Di Singapura, 28% Majikan Memutus Kontrak Kerja Para PRT Migran dalam Tiga Bulan?

Sumber: Employing Maid in Singapore

From May, settling-in programme for new maids

Today Online, Mar 13, 2010

SINGAPORE - With 28 per cent of maid employers last year terminating
the contracts of their new help within three months, new measures will
take effect by mid-year to better match employers and maids, as well
as help new ones adjust better.

Last year, accreditation bodies received 154 complaints against
employment agencies for poor job matching or inaccurate biodata.

The level of biodata detail provided varied across agencies and not
always with all the information employers need, noted Mr Hawazi Daipi,
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower.

The Ministry of Manpower will be working with the Association of
Employment Agencies (Singapore) and CaseTrust to create a standard
biodata template.

To be ready by June, it would, for example, require agencies to
"indicate if and how they attempted to verify" claims about the
foreign domestic worker's skills and experience.

Come May, employers can also send their new maids for a "Settling-In
Programme" that "includes lessons on Singapore's culture, norms,
financial management and stress management", said Mr Hawazi.

Courses will be held on weekends at some community centres. Employers
keen on signing their maids up can log on next month to the website of
the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Skills Training (Fast), at
www.fast.org.sg.

During the four-month pilot run, the course fees will be absorbed by
Fast. Participants will be expected to complete all four half-day
modules, said the non-profit organisation.

Last year, the ministry received 1,280 complaints from employers,
foreign workers and members of the public about employment agency
malpractices - 80 per cent more than the year before.

To strengthen the management of foreign workers here, for a start, it
will be made an offence to knowingly engage an unlicensed employment
agency.

"We intend to break the collusions involving kickbacks between
employment agencies and errant employers," explained Minister of State
for Manpower Lee Yi Shyan.

The ministry is also increasing penalties for some offences.
Currently, the maximum penalty for operating an employment agency
without a licence is $5,000 - a sum that "pales in comparison to the
fees that some foreign workers pay to come to Singapore", said Mr Lee,
who revealed that more changes to the regulatory framework will be
made this year.

Why maids don’t measure up

The Star Onliner, Sunday March 28, 2010

By GOH CHIN LIAN

Why are so many employers in Singapore sending back their maids? It
could be that the maid is slow, the agent pushy or the employer
demanding.

WHEN a new maid fails to live up to her employer's expectations, it
may not just be her shortcomings.

The blame could fall on an agent so bent on pushing deals and earning
commissions that he overlooks his customer's needs.

Or the problem could stem from the employer. He may have high
expectations of the maid's ability to understand English and cook
well, while also caring for Junior and grandma.

Add to this mix a better-educated maid who knows her rights and will
not give in so easily to unreasonable demands.

The end result? Last year, 28% of employers terminated the contracts
with their maids within three months. It was 27% on average from 2005
to last year, the Manpower Ministry (MOM) told The Sunday Times. Only
one in five was a first-time employer, it added.

Earlier this month, it outlined measures to tackle the problem in a
country where roughly one in every five households has a maid.

The measures: Introduce a template for biodata of maids so employers
are better informed; and run a settling-in programme for new maids.

The 196,000 maids largely come from Indonesia and the Philippines,
attracted by a monthly pay of S$320 to S$420 (RM750 - RM1,000).

Employers pay a monthly levy of S$265 (RM600). They give up their new
maids for reasons such as they are forgetful, tardy or unhygienic,
said Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore) president Shirley
Ng.

Those who let go of an experienced maid complain that she has poor
attitude, is always on the phone and gets into boyfriend problems, she
added.

But Ng felt the problem can also lie with employers having high expectations.

Employers may also fail to recognise that it will take months for
their maids to adapt to a new environment.

What an employer considers as slowness may be the normal pace of
kampung life that the maid is used to. Forgetfulness may just be her
unfamiliarity with multi-tasking.

