All About Full-Time Maids

[Qoomum76]

Hi ladies, thanks for feedback…


Hi tiger88,when did you get the maid? Recently? It is a 2 pages "Standard Employment Contract " between the "Household service worker" , "Phillipine recruitment agency" and "Foreigner Recruitment Agency"…ya,need to check…

Hi lizuan76,thanks for reply. First time applying maid,so abit confused;( Somemore, the agency is under the 16 blacklisted agencies … sigh

Realise that "Big agency" does not mean that they are good. They may have so many cases to work on,that they don’t have time for you…

[Qoomum76]

Hi Moom,agree with you…i recently select the biodata from the agency website…All look too good to be true!! But then, i feel that the online biodata are not updated from my agency…So, what you choose may not be available already…

[tigger88]

Qoomum, I got my maid a few years back. Maybe the rules have changed.


But when I applied for home leave documents and also renewed my maid’s passport, I need to sign the "Standard Employment Contract" as well and it was stated that the min wage is USD400 which is about SGD600.

[moom]

Qoomum… The 600 dollar contract is a must unfortunately as stipulated by Phil govt. But don’t think most maids actually get this amt… Not sure though if she can actually use that phil govt contract against the employer in future if say, things turn sour… Anyone knows?

[beanstalk]

The Philippine contract stating US$400 minimum (or S$500+ at current rates) and yearly home leave etc. must be signed or the helper will not be to obtain the documents necessary for leaving the Philippines.


But the contract is not recognised as a requirement in Singapore (MOM does not support minimum wage) so many employers sign it, but also have a local contract (eg CASETRUST) superseding it.

When returning from home leave, your helper must also declare to Philippine immigration that the Philippine contract conditions are being met (even if they are not).

If your helper ‘tells’, she will not be allowed to work for you anymore. That is, she loses her job and cannot leave the Philippines unless she gets another employer willing to sign the same paperwork. I doubt if there’s any other repercussion for you as long as you’ve met MOM’s requirements as an employer.

If you are not comfortable with all this, then consider another nationality.

[moom]

Very useful answer beanstalk… Thanks so

Much

[vivienpg]

hi mummies, need your inputs on whether I should keep my maid. My first time having a maid as I now have a 6 mth old child and 2.5 yrs child.


Her pros: quiet (I can’t stand talkative maids who talk too much), washes clothes well and cooking is fine (although we have to teach her as she can’t cook Chinese food).

Her cons: she can be too quiet such that when she is attending to my son with a book, she will just hold the book, and not read the book to my son. The worse is, she eats very little, although we give sufficient food for lunch and dinner, she always keep some in the fridge. I suspect that she is afraid of gaining weight as some of her night clothes are rather short. As such, she can’t carry my baby for too long, and avoid putting her to the cot from the stroller (again, I suspect no strength). Her mopping is not clean as she has not much strength either and questioned my hubby why she has to clean my car as there are professional car cleaners in S’pore?!? There was once after she mops the floor, her whole face turn white, i was so scared she will faint! I guess there could be worst maids out there, that’s why when hubby suggest to change, I’m in dilema, what do you think?

[hquek]

hi vivienpg,


Just make sure she eats a certain amount of food, and if you want, get the agent to talk sense into her - that she has to keep healthy…not eating may not be that wise if it causes her to fall ill. My first one was on a constant quest to limit her food intake. We try to insist at times the quantity she has to eat (reasonable lah…not too much also).

And depends on what your want out of her, is it just cleaning the house? or you expect she also do the educating part? My maids typically don’t have to handle kids and I don’t expect them to read to my kids. Just this current one turned out alright and could even coach DS2 in his spelling - that was bonus for me. as for car washing, I personally don’t get mine to wash becos I hear that’s the best time for them to make friends. I do see some maids chit chatting when they are washing their employers’ cars.

Each one that comes may have their own set of problems. if she is generally working fine, consider if you want to go with an unknown that may have other problems.

[peapot]

I also agree with Hayek. Tell the maid that woman too skinny also not nice. Not enough nutrients may also cause hairfall and dehydrated skin. I have worse maid than yours. Don’t even know how to cook rice!!

[silverhorse]

moom:

Has anyone selected their maids from the online maid libraries? Quite a few around.. Are the descriptions mostly hogwash? Can be trusted? Descriptions a bit too good to be true leh..

Hi Moom,

I got my previous and current helper online ( netmaid library).
Descriptions are pretty accurate. The maids are represented by different agencies so you can check the database n agencies. Good Luck.