lousy-mom:

This post doesn't belong to this thread but related to MOM.

nms1:

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/mom-looking-revising-maid-levies-20130724

MAID levies could be revised again, say industry players, as the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has called for a rare closed-door discussion next week on theissue.

The ministry sent an e-mail earlier this month inviting maid agents and other interested parties to a meeting to seek their views on the fee, sources told The Straits Times yesterday.

The invitation was a surprise, said agents. Such a discussion had not been called for many years, theysaid.

When the authorities revised the levy previously, agents found out only through official announcements.

Don't understand why MOM only inviting maid agents. Maid agents need not pay levy, WE, the employers are paying. Wonder what MOM trying to partner with maid agents .... never stop making my life miserable. :nailbite:

I feel Expats or persons holding work permits should be banned from employing FDW. If they really need to employ maid, they should pay more than citizens, eg $500/month as maid levy. :rahrah:

I would like to add that MOM should reward FDW who has completed 2 year contract with the same employer. Part of the levy MOM collected ought to be given to a good maid. This will encourage FDW to stay with one employer and do her job as per agreement... the best service attitude that she could offer. Let's say S$100 per month per FDW taken from MOM levy, so 24 months of good service = a bonus of at least S$2400, isn't this tempting to the maid? Won't this be good encouragement? It is indirectly telling the maid her loan has been offset by good performance.

Maids who worked hard must be rewarded. MOM should not eat maid's money in the form of levy. Employers paid a lot but on appearance, we're only paying a miserable sum of S$500 per FDW. This cost should include levy. Hongkong and Taiwan get Sg trained experienced maids for about S$650/month. I pay a fresh filipino $500 + $170 levy = $670 but only entitled to inexperience FDW. By adding a maid's live-in cost and non refundable placement fee, we paid about S$1500/month per FDW. This seems usual or low for people in the ministerial pay scale but is very high to me.

Those employers who have hired FDWs to look after special needs persons or frailed elderly/bedridden should get their levy totally removed, based on existing per capita (the current FDW grant requirement - AIC).

I hope MOM can be fairer to employers and don't keep siding maid agencies or source countries. This is Spore, a place we are born and living till we are old with our children. We are not foreigners who can earn big sums and then go back home to enjoy life with a much lower living standards.

nms1:

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/mom-looking-revising-maid-levies-20130724

MAID levies could be revised again, say industry players, as the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has called for a rare closed-door discussion next week on theissue.

The ministry sent an e-mail earlier this month inviting maid agents and other interested parties to a meeting to seek their views on the fee, sources told The Straits Times yesterday.

The invitation was a surprise, said agents. Such a discussion had not been called for many years, theysaid.

When the authorities revised the levy previously, agents found out only through official announcements.

Don't understand why MOM only inviting maid agents. Maid agents need not pay levy, WE, the employers are paying. Wonder what MOM trying to partner with maid agents .... never stop making my life miserable. :nailbite:

I feel Expats or persons holding work permits should be banned from employing FDW. If they really need to employ maid, they should pay more than citizens, eg $500/month as maid levy. :rahrah:

I would like to add that MOM should reward FDW who has completed 2 year contract with the same employer. Part of the levy MOM collected ought to be given to a good maid. This will encourage FDW to stay with one employer and do her job as per agreement... the best service attitude that she could offer. Let's say S$100 per month per FDW taken from MOM levy, so 24 months of good service = a bonus of at least S$2400, isn't this tempting to the maid? Won't this be good encouragement? It is indirectly telling the maid her loan has been offset by good performance.

Maids who worked hard must be rewarded. MOM should not eat maid's money in the form of levy. Employers paid a lot but on appearance, we're only paying a miserable sum of S$500 per FDW. This cost should include levy. Hongkong and Taiwan get Sg trained experienced maids for about S$650/month. I pay a fresh filipino $500 + $170 levy = $670 but only entitled to inexperience FDW. By adding a maid's live-in cost and non refundable placement fee, we paid about S$1500/month per FDW. This seems usual or low for people in the ministerial pay scale but is very high to me.

Those employers who have hired FDWs to look after special needs persons or frailed elderly/bedridden should get their levy totally removed, based on existing per capita (the current FDW grant requirement - AIC).

I hope MOM can be fairer to employers and don't keep siding maid agencies or source countries. This is Spore, a place we are born and living till we are old with our children. We are not foreigners who can earn big sums and then go back home to enjoy life with a much lower living standards.

pirate:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ex-stta-president/757046.html


Whoa! Like that also can? Is it ok then for an employer to abet a foreign employee to get around the condition that he must work for the employer and nobody else, ie. no moonlighting?

Or is the Singapore Table Tennis Association and MOE schools subject to a different set of employment laws than us ordinary citizens? I think if we do the same kind of thing as the STTA or Fuhua Secondary School, we will be banned by MOM from employing foreign workers.

pirate:

lousy-mom:

It is extremely unfair to make employers absorb the cost of FDW's placement fees (S$2,000, excluding insurance, SIP, levy, agency fee, etc). If maid wants a job in Spore, she should pay, otherwise, don't come! There's no such thing as Free Lunch! By making Employers foot their costs, it is encouraging Filipinos to job hop, show no job committment, come to Spore as princesses and give us more problems, can anytime say bye-bye because there's nothing .... no loan to tie them down. If maids want to save money, eliminate middlemen and maid agencies, as well as getting source govt to be involved .... they just want to load their pockets with money from the easiest targets .... Spore employers because we don't have a caring govt, our MOM are very pro-maid and pro-agency. :stompfeet:

I have no problem with policies that are pro-maid. It is the pro-agency policies that I have an issue with.

