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May 1, 2008

Maids: Help and be fair to employers as well

FURTHER to Monday's article, 'Fewer maids choosing to work here', it is timely perhaps to examine how employers' interests should also be safeguarded.

For a start, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) guidelines should be revised.

There should be proper guidelines requiring agents to ensure that employers are not ripped off and that information provided in a maid's bio-data is genuine.

It would be useful to consider the following in attempting to achieve the suggestions cited in Monday's report:

Higher pay for maids: Abolish the maid levy to help employers pay a higher salary. The abolition will up an Indonesian's monthly pay to at least $450, and a Filipina's to $520.

Compulsory days off: Maids should be made liable for their own actions, instead of passing the buck to employers via the $5,000 bond. That way, if a maid runs away, gets pregnant or is involved in other irresponsible acts, the employer does not have to pay for it.

Comparisons: Maids who work in Hong Kong and Taiwan do not have the luxury of their employers footing their loans for them. Instead, they pay the fees related with getting a job in these places upfront and out of their own pocket. It is riskier and financially harder for a Singaporean employer.

He must settle this loan with the agent before he can hire the maid, which could amount to $3,000 or more.

Recovering the amount takes a long time as it is done through partial deductions of a maid's monthly salary.

If the maid does not last a month, the employer must forfeit the entire month's loan payment, even if the maid works for only a day.

An employer loses the outstanding loan amount if he chooses to repatriate the maid instead of transferring her to another employer.

In Hong Kong and Taiwan, if the maid-employer relationship breaks down, the maid must return home and cannot seek a transfer.

Singapore should adopt this practice, in tandem with shifting the burden of a maid's loan to her and her lender. Such changes will end the current practice of recycling poor-performing, maladjusted or untrustworthy maids.

Most employers will not mind paying more for a capable and trustworthy maid.

But let's make it fair for all. It seems quite clear that the only party benefiting here is the agent.

Tjio Lianne (Mdm)