Take the case of an employer who accused the new maid of lying when
she did not prepare a vegetable dish, recalled the secretary of
non-profit group Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Skills
Training, William Chew.

She said there were no more vegetables in the fridge. The employer
showed her the bunch of kangkong (convolvulus) inside, only to be told
by the maid that it was for feeding pigs.

Other issues include young employers being unable – unlike their
parents – to speak basic Malay to their Indonesian maids, and
employers not giving instructions on how they want things to be done.

Maid agencies also felt that the MOM requirement that maids pass a
multiple-choice written English test here does not ensure that they
can understand English, and may have a negative effect.

MOM introduced the test in 2005 to raise the quality of first-time
maids, who must pass the test here before they can start work.

Maid agencies observed that most agents in the home country now spend
more time teaching English to the maids, instead of job skills.

The result? The language proficiency of the maid could be limited to
dealing with the sample 400 questions from MOM, and they could have
poor housekeeping skills.

On their part, industry folk said maid agencies could do better to
understand the needs and backgrounds of their customers.

Caring for a baby is different from, say, looking after an elderly
person. A maid who is a mother could be a good babysitter, but to
provide care for the elderly, she should have experience and
compassion, Ng said.

John Gee, president of Transient Workers Count Too, an advocacy group
for migrant workers, is in favour of the biodata template, which he
said will allow employers to make informed choices.

The MOM is working with maid agency accreditation bodies, like the
Association of Employment Agencies (Singapore) and Case- Trust, to
develop the template by June.

But agencies felt that it was one thing to have a template, and
another to ensure the biodata is accurate.

Agencies said maids tend to give model answers in order to secure a
job, and home-country agents are unable to verify their past work
experience.

One way around the problem is for agencies here to make trips overseas
to interview and suss out the candidates.

Nation Employment, which used to see 30% of its customers terminate
their contracts within three months, has cut the rate to 15% over more
than a decade.

It focused on improving the skills of its maids through in-house
training after they arrived here, said Nation's managing director Gary
Chin.

Ultimately, employers need to be understanding.

Housewife Goh Li Lian, 44, for example, said she was tempted last year
to change her new maid from Myanmar for being slow, but decided
against it.

"I understand that when the maids first start, we need to have tonnes
of patience to give both sides time to adjust to each other. So I
stuck it out," said Madam Goh, who has had four Indonesian maids, all
of whom finished two-year contracts. – The Sunday Times/ANN

Help for new maids

The Straits Times, Mar 13, 2010

A NEW 'settling-in' programme will be launched in May to help new foreign maids ease into life in Singapore.

It will include courses on Singapore's culture and social norms, financial management and stress management.

Employers can enrol their foreign domestic workers for the courses, which will be held on weekends at selected community centres.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will engage the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Skills Training (Fast) to run the pilot programme, said the ministry's Senior Parliamentary Secretary Hawazi Daipi.

He announced the new initiative in Parliament yesterday, in response to a question from Mr Seng Han Thong (Yio Chu Kang) on its plans to help new foreign maids transit better into working life here.

Mr Hawazi pointed out that these workers are already required to attend a safety awareness course, which trains them on working in Singapore homes and safe practices in high-rise residences.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.

KOR KIAN BENG


Latest comments
I need to remind the public that it should be the duty of the agency to sent the maids to be trained before we hire them and not the other way around.
Posted by: sg_unemployed at Sun Mar 14 14:03:26 SGT 2010

Middle man system in the Health Delivery must stop!

The Star Onlne, Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Posted by: illawara

Ponder about it, folks (may our common sense prevail)

If you had hand injury, would you rather be under the care of a) the hand surgeon and the physical-occupational specialists or b) pay the rehabdoc to link you to the physical-occupational staff?

If your relatives are diagnosed with rheumatic disorder, would you rather pay to be under the a) rheumatologist and the physical and occupational specialists for rehab care and wellbeing or be ) pay to
be coordinated by the rehab doc to access these services - via the made-in-malaysia's 'Ali Baba' system?

