The Middleman’s Debt Economy

We were shocked to learn about the 1-2 month “punishment” top-up that agencies are permitted—by the MOM regulation¹—to charge workers each time their employers “return” them to the agency (see ‘The Cost of Hiring Help’ video on the top of this page). This is especially appalling considering many can be “returned” at the arbitrary discretion of their employer, who is given the freedom to hire and terminate up to 5 helpers before the MOM subjects the employer to a review. In the ‘Chapter 1’ video, an agent says that the top-up is because “we need them [helpers] to feel a bit of pain” upon being “returned”. At the same time, agents encourage employers to “just try lah”, even if they suspect a helper might not be a good fit, because they can always be “returned” at no cost. Most agencies we visited offer these “free returns”, as if domestic workers are ill-fitting garments to be exchanged for something better. But, who bears the cost of these “free returns”?

Each time a helper is charged this “top-up”, she is literally paying the price of a system that treats workers like goods—a system that situates some in cycles of poverty, and others in profit. As we mention in the videos above, this is far from an innocuous story of demand and supply. Instead, it is systematic exploitation and wage theft that persists because of unregulated costs and practises including: outsourcing the task of protecting workers to actors who are profit-driven, and making access to work more complex and costly than direct hiring—a process that almost all other non-migrant workers have access to. 

Agents also spoke to and about helpers in a dehumanising manner, informed by preconceived racist cultural stereotypes (see Chapter 6 video). When it suits them, however, these same helpers become selling points for the business. On 24 April 2010, Puji Astutik, a 28-year-old Indonesian domestic worker, died after being hit by a bus while it was making a turn. She had saved her employer’s baby by flinging her to safety, but ended up being trapped under the bus herself. When we asked the agent why the article talking about her “selfless act” was displayed in their store, they said it was because Puji was from their agency. On that same day we saw these agents berate workers, talk down to them, and scold them for chatting amongst themselves. We doubt things were much different for Puji during her time. In death, however, she is turned into a marketing tool—almost as if to say, “get your helpers from us, we have the good ones”. 

Both Bhing and Maw Lwin’s sharing emphasise how oversight is severely lacking at Employment Agencies, both in terms of how agents are able to encourage or recommend unlawful behaviour as well as how agents are able to carry out unethical and inhumane business practise, even as it is ‘legal’. Would any Singaporean tolerate being managed by an employment agent who believes off-days are negotiable? Or one who has preconceived notions of workers as “lazy”, and “unhygienic”; who teaches potential employers to work around MOM regulations; who abuses workers by underfeeding them and putting them to work without pay under the guise of training? How many of us would accept being charged a top-up fee as “punishment” if things don’t work out with our boss? Why are these conditions considered industry practice for some and unthinkable for others? 

Employment Agencies should be looking out for the rights and needs of the workers that they place in homes across the country. What we learnt, however, is that they are key actors who normalise exploitative practices while profiting handsomely from this industry.