We’d trade in slaves if we could

I saw this sign quite some time back at Katong Mall and fun­nily enough, I was con­tem­plat­ing pho­tograph­ing it and send­ing it to MOM today…

What the-?

They might as well add

“Will wash the out­side of win­dows, eat pig swill, and ser­vice the mas­ter every now and then”

Saw on the TV the other day that Sin­ga­porean work longest hours among the Asian coun­tries. So I guess we are of no diif­fer­ent, we work to pay our BILLs and our maid.

SINGAPO REN
No Off Day
Always
Pay and Pay

If LIFE were a thing that money can buy
The rich will live and the poor will die
But GOD in his wis­dom has make it so
That the rich and the poor together must go!

No off day today, take a break HERE!

Sin­ga­pore­ans make the worst bosses. It’s a vicious cycle. Up to us to break out of it.

Sad thing is “WE DO TRADE SLAVES”, in Europe and in Sin­ga­pore. The sex slav­ery trade is huge, in Britain they trade East Euro­peans in Sg its Viet­namese, Thai etc…

No off day = ille­gal. I’m sure there has to be some employ­ment law statute that gov­erns this!

Right?

Oh and i don’t have maids. And never grew up with one. And I get sad when I see the way some kids treat their maids (I’m talk­ing 6-year-olds here), they shout at them and throw tantrums and order them around because they know that the maids can’t scold them like their par­ents can.

Cindy,

I too, had thought that it was def­i­nitely inhu­mane, and Sin­ga­pore couldn’t pos­si­ble allow it right?

Then I heard some­thing on tv some­time back that went along the lines of maids sign­ing on the con­tracts that bound them­selves to no off days, and some lame ass com­men­tary on tv made by some lame ass I donno who (I hope it’s not one of our min­is­ters!) about how a manda­tory day off would incon­ve­nience the employers.

Fuck­ing insane.

It’s a wild guess but I’m pretty sure there are maids who either had no choice (sign the agree­ment or have no work) or who don’t know what they are sign­ing them­selves into.

At times like these, maids — our domes­tic helpers that made life eas­ier for us (who hap­pened to be luck­ier and born at the “right” place at the “right” time), should be protected.

If the tables were turned, I’m not sure how many of us would gladly send our wife//girlfriend/sister to a dif­fer­ent coun­try with such employ­ment terms.

Typ­i­cal of Sin­ga­pore Inc. while we our­selves look for work-life bal­ance, it only applies to us and not to peo­ple who work for us. Or per­haps it’s pre­cisely we do not get work-life bal­ance in our own lives so we dish it out to the domes­tic help. Truly reflec­tive of the crass cap­i­tal­ism that dri­ves us, exploit the fac­tors of pro­duc­tion for max­i­mum ben­e­fit to the “owner/employer”.