FAQs on the Domestic Worker ‘Day Off’ campaign:   Who are they?   Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties; with different interests, past times, cultures, work experiences...sometimes it is too easy to typecast people by the job they do and their origins. Each worker has his or her own story to tell, with different family backgrounds, skills and education levels; each comes with hopes, expectations and dreams that bare facts and figures do not reveal.   What do they do?   There are approximately 170’000 migrant domestic workers in Singapore. These women come on 2 year work permits to clean, cook, look after our children, elderly parents and manage our households.   Where do they come from?   Most domestic workers come from Indonesia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Others are from Sri Lanka, India and Myanmar.   When did they start to come?   Singapore’s economic growth in the 1970s created a labour shortage. Recruitment of migrant domestic workers was authorised by the government in 1978 so that more local women could go out and take on full time empoyment.   Why do they come?   For the domestic worker, the possibility of earning more money through overseas work is a major factor. Driven by unemployment and poverty, these women make huge sacrifices by leaving their home countries and loved ones just so that they can provide for their families.   Dual income families have become the norm in Singapore. The challenge of juggling work, family and home responsibilities so that both the husband and wife in the family can focus on their careers has led to an increase in demand for domestic workers to take care of the household and other family matters.   3) Concerns from law makers   During the budget debate in parliament on 8th March, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower Hawazi Daipi rejected calls for a regular day off for domestic workers to be made mandatory.   He was reported to have expressed the government’s view that legislating terms and conditions for domestic workers would lead to ‘rigidities and inconvenience’ for many households.   “For example, some households have elderly or infirm members with special needs who require constant attention and may find it difficult to release the domestic worker for a prescribed period every week,” he said. (‘Straits Times, 9th March 2006)   Rigidities and inconvenience to households is not a good reason to deny domestic workers a mandatory day off. We do not expect any employee to work every day of the week, every week of the year.  All employees, including other foreign workers are guaranteed one day off a week under the Employment Act. Domestic workers should not be any different.   A day off is a chance for rest and recreation; it is also a chance to relieve   stress and to seek help and advice, if need be.  The example given by Mr Hawazi Daipi in defending the government’s reluctance to legislate on this issue is inappropriate and flawed. Caring for elderly, children and infirm people can be extremely stressful, as members of their families well know. Is it not unreasonable to ask a person who is not even a member of the family to cope with looking after them day after day, without time off? Their energies are drained and their patience sorely tried. They need time off for their own wellbeing and that of the person they are looking after. It is not too much to ask that, for one day a week, others should take over looking after these people.   In a letter to the Straits Times on October 2005, the Ministry of Manpower stated that ‘the key to ensuring FDW`s well-being is not more laws or regulations but to enforce existing ones.’ Unfortunately, existing laws for FDWs fall short of providing the same level of protection as it does for other employees.   For example, even though The Employment of Foreign Manpower Act states that all employers of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) must provide their workers with ‘adequate rest, as well as rest day(s) in accordance with the employment contract’, this provision does not guarantee a weekly day off by law. The current standard employment contracts provided by accreditation bodies such as CASE Trust and AEAS vary in their provisions for rest days. It also allows an employer to compensate a domestic worker in return for forgoing the day off by paying a small sum of $15-$20.   Moreover, the standard contract is not used by all agencies. The general practice, where it is in use, seems to be to accept unquestioningly the wishes of employers who don`t want to give a day off to their domestic workers, and point out how they can do that. Indeed, we have heard from some would-be employers of domestic workers who told us that the agencies they approached informed them that they could arrange `no day off` workers without them even asking.    Another limitation of contractual provisions is that it does not have the full weight of the law behind it. The state is not mandated to monitor contractual compliance. As a result, the domestic worker will have to turn to the civil courts to pursue her claims. However, many will be discouraged from doing so as they would require a lawyer to assist them----an option that is not affordable for most.   Whereas if a domestic worker is guaranteed a full day off once a week by law, their claims can be processed by the State at little or no cost to her.  Not only that, legal sanctions will make the denial of days off a prohibitive one for employers.   The provision of ‘adequate rest’ in the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act also lacks specificity for it to be enforced effectively. How can a domestic worker prove that she did not receive adequate rest? Because of its vagueness, interpretations of what constitutes ‘adequate rest’ will vary from person to person. Adequate rest is not just about ensuring that a worker has 8 hours of sleep every night or has time to consume her regular meals. A full day off should mean that a worker is free to spend it according to her own needs and wants.   The Ministry of Manpower has also argued that FDWs have the freedom to accept or reject work conditions imposed, including the number of rest days given.  However, this argument ignores the unequal conditions and inadequate bargaining power domestic workers often find themselves in. The employer’s unilateral right to terminate a domestic worker’s employment and cancel her work permit at any time, makes it easy for threats of repatriation to intimidate her into agreeing to work conditions that we Singaporeans would not usually find acceptable.    Lastly, we need to ask ourselves why we continue to deny a weekly day off to domestic workers---a law which we grant to virtually all other employees in Singapore. When the State refuses to intervene, and chooses to leave the welfare and rights of domestic workers to the vagaries of market forces, it will only mean that they will continue to be vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.