I have no issue with the govt policies in the source countries forbidding agencies/middlemen from collecting placement fees from the FDWs. The placement fees are so high only because of one reason - exploitation.

Agencies/middlemen will attempt to exploit whoever they can. In Malaysia, placement fees can be RM10k-15k (yeah that's right, that's ten thousand to fifteen thousand - just calculate for yourself how many months' worth of salary that is). Regulation of the agencies are so bad that it became commonplace for agencies and FDWs to collude. After collecting the placement fee, the FDW would deliberately make herself unemployable by doing all sorts of funny things or by running off. The agency and the FDW would then split the fees collected. And to complement the great con job, there is a myriad of red tape to make it difficult for employers to bypass middlemen by directly employing the FDW, plus a very short list of approved source countries.

This entire placement fee thing needs to be relooked by both MOM and the source countries. Why the $#@! should the placement fee for a Filipino worker be as high as S$2,000 with the employer bearing all the other expenses on top of it? MOM really needs to work with each individual source country regarding the placement fees to stop this exploitation of both FDWs and employers by the middlemen and agencies.

Examples of fair policies would be:

(1) If the source country requires the employer to pay the placement fees (eg. Philippines), there should be reciprocal MOM regulation that requires pro-rata refund of the placement fees by the Singapore agencies if the service contract is prematurely terminated. Agencies will thus have an interest to screen the DWs carefully and ensure a good fit between employer and employee. On the other hand, agencies who still make the DW pay the placement fee (usually through loans from employers) should have their licences revoked.

(2) If the source country requires the DW to take up a loan with a domestic finance company for the placement fees (eg. Indonesia and Cambodia), then MOM should complement this by revoking the licences of Singapore agencies who try to get around this by making employers provide the loan.

In short, MOM should work with the source countries to regulate the middlemen, instead of pushing the buck to employers, FDWs and the source countries' governments.

janet_lee88:

With Indonesia calling us 'a child' for the help we rendered to them when they had earthquakes and tsunami, i think we seriously need to ask ourselves if we should continue helping them for such poor attitude.

lousy-mom:

It is extremely unfair to make employers absorb the cost of FDW's placement fees (S$2,000, excluding insurance, SIP, levy, agency fee, etc). If maid wants a job in Spore, she should pay, otherwise, don't come! There's no such thing as Free Lunch! By making Employers foot their costs, it is encouraging Filipinos to job hop, show no job committment, come to Spore as princesses and give us more problems, can anytime say bye-bye because there's nothing .... no loan to tie them down. If maids want to save money, eliminate middlemen and maid agencies, as well as getting source govt to be involved .... they just want to load their pockets with money from the easiest targets .... Spore employers because we don't have a caring govt, our MOM are very pro-maid and pro-agency. :stompfeet:

pirate:

lousy-mom:

:offtopic:


half or 1 million, Indo doesn't want cos they know Spore can give more .... RICH! Everybody assumed this little red dot is made of gold :lightrod:

And we all know in whose pockets the aid money will end up in even if we give more.

lousy-mom:

:offtopic:


half or 1 million, Indo doesn't want cos they know Spore can give more .... RICH! Everybody assumed this little red dot is made of gold :lightrod:

lousy-mom:

kwcllf:

With Indonesia responsible for causing the worsening haze situation and Indon officials still talking big and blaming Singapore, Singapore ministers still dare not rebut.


Just like the maid situation, regulations so one sided, and this is just another example that Singapore is afraid of offending its neighbours?

because our govt/MOM doesn't care or intend to protect us so countries like Indo and Phil take the golden opportunity to squeeze us.
Good lobang and Spore like to act like super rich :sick: We need big countries to be our country's good kaki. How to offend them? If offend these big countries, our ministers won't be able to hit their KPIs, our economy will be affected .... then ministers' fat bonus and high salary kenna cut, how can they take this? so they must step on us .... somebody has to sacrifice and we looked like the most suitable ... cos nobody will stand up to protect and help us!

Pointing finger at Spore or sporeans is so easy! :frustrated:

kwcllf:

With Indonesia responsible for causing the worsening haze situation and Indon officials still talking big and blaming Singapore, Singapore ministers still dare not rebut.


Just like the maid situation, regulations so one sided, and this is just another example that Singapore is afraid of offending its neighbours?

Hiaweh:

I just got a fresh maid weeks ago. I m prepared to give her all the off days but because she is new and not familiar in SG, we told her we will compensate her for the first 6 months. After that we will re-negotiate. Actually we dun really need her on her off days coz there's not much for her to do n most of the time we handle the kids ourselves. Even when we go out we dun really like to bring her along.


So, at the end of the day, employer still the one at the losing end coz we want to be considerate as they have no friends or dunno their way around in SG.