If your relatives had stroke, would you rather be under the care of the a) neurologist and neurosurgeon and the physical and occupational and also the speech therapists for rehab care and overall care or b)
pay to be coordinated by the rehab doc to access these services - via the made-in-malaysia's 'Ali Baba' system?

If your parents are having dementia and old age, would you rather be under the gerontologist and the occupational specialist, for rehab and overall care  or b) pay to be coordinated by the rehab doc to access
these services - via the made-in-malaysia's 'Ali Baba' system?

If your friend is having psychotic conditions, would you advise to see a psychiatrist and the occupational specialists for total psychosocial care or under the rehab doc? OR...pay to be coordinated by the rehab
doc to access these services - via the made-in-malaysia's 'Ali Baba' system?

In today's era of health evidence, timeliness, cost effectiveness and many other factors, choosing option (a) is the right thing to do. Ever wonder why the other countries step-up the number of these useful specialists, and not some outdate, redundant, world-war two services??

Are they smarter or perhaps they are never expose or accustom to the ALI-BABA SYSTEM that is so prevalent in Malaysia. It is really made in Malaysia concept - One person sow, another person reap!

What the gov. need to do is have more of these useful specialities and upgrade ALL the therapy specialists.  In addition, the MOH needs to upgrade the nursing personnel as well for an equitable, affordable and cost effective total health care !! This will ensure at the least our aging parents and relatives have access to efficient health care, and not tax further by redundant middle man system.

New programme to deal with stress of housework

The Star Online, Sunday March 28, 2010

DON'T be surprised if the new maid rubs the area under her collarbone every morning or sits occasionally with two fingers on her forehead.

She may just be relieving stress using techniques taught by a new settling-in programme for maids.

From May, employers can send their maids for lessons covering topics like personal hygiene, money management and Singapore's culture and norms, said the non-profit Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Skills Training (Fast).

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said it had engaged Fast to run the programme on weekends at selected community centres.

The target is new maids and those who have been here for less than a year, said Fast secretary William Chew. It plans to promote the programme through employment agents and newsletters that MOM sends to employers of maids.

But will employers bite?

Chew said it has designed the programme to be conducted over four half-days, so it should not take up a lot of the maid's time. Emplo­yers will ultimately benefit from having their maids know the expectations of Singaporeans, he said.

"A happier, better adjusted maid is a better worker," he added.

A source of stress for maids is the need to multitask, from cooking and cleaning to caring for a baby, said the trainer for the stress management session, Khiryati Kairi.

"We've heard of maids always taking Panadol, or always having a headache or a tummy ache. These are signs of stress," said Kairi, the chief executive officer of I-Skills Learning.

Her Brain Gym techniques will involve body movements to keep maids positive, clear minded and energetic.

She will also cover work ethics, emphasising values such as honesty and responsibility. The personal hygiene session will teach maids to care for their hair, hands and body, said trainer AllenJoey Chng, a former nurse.

He will drive home the difficulty of keeping long hair given the housework they must do. They also need to trim their nails to avoid contaminating food, said Chng, the director of training at Grace Management & Consultancy who has trained maids for over six years.

Maids will learn to set their own goals as well and start saving, said Veronica Gamez, executive director of Aidha, a non-profit group that runs finance and entrepreneurship courses for maids.

It could be to buy a cow, invest in land back home or set up a new business like a bakery or a hairdressing salon, she said.

It also means teaching maids to talk to their family about controlling expenses to reach their goal, and to refrain from remitting all their earnings home.

Employers can sign up their maids from next month online at OnePA.gov.sg. Fast will absorb the course fees during the four-month pilot run. – GOH CHIN LIAN

Singapore accused of maid neglect

Tuesday, 6 December 2005

Girls waiting outside a Maids agency in a shopping mall in Singapore
Affluent Singaporeans often hire maids from abroad
Female migrant workers in Singapore face what amounts to forced labour due to a lack of legal protection, US-based rights campaigners say.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said domestic workers were overworked and frequently denied food, pay and social contact, as well as suffering physical abuse.

