or to challenge them.
 
• What’s more disturbing is that this Facebook page is created by a foreigner who does not reside in Singapore although she’s married to a Singaporean. Her name is Catherine Plagne-Ismail and she’s from France, residing in Swansea, England. How can we allow foreign intervention in our local and national policies set by our Ministry of Manpower?
 
• The HOME or otherwise known as Humanitarian Organization for Migrant Employees has been indiscriminate in their treatment of all employers, even if the employers have done NOTHING wrong and have been suffering at the hands of errant, irresponsible and even criminal FDWs by encouraging these FDWs to run away or harshly demanding employers pay for repatriation of FDWs found guilty of stealing from or lying to employers.
 
• Sometimes the FDWs lodge police reports against their employers accusing them of untruths ranging from not providing the FDWs with sufficient food, sleep, abuse, harassment or bad sleeping conditions. However, there have been numerous occasions when the police force indicated that investigations yield findings that the FDWs have lied in order to incriminate innocent employers.
 
4. Unscrupulous Rogue FDW Agents:
 
• Many employers have suffered at the hands of unscrupulous rogue FDW agents who are in this business for money and unconscionably rip employers off by deliberately hiding facts and withholding information from potential or prospective employers.
 
• Even worse, some agents help FDWs conveniently agree to all terms and conditions during interviews with prospective employers prior to coming over to work in Singapore just to get a foothold into local employment and used these same unsuspecting and vulnerable employers who have genuine domestic needs as “stepping stones” to get employment into what they regard as “dream households”.
 
• These have become some of the unconscionable acts which employers have to put up with increasingly in recent years. This string of brazen and emboldened demands first surfaced with Madam Halimah Yacob’s policy of mandating an official off day for FDWs in 2012 when she was Minister at Ministry of Manpower which has since spiraled downwards into a horrific string of never-ending incidents and greedy, insatiable appetite of these FDWs to continually demand for better working conditions that are excessive and unreasonable now.
 
• Many employers have had to suffer at the hands of these unscrupulous rogue employment agents by having to pay loan after loan and all kinds of hidden costs either for repatriation of FDWs or transfer loans or worse, new replacement FDWs despite having suffered at the hands of already rogue FDWs.
 
5. Rogue Behaviour of FDWs
 
• Newspaper headlines detail true incidents of how FDWs run away sometimes through no fault at all of the employers other than they prefer to change to work for employers or households they deem as “easier”, FDWs borrowing money from licensed or unlicensed money-lenders resulting in employers being threatened or serve warning letters demanding repayment of loan with interest, increasingly disgraceful and horrific accounts and incidents of verbal, physical and emotional abuse by FDWs of babies, infants, children and the elderly folks by their FDWs are on a dramatic and startling rise.
 
• Irresponsible behavior of FDWs who leave their charges like young children, babies, aged parents, or elderly folk alone while they chat together with fellow domestic workers at playgrounds, outside of children’s schools, hawker centres, malls or even when crossing the roads when using their mobile devices is a present, real and troubling danger, in so doing, putting their charges’ lives at risk (elderly parents, young babies and children under their charge).
 
How long more must employers put up with these delinquent behaviours and attitudes of such helpers, before the authorities are willing to put in more regulations to put a stop to such abuse and mistreatments by FDWs?
 
• Employees are also not required to complete their employment contracts for whatever reasons cited and employers are merely sitting ducks to such threats that FDWs throw out at them and are often caught scrambling for new or transfer domestic help that turn out to be twice as bad, if not, equally bad as previously errant FDWs.
 
• Increasingly, employers like us are seeing a trend of FDWs who come to Singapore not really to work but to have boyfriends, sexting with many different men, chatting for hours on social media like Facebook and neglecting the children/ elderly and work they are responsible for, enjoy life while taking advantages of employers when they are not at home by having illicit affairs, bullying or worse, abusing charges under them and intentionally misbehaving and disobeying and disrespecting employers by flouting household rules set by employers.
 
