A foreign domestic helper took to social media complaining about the treatment that a friend of hers – also a maid – was subject to.
In an anonymous post to Facebook group FDW in Singapore (working conditions forum), the maid wrote: “Good day I want to ask if the employer bring the helper go holiday did you ask ur helper to pay there own ticket?”
Other helpers who responded to her post in the group chat wrote that it was unreasonable of the employer to make their foreign domestic helper pay for her own ticket while on holiday, and then make her work there as well.
An administrator in the group commented: “Unless helper requested to be tagged along for the holiday, then employer must pay the ticket. If employer will bring helper along to the holiday to help out, then they should pay for her ticket. Otherwise, don’t bring helper along”.
To this, the maid wrote that her friend was asked if she wanted to accompany her employers on holiday. When she agreed, her employer deducted the cost of the flight ticket from her salary. The helper wrote that the employers did not assure her friend that she did not need to work while overseas, especially because the family brought along both elderly family members and children.
Despite the helper writing that her friend had told her employers that she did not want to accompany them on holiday the previous three times, they had still brought her overseas and made her pay for her own ticket. “Then she asking for advice bcoz she also work when they are there and more tiring also she need to follow and follow”, the helper wrote.
Others who commented on the post also asked if her employers would make her pay for her own flight ticket home once her contract ended.
