watervapour_baby
New Member
What are your views?
Personally, I'm sorely disappointed with MOM decision to give maids mandatory ''off days''.I am a mother of 2 young children and I was planning to further expand our family unit but will now have to reconsider because I will not be getting adequate help, especially with all these pro-maids policies!
I am against it as there are several factors that needs to be looked into - 1) Social issues: Maids who might get pregnant, have a boyfriend (or many boyfriends!) and getting distracted with their work, or start comparing their household requirements with other maids. In this day and age, most maids are here to choose their employers. As it is, many families are finding it hard to get a reliable maid. Having the mandatory off days will compound these social issues.
2) Families who need maids to be around: ie, maids looking after young children, elderly and disabled. As a full time working mother with young children at home, I need my maid to be around to take care of the domestic chores so I can spend quality time with my kids. It causes alot of inconvience to me if the maid is not around and I need to make logistical arrangements.
As a full time working mother, I don't get the luxury of 'off days' as well. I have to cook for the family including the maid every day and help out with household chores whenever I'm not working. In addition, the new generation of parents these days are heavily reliant on FDWs because unlike our parents generation where they have the luxury of grandparents looking after the children. Many grandparents today are also working full time, thanks to the upward revision of retirement age. IF the government really want to encourage us to have more children, then we need to have the necessary help around. Infant care and babysitters fees are very costly and for families with more than 2 child, the most economical solution is often to hire a FDW.
3) Domestic workers are DIFFERENT from other workers because during the course of their work day, they have plenty of time in between to rest already - when the children are in school etc. And when the family goes on outings, the maid either can spend time resting at home or follow the family in these outings as a form of relaxation. Most employers are aware that it is not wise to have an over-worked maid and will already make allowances to ensure the maid gets proper rest. For example, my maid takes a nap every afternoon after she is done with her chores.
As it is, the maid's salary has already shot up by quite a fair bit ($450 for new maids and $500-$550 for experienced maids), putting a strain on most household incomes . (Most families' income have not increased by much over the last few years.) Having to give maids mandatory off days will only cause more distress to families who genuinely need domestic help.
For maids who chose not to have their ''days off', we will have to ''compensate'' them with pro-rated salaries which easily means another $100-150 ON TOP of the current high salary. In addition, we also have to bear the maid levy unlike HK or Taiwan where there isn't any. It is pointless to keep comparing with other countries because no one country is alike and many maids we know chose to work in Singapore because they feel they can save more money (unlike HK or Taiwan where they have to pay for their own lodging and food).
As employers, can we also demand that the quality of maids are assured so as to justify the incredibly high salary which we have to pay? Many maids are not up to the job nor are they properly trained as claimed by the maid agencies. Their biodatas are always inaccurate as well and many times, for example - after selecting a particular maid who is supposedly trained in childcare, our maid admitted that she has no experience whatsoever but it is too late because the employer would have already paid upfront for 8months maid loan. In the end, the only party who actually profit from all these are the maid agencies. Because they can continue to market maids with inaccurate profiles and pocket the $4000+ of the 8-9months maid loan, leaving employers to deal with incompetent maids.
The recent price-fixing of maid's salary by a group of maid agencies go to show just how influential and scheming these agents are and it does seem that even MOM can't do anything about it. No doubt these agents were fined but how much of a deterrent is that really?
We employers are at the mercy of maid agencies and even maids themselves. I once employed a maid who told me that she does not want to look after children or elderly and requested for a transfer on the very day that I went to pick her up. This is despite her promise during our phone interview that she loves children and had experience looking after them. Clearly, she just wants to come to Singapore first and then take her time to choose her employers. On another occasion, we had a maid who lied about her employment history and claimed that in her last 2 years in Singapore, she only had 1 employer but in fact, she had 7! When we requested to change to a maid with no experience instead - the maid agent told us that we need to pay a separate ''service fee'' because we can only chose a replacement maid from the ''experienced'' group and not ''fresh'' ones. It seems to me that maid agencies can impose all kinds of ''rules'' as they chose and MOM cannot do anything about it.
It is already very frustrating for employers who have to go through all these but yet when we feedback to MOM, it seems like nothing can be done.