• Many are here for a “holiday” since they do not have to bear the cost of airfare in sending them back should they misbehave, flout civil laws by stealing from employers, prostituting themselves, borrowing money which results in employers being harassed for repayment, engaging in illegal businesses and moonlighting. There are few consequences that have to be borne by FDWs as compared to employers. Is this fair?
 
There are many cases of FDWs who have multiple transfers of 3, 4, 5, 6 or more employers in less than a year or 2. Why is such flippant, thoughtless, untrustworthy and disloyal behaviour perpetuated by FDWs allowed to continue to cause chaos, disruptions, disorder and disarray in families? More so families with children and elderly.
 
Employers who change a few FDWs a year are taken to task, but FDWs continue to exploit employers and turn families upside down. Why is there a double standard?
 
When MOM refuse to put a stop to this kind of detestable practice and rogue behaviour by FDWs, MOM is enabling and empowering FDWs to become more emboldened in playing out employers and disrupting family and social orders, and disrespecting rules and laws.
 
MOM should enact rules/ laws to warn and blacklist FDWs who change more than 2 employers in a year. This would ensure FDWs take every work and Employer and the family they work for seriously.
 
MOM should also make it a rule/ law that FDWs who don’t finish their two year contract and want to leave, the FDWs should pay for their own air ticket home and their check-in luggage. FDWs should also be responsible for the loan balance and whatever fees owing to the agency by Employers and themselves if they want to be transferred to other employers and leave before their 2 years contract is up.

Employers should NOT be used as whipping boy or scapegoat by FDWs and maid agencies.
 
This would act as a deterrent to FDWs making use of poor unsuspecting employers to demand higher salaries and more excesses and cravings for their handphone and social media addictions.
 
 
6. Helpless employers who continue to suffer
 
• Employers, on the other hand, are responsible for bearing the cost of expatriation of these foreign domestic workers even if they are incompetent, defiant, irresponsible, untruthful and dishonest from day one when they start working for their employers.
 
• Employers are also responsible for benefits their employees enjoy such as: bearing home leave pay that is fully paid for (many employers are not aware this is not mandatory), paying loans with agencies, bearing medical fees and treatments when FDWs fall ill or request for checks, etc. I paid for expensive medical consultation and treatments for my very own FDW a few years ago when she was diagnosed with eczema and provided her with expensive moisturizers for eczema sufferers as they can only use unscented and specially formulated body and hand creams.
 
• Employers find ourselves having to pay inordinate amounts of loans upfront for these FDWs and then replacement fees should they request for transfer. Many employers are mere sitting ducks having to pay for extra and additional fees of all kinds upon the transfer of their FDWs while the FDWs continue to enjoy no penalty for transfer requests which embolden them, resulting in a continual “recycling” of such recalcitrant, deceitful and irresponsible FDWs who continue to “shop” without restrain for what they perceive to be their “ideal household employment” in the domestic help system.
 
• Worse, increasingly, innocent employers find themselves called in to MOM for “coffee sessions” when a total of 3-4 errant FDWs “pass through their hands” sometimes through no fault of the employers, it’s just “pure bad luck” for them to be saddled with one bad FDW after another. Sometimes it’s the fault of errant and unscrupulous FDW agents who lie to employers about prospective domestic workers just to yield business for their agency.
 
• Some FDWs run away and leave their employers in the lurch just because there isn’t a penalty they have to bear. Many of these FDWs run away without good reasons but simply because they wish to either get a transfer or because they are unhappy and don’t wish to work things out with their employers. Most of these employers are usually none the wiser and innocent of any wrongdoing. Some FDWs run away simply because they are immature and wish to get their employers into trouble by running away to HOME or to their respective embassies.
 
• With HOME fiercely fighting for the rights of these FDWs, we as employers wonder who will fight for our rights? When Employers are betrayed, bullied or falsely accused by FDWs who lie, steal and behave unreasonably and criminally, who will fight for our rights? HOME often cites examples of FDWs who have been unfairly mistreated by employers but these numbers are small, perhaps 800 out of 250,000 FDWs employed in Singapore.
 
• When these FDWs run away, who pays for their accommodation? Air tickets home? Medical expenses? Employers, who else? Many times when it isn’t even the fault of the employers. Is this fair and reasonable for Employers? NO.
 