Singapore's government said the report "grossly exaggerates" the situation.

Maids working throughout South East Asia complain of abuse. HRW produced a similar report on Malaysia last year.

Some 150,000 women work as maids in Singapore, mainly from Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

The report paints a grim picture of young women trapped in apartment blocks, beaten, sometimes raped, killed or driven to suicide by their employers.

The authors of the report say they believe such abuse is widespread in Singapore. In the past six years, at least 147 domestic workers have died in the city state.

Excluded

The rights group interviewed 90 people and conducted case studies to compile its 128-page report, Maid to Order - Ending abuses against migrant domestic workers in Singapore.

HRW argues that by excluding maids from its Employment Act, Singapore is failing to comply with international law.

"A system that excludes a class of workers from labour protections, leaving them to work for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for pitifully low wages is one that demands serious and meaningful reform," it says.

But Singapore's government denied it was exploiting the maids.

"On their own accord, FDWs [foreign domestic workers] choose to work in Singapore because of better conditions here compared to their home and other countries.

"Contrary to HRW's report, the majority of FDWs enjoy meaningful and safe employment in Singapore. An independent poll by Singapore Press Holdings in Dec 2003, revealed that over 80% of FDWs were happy to work in Singapore," the Ministry of Manpower said on its website.

Harsh conditions

One domestic worker cited in the report complained of overwork.

"Sometimes employers want the maid to clean until 2200 or midnight and to start working again at 0600," she said.

Another maid told HRW: "Sometimes there was not enough food... They bought food from outside, but not for me. When angry, [the employer] would throw my food in the rubbish... I was very scared. My employer told me, 'Tomorrow you have a punishment, no eating.'"

Foreign and domestic workers in Singapore at present have no right to any time off. As of next year, employers will be obliged to give them one day off a month or financial compensation.

But the report says the women should be given the same rights as other workers in Singapore.

The authors say Singapore is by no means the worst offender in the region, but they argue that this tightly controlled city state could improve conditions very easily, giving many thousands of vulnerable women greater control over their lives.

Maid to sweat in Singapore

Asia Times Online, June 24, 2005

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE - A rare, passionate public debate on a social issue is raging here on how this tiny, affluent Southeast Asian nation treats the thousands of maids or foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in the city-state.

While some focus on whether these women should get a mandatory day off each week, others argue it is more important to clean up the maid agency industry, which appears to be exploiting poor women from neighboring countries by charging them exorbitant fees to work here.

The debate started more than two months ago when local newspaper Today began publishing letters from FDWs complaining about ill treatment and a lack of days off.

It gathered steam three weeks ago when Association of Employment Agencies (AEAS) president Angland Seah said in an interview with the paper that his organization would like to see a provision for four off days a month incorporated into all new FDWs' job contracts.

Since that call was made, Today claims that employment agencies have been deluged with calls from maids who want the weekly off day incorporated into their contracts immediately, while many employers have threatened to take their business to agencies that are not AEAS members. Letters to newspapers responding to the issue have been mixed.

"For goodness sake, these people are maids," wrote letter writer Edwin Wong. "They are from other countries and have willingly accepted our terms and conditions to be a FDW. We didn't force them."

Writer Stephanie Thio observed, "For a civilized country, Singapore seems to have a disproportionately large number of maid-abuse cases. I think this is because Singaporeans have allowed themselves to accept the idea that foreign domestic helpers are a slightly lesser breed. So we don't accord them the same standard of humanity that we do to others in our lives. This mindset needs to be changed."

Recently, courts have started jailing maid abusers (all women), including a teacher who was sentenced to six weeks behind bars. Previously, those found guilty only received fines.