I wonder, who can speak up for us then?
Personally, I'm sorely disappointed with MOM decision to give maids mandatory ''off days''.I am a mother of 2 young children and I was planning to further expand our family unit but will now have to reconsider because I will not be getting adequate help, especially with all these pro-maids policies!
I am against it as there are several factors that needs to be looked into - 1) Social issues: Maids who might get pregnant, have a boyfriend (or many boyfriends!) and getting distracted with their work, or start comparing their household requirements with other maids. In this day and age, most maids are here to choose their employers. As it is, many families are finding it hard to get a reliable maid. Having the mandatory off days will compound these social issues.
2) Families who need maids to be around: ie, maids looking after young children, elderly and disabled. As a full time working mother with young children at home, I need my maid to be around to take care of the domestic chores so I can spend quality time with my kids. It causes alot of inconvience to me if the maid is not around and I need to make logistical arrangements.
As a full time working mother, I don't get the luxury of 'off days' as well. I have to cook for the family including the maid every day and help out with household chores whenever I'm not working. In addition, the new generation of parents these days are heavily reliant on FDWs because unlike our parents generation where they have the luxury of grandparents looking after the children. Many grandparents today are also working full time, thanks to the upward revision of retirement age. IF the government really want to encourage us to have more children, then we need to have the necessary help around. Infant care and babysitters fees are very costly and for families with more than 2 child, the most economical solution is often to hire a FDW.
3) Domestic workers are DIFFERENT from other workers because during the course of their work day, they have plenty of time in between to rest already - when the children are in school etc. And when the family goes on outings, the maid either can spend time resting at home or follow the family in these outings as a form of relaxation. Most employers are aware that it is not wise to have an over-worked maid and will already make allowances to ensure the maid gets proper rest. For example, my maid takes a nap every afternoon after she is done with her chores.
As it is, the maid's salary has already shot up by quite a fair bit ($450 for new maids and $500-$550 for experienced maids), putting a strain on most household incomes . (Most families' income have not increased by much over the last few years.) Having to give maids mandatory off days will only cause more distress to families who genuinely need domestic help.
For maids who chose not to have their ''days off', we will have to ''compensate'' them with pro-rated salaries which easily means another $100-150 ON TOP of the current high salary. In addition, we also have to bear the maid levy unlike HK or Taiwan where there isn't any. It is pointless to keep comparing with other countries because no one country is alike and many maids we know chose to work in Singapore because they feel they can save more money (unlike HK or Taiwan where they have to pay for their own lodging and food).
As employers, can we also demand that the quality of maids are assured so as to justify the incredibly high salary which we have to pay? Many maids are not up to the job nor are they properly trained as claimed by the maid agencies. Their biodatas are always inaccurate as well and many times, for example - after selecting a particular maid who is supposedly trained in childcare, our maid admitted that she has no experience whatsoever but it is too late because the employer would have already paid upfront for 8months maid loan. In the end, the only party who actually profit from all these are the maid agencies. Because they can continue to market maids with inaccurate profiles and pocket the $4000+ of the 8-9months maid loan, leaving employers to deal with incompetent maids.
The recent price-fixing of maid's salary by a group of maid agencies go to show just how influential and scheming these agents are and it does seem that even MOM can't do anything about it. No doubt these agents were fined but how much of a deterrent is that really?
We employers are at the mercy of maid agencies and even maids themselves. I once employed a maid who told me that she does not want to look after children or elderly and requested for a transfer on the very day that I went to pick her up. This is despite her promise during our phone interview that she loves children and had experience looking after them. Clearly, she just wants to come to Singapore first and then take her time to choose her employers. On another occasion, we had a maid who lied about her employment history and claimed that in her last 2 years in Singapore, she only had 1 employer but in fact, she had 7! When we requested to change to a maid with no experience instead - the maid agent told us that we need to pay a separate ''service fee'' because we can only chose a replacement maid from the ''experienced'' group and not ''fresh'' ones. It seems to me that maid agencies can impose all kinds of ''rules'' as they chose and MOM cannot do anything about it.
It is already very frustrating for employers who have to go through all these but yet when we feedback to MOM, it seems like nothing can be done.
I wonder, who can speak up for us then?