• Yet employers find themselves having to suffer in silence while these same FDWs ask for transfer after transfer in search of the “perfect” employer with no penalty, no cost to them, and finally, if all don’t work out, a free air ticket home, borne by the employer! What a good deal! No wonder more and more FDWs become increasingly brazen, demanding and bold in their demands.
 
• Having to suffer in silence at the hands of unscrupulous FDWs who become emboldened especially during briefing SIP sessions when they first arrive in Singapore and are armed with human rights activist groups who continue to provide FDWs with resources to run away and make unreasonable demands as they wish?
 
• To “fight for better working rights” while employers are forced to the end of their tethers having to accommodate the demands of these FDWs while we continue to suffer in silence?
 
• Sometimes, FDWs go home on home leave and do not return, leaving employers in the lurch; employers who have treated these same FDWs with kindness, compassion and love. Sometimes providing them with money when they need financial help, buying gifts and contributing money, clothes and presents when these FDWs send their folks back home boxes of gifts. What do these employers get in return?
 
 
7. CCTVs:
 
• Many buildings these days, whether commercial or government or even schools and private homes have CCTVs. We as employers who engage strangers into our residences have the right to protect our homes, our little ones, our elderly and our money and property from strangers who have yet to gain our trust. Trust takes time to build. Yet employers often are forced to leave the vulnerable elderly and babies and young children in the care of FDWs who sometimes betray our trust by abusing their young or elderly charges.
 
• Yet many FDWs cry foul against their employers by refusing to work at residences that have CCTVs installed for our personal safety and the safety of our families and property.
 
• Despite the presence of such CCTVs, many FDWs brazenly leave houses and residences of their employers without permission, leaving the gates and doors sometimes wide open, thereby endangering the safety and property of their employers and their family members who may either be sleeping or bedridden.
 
• These FDWs brazenly cut corners, use their mobile phones excessively when they’re supposed to be doing household chores, chatting with neighbours, or worse, sometimes caught on CCTVs abusing their young charges or the vulnerable and weak, frail elderly.
 
 
8. Use of mobile phones:
 
• Many employers implement a no-handphone rule during work hours. Many do not confiscate or hold FDWs’ handphones, mainly asking them to place their mobile phones on a tray or the bar counter where it can be easily visible. Most employers allow FDWs access to their phones after their domestic chores are done, whether in the day or mostly at night, in case of emergencies, or when employers are out.
 
• Most FDWs have been found abusing these rights by using their mobile phones excessively during work hours, before they finish their jobs or neglecting their domestic duties because they are addicted to phone usage. As workers and employees, even in our offices, workplaces and companies, employers of FDWs do not even engage excessively in handphone usage, fearing we may be reprimanded by our bosses or lost productivity in our work and employment. These FDWs do not fear similar repercussions. They have the backing of many so-called human rights organizations that encourage, support, call for and provide backing for these FDWs to flout household rules and regulations set by their employers regarding the use of handphone usage.
 
• Instead of encouraging FDWs to work out mutually agreeable house rules and regulations with their employers, these so-called humanitarian organizations incite rebellion and defiance by instigating FDWs to fight for their rights against employers. Is the MOM going to take this disruption of social order and social harmony between employers and their FDWs lying down?
 
• Many FDWs demand for internet and wifi access from employers despite not having fulfilled their domestic chores or even despite knowing their employers do not allow them access to wifi.
 
• Many try to steal passwords to wifi access, in spite of knowing their employers’ prohibition against their using the family wifi.
 
• What’s more alarming is that many employers discover disturbing footages, images and videos of their naked children, naked elderly parents taken by FDWs while they are supposedly helping them to shower. Most are uploaded on social media either for fun, or to mock the naked children and elderly, vulnerable parents of their employers. Is this right? Do these children and vulnerable elderly parents who may be suffering from dementia have access to human rights in these cases? What penalty is there for such FDWs who do such despicable and deplorable acts? What protection do employers have in such cases? What redress do these employers have?
 
• Many employers have been shocked to find video footages or images and photographs of their FDWs taking selfies and uploading them on social media wearing their employers’ dresses, make-up or even using and stealing their employers’ expensive facial products.
 