Police say the number of reported abuse cases has dropped from 157 in 1997 to 59 last year because of the court cases. But activists argue those numbers are only the tip of the iceberg because many FDWs are afraid to report abuse to the police.

Indonesian maid Alfath Ruminanar, 26, was one who did go to the police. She told Inter Press Service that when she complained to her employment agency about abuse people there asked her to pay S$2,000 (US$1,185) to finance her way home.

Ruminanar injured her hand at work but both her employer and the agency wanted her to keep on working. When she wanted to take sick leave, they kept her salary to pay the government levy, which the employer is supposed to pay each month for having a FDW.

Now with the help of the voluntary agency Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), Ruminanar is suing the employment agency for compensation. "After working for nine months here I have earned only S$700," she said. "The agency took seven months of my pay [as commission]."

After having been abused for many months by her employer, Filipino maid Judilyn also complained to the police. "Madam always beat me, shouted in Chinese, and finally burned my leg. That is when I went to the police," she told IPS.

"I have worked for seven months here, and got only one month's pay to take back home. I borrowed P9,500 [US$171] in the Philippines to come here; the agency kept six months pay because they said I signed with them [to give that commission]."

Wages for FDWs are dictated by supply and demand. Filipino maids, who often speak some English, usually receive around S$351 a month. Sri Lankans, most with some education and English ability, get S$247, and the villagers who comprise the bulk of Indonesian FDWs are paid S$197. In addition, the employer pays the S$195 monthly levy to the government.

While the Employment Agencies Act of 2000 stipulates that agencies can only take 10% of a FDW's first month's salary, and another S$5 as a commission, social worker Jolovan Wham of HOME said in an interview it is the norm for agencies to take between three and six months of a FDW's salary as commission.

He also pointed out that in the Philippines, under the Overseas Employment Administration Act, agents are only allowed to take one month's salary, plus administration costs, for placing FDWs.

In February, HOME set up Singapore's first non-profit maid's agency - Star Home Personnel - which charges only one month's salary as commission.

"We are trying to keep costs as low as possible, so that we don't exploit and profit from [FDWs] poverty," said Wham. But, he added, when the new body tried to find an agent in Indonesia to provide them with maids the person wanted at least S$1,400 dollars as commission. "When we asked why, they said that they have to bribe officials to get the necessary papers for a maid to come here," he explained.

Thus, it seems there are problems at the other end, in Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. However, Wham argued that most maid agencies in Singapore have a culture of treating FDWs as subservient, and train them to "say 'yes' to ma'am" all the time. "They are interested in the employer's business not the maid's welfare," he said.

In this cut-throat industry, agencies advertise "no fee" placements, when legislation requires that the employer pay for the FDW's return airfare at the end of the two-year contract, for medical insurance and for six monthly tests, including a test for AIDS.

"How did it become the norm that maids must work for months on end without sniffing a cent of their salary?" asked Alan John, writing in the Straits Times newspaper. "And, all the time, these women are expected to set homesickness aside, wear a happy face, stay motivated, learn to fit in with a new family in a new country, and prove they are worth keeping."

Rather than debating about whether a maid should get a day off per week, what needs to be done is to eradicate the "cruel desire to extract the maximum to make their maid worth her salary and levy", argued John.

Not all maids are badly treated. Many local employers not only give them every Sunday off, but occasionally allow the women to go out on Saturday nights.

Filipino maid Rhia is one of these lucky ones. She told IPS that every alternate Saturday night she is allowed to go out with her local boyfriend, in addition to spending every Sunday with him. Her employer also treats her as part of the family - she sits down to meals with their extended family, and the children call her "aunty".

Sri Lankan expatriate Surani said she has never used an agency to find her Sri Lankan maids. She recruits them through her family connections in Colombo, pays their airfare and all fees for processing papers here. "The maid receives her full salary from the very first day she starts work here," Surani told IPS. "Many Sri Lankan expats I know do the same."

(Inter Press Service)