Maid worried because her employer transferred her to an agency online one week ago, but there’s still no response

SINGAPORE: Sharing a hypothetical situation, a maid wrote that her employer sent their consent online to transfer her to a specific agency but had not heard back even after a week.

In an anonymous post to Facebook page FDW in Singapore (working conditions forum), the maid wrote: “What if my employer sent a consent to transfer online to a specific agency and after a week there’s no progress to the application”. She asked if the helper would then be able to transfer to another agency or even be directly hired by another employer.

“Can the employer take back the consent she gave to that specific agency?” she wrote.

The cause for the helper’s worry was seen in the comments section, with one netizen asking if her employers had cancelled her work permit without waiting for a response from the agency. Here’s what netizens in the group said:

Earlier this year, another foreign domestic helper took to social media to question her employer’s decision to allow her to attend caregiver classes.

In an anonymous post to Facebook group FDW in Singapore (working conditions forum), the maid wrote that when she asked her employers if she could attend Sunday school and take classes to be a caregiver, “w/o hesitation they agreed”.

She added that she was almost done with six months of learning how to be a caregiver and would attend on-the-job training soon. She wrote that last Chinese New Year her employers brought her to their hometown in Malaysia where she “found out the reason why they agreed w/o hesitation because one of thier (sic) family member was very old and in incontinent situations (sic)“.

“now I have a hint that after my class they will ask me to take care of thier (sic) elderly in Malaysia. Should I accept if they ask me? if yes, my permit will still under MOM or in Malaysia government? And; how much the minimum wage of a caregiver in Malaysia if anyone knows,” the helper asked.

In the comments section, the maid explained that she paid a thousand dollars to come to Singapore and be employed here and did not want to go to Malaysia. She added that the reason for her speculation was that her employers also joked that once her classes were done, she would be sent to Malaysia to take care of her employer’s elderly relatives.

Maid says her employer might want her to move to M’sia to care for elderly relative, says ‘I didn’t pay $1K to come sg then transfer to Msia’