• Some FDWs have been seen sitting in their employers’ expensive sports cars taking selfies when they are supposed to be washing their employers’ cars.
 
• Some footages have circulated on social media showing irresponsible FDWs abusing the elderly or young children even in public places. One high-profile and widely circulated video footage showed an FDW pinching the breasts of an elderly woman while poking her. The elderly woman was clearly suffering from dementia and looked scared. All this was done while the elderly woman’s equally elderly and helpless husband looked on lost and fearful. Is this right? Does this depict human rights for our very own Singaporean elderly, babies, young children and disabled family members?
 
• As employers, it is NOT wrong for us to ensure the FDWs we engage have sufficient sleep of 8 continuous hours at night. As such, it is NOT wrong for us to regulate or implement no-phone usage after a certain time to ensure our FDWs get sufficient sleep. After all, is this 8-hour continuous sleep regulation for FDWs not an MOM instituted law for employers? Why should employers be challenged or criticized or penalized by MOM for imposing and enforcing no handphone usage beyond a certain hour at night to ensure their FDWs get sufficient sleep for their work the next day?
 
• Yet employers are criticized heavily by these FDWs who are instigated by so-called human rights groups to challenge household rules set by employers adhering to no-handphone usage beyond a certain time at night rule. Is this right? Should these human rights groups be allowed to intervene and criticize such regulations set by our MOM to ensure that our FDWs get sufficient and continuous 8-hour sleep when we insist they switch off their handphone after a certain time at night so they can rest?
 
 
9. Money-lending woes for employers:
 
• Next issue is money-lending. Many, many FDWs have already made victims of their employers by borrowing money from money-lenders, both legal and illegal, who end up terrorizing the employers of these unrepentant and brazen FDWs.
 
• Many of these FDWs blame employers, saying they don’t advance salaries to them, which is why they have to turn to finance companies to fuel their need for money.
 
• But as employers, how possible is it for us to get advance salaries even from our own bosses and superiors? The important key is to spend within our means, which many FDWs apparently do not agree with or are able to do. In Clementi alone, there used to be a second-hand luxury handbag store located just beside a money-lending shop which catered mainly to FDWs judging by the long queues of FDWs on Sundays which has since closed, which clearly used to target these FDWs, luring them with classy, glossy second hand branded handbags which they clearly cannot afford, yet borrow money to fuel these insatiable lust for branded accessories to flaunt on their off days.
 
• What protection are employers entitled to in these times of great need? Does MOM lend us a helping hand? Do we have any avenue for recourse? We are able to feedback errant FDWs who misbehave or borrow money from illegal money-lenders on the ministry of manpower website. Is that all? In every sense of the word, yes. And tragically so. But on a practical level, how does this help employers and protect employer rights? FDWs are equipped with all the help and avenues available to them right now. But I cannot say the same for employers.
 
Is this what Singapore citizens voted for? A lack of voice as employers? Many of us employers are merely wanting to employ honest, hardworking FDWs to help us out while we work out of our homes. As employers, we want FDWs who are sincerely in Singapore to work for an honest living through hard work for employers who similarly work hard at their jobs and have bosses to report to and who have to put food on the tables with bills to pay.
 
Employers are merely asking for a thought by the MOM to be spared for true blue Singapore citizens who are suffering at the hands of these unconscionable and unreasonable FDWs who continue to make lives so difficult for genuinely sincere employers who only want some dependable and reliable, honest help to look after their households.
 
As these FDWs continue to enjoy the protection, encouragement and support from these so-called human rights organizations to stand up against their employers, to fight for their rights and defy and rebel against their employers, who do employers have to fight for OUR rights in the face of increasing rebellion, defiance and brazenly unreasonable demands from these FDWs?
 
We elect ministers and Ministers of Parliament to look after the welfare of our local Singaporean employers, not foreigners, and rightly so.
 
Wouldn’t you agree?
 
Employers are calling on the Minister/ MPs of Manpower to enact tougher laws against errant FDWs’ mistreatments of Employers, and unscrupulous maid agencies’ practices and enact laws to protect Employers.