SINGAPORE: A woman who put away the salary of her domestic helper instead of paying her was given a fine of S$10,000 on Tuesday (June 18).
While she owed her helper nearly S$24,000 of her salary, she initially only paid the helper around half of this sum but paid in full after investigations against the employer began.
The law requires that domestic workers be paid their salaries in full. The Ministry of Manpower has said that foreign domestic workers must be paid the salaries declared to MOM no later than seven days after the last day of the salary period.
Furthermore, a helper’s bank account must not be a joint account with her employer.
According to a TODAY report, the arrangement of Wu Xiaoling, also known as Nur Nadhrah, with her helper Tumpik Astuik lasted for nearly three years.
The 38-year-old employer pleaded guilty to two amalgamated charges of not paying the helper no later than seven days after her salary period, with an additional four charges considered in her sentence.
Ms Tumpik started working for Wu on Dec 4, 2018, for a salary of S$670, scheduled to be paid on the 29th of each month. When her work permit was renewed on Aug 20 of the following year, she received an S$10 bump and was supposed to receive S$680 monthly.
That year, however, Ms Tumpik requested that her employer keep her full salary for safekeeping, an arrangement that was supposed to last until the end of the helper’s employment, TODAY quotes Jasmine Koh, a prosecutor for MOM, as saying.
Ms Tumpik, who ended her employment with Wu on June 7, 2022, filed a complaint with MOM in March of that year, saying that Wu had not been paying her salary.
While the total wages that Ms Tumpik should have gotten from Wu was S$23,848.08, she was only paid S$11,750, which she received on June 5, 2022. When the authorities started their investigations against Wu, she paid the helper in full.
TODAY added that the prosecutor did not disclose why the two women agreed to the “safekeeping arrangement.” The reasons for the helper to lodge the complaint and stop her employment with Wu were also not revealed.
Lawyers for the employer said that the pandemic had affected her income, which is why she ended up owing the helper her salary.
They also said that while she wanted to let go of Ms Tumpik during that time, she did not want to risk the helper’s stay in Singapore if she were unemployed.
The prosecution sought a fine between S$12,000 and S$14,000 for Wu. Under the law, she could have been given a jail sentence of up to one year, been fined S$10,000 for each count of failure to pay her helper’s salary, or both. /TISG