KiasuParents - Parenting in Singapore

I came across this article from the standard (newspapers in hong kong) and posted part of the article here.
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Helpers chase a permanent place in city

Monday, July 11, 2011

Some of about 290,000 domestic workers could become permanent residents if five Filipinos are successful in a judicial review in the High Court next month.

The five have lived in Hong Kong for more than seven years and are challenging the Immigration Ordinance.

One of their legal representatives said yesterday the ordinance does not follow the Basic Law, which grants those who have lived in the SAR for seven years the right to apply for permanent residency.

One of the group, he said, has worked here for 25 years and applied without success for permanent residence in 2008.

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i know in spore, the answer from the govt is a big "NO", but do you think that the maids here deserved the right to stay after working in spore for more than 7 years?

cos if they get pr status, maybe there might come a time, we or our children dont need to have them under same roof but can be daily help cos they have their own place to stay???? but do see there will definitely be more burden on our welfare benefits.

also this might mean more social problems etc. so probably not a good idea to grant them pr status.

If the maids do get PR status here, their salary will no longer be $450 per month. It will be $10 per hour rate. plus they can apply for cashier job at NTUC, Macdonalds etc.

ICA does not even permit the filipina case who wanted to complete her study to continue even with financial sponsors............dream on for PR in SG .......

LOLMum wrote:
cos if they get pr status, maybe there might come a time, we or our children dont need to have them under same roof but can be daily help cos they have their own place to stay???? but do see there will definitely be more burden on our welfare benefits.

also this might mean more social problems etc. so probably not a good idea to grant them pr status.

My previous Filipino maid asked me to apply for S-pass for her so she can quit being a maid and accept a waitressing job at a restaurant. Apparently, she went for a job interview during one of her off-days. And the boss said that if she could get a Singaporean to "sponsor" her for the S-pass (i.e. put up a certain amount of "bond" money), then he will give the job to her.
Needless to say, I did not agree. To think that she even asked for it.
When that failed, she tried to get a job as a child care / kindergarten teacher.

The point is, even when they are not given the chance to be PR, they are already seeking means to "upgrade" themselves to a better paying job (nothing wrong in that, we all do), what more if they are granted PR. I am sure a large percentage won't stay as daily rated maids, but will compete with us for jobs. And what about our own Aunties and Uncles who now work in McDonalds, NTUC as cashiers, etc., who already have difficulty finding re-employment due to their age? And in the future, their children will compete with ours for school places, etc.

Competition, to a certain extent is good. But we need to look at our resources, can we accept them as PRs? After all, Singapore is a really really small place, and housing and transport already come under great strain due to the recent increase in population. In addition, I wouldn't consider most maids to be of "foreign talent" calibre (of course, there may be a minority). If they are, they should already have been able to get PR status based on their own merit, and not try to seek a "back door" in.

LKVM wrote:My previous maid went home saying her mother died... and I heard after few months she came back on S pass....

Good for her then. She's upgraded.

jtoh wrote:

LKVM wrote:My previous maid went home saying her mother died... and I heard after few months she came back on S pass....

Good for her then. She's upgraded.

and LKVM got downgraded

Why she got downgraded leh?

I wonder why they s'pore so much?

peapot wrote:Why she got downgraded leh?

balik train new maid one more time

First of all, I do not pro-maid and I am strict but fair on my helpers when we used to engage one.

As an individual, we are constantly in attempts to "upgrade" ourselves. Maids seeking new employers during employment is just like any one of us looking around to get better job, better pay. The only thing I dislike is how some of them handled the situation, thus often resulted in a sour relationship to lead to departure.

Humans are humans.....