Monday, 3 May 2004
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after dragging for 5 months, i finally went to MOM to settle my salary problem.... but to my biggest disappointment, the conclusion is: chance of getting back the money.... <0%....
reached there at 8.15... den waited and waited for josf and his fren until ard 8.45.... den walked to MOM. oh on my way to MOM, i fell that i am in the wrong bus at the wrong time and in the wrong outfit somemore(uniform wat....). lots of ppl seems to give me that puzzled look: why is this jc girl in the mrt when she should be in sch now? when i stepped into MOM, even worse.... though no one stared at me, i just got the feeling that this place is not for me. u know, its like all adults around me....
ok back to the topic. firstly the officer said that an employer-employee relationship cannot be established betw the boss/bastard and us becoz we are not his formal employers. there is no directly agreement betw us. next, which is more important is that we are hired on a contract basis, implying that we are NOT protected by labour laws. for example, if a plummer is not paid for what he had repaired, he cannot sue his customer for not paying becoz he is not an employee of the house owner. next he said we dragged the thing too long. if its was earlier, he could have had more time to contact the boss or wat. becoz the phone line of the company is now cut off(which means that we can only contact him thru his hp)... so god knows if the company has gone bust.
so we asked, is there no way we can get him to pay us?? he said, on the MOM part, they can call the company to get them to pay, but whether he pays in the end is another thing. becoz he can just jolly well drag and drag and pretend that nothing ever happened, and we can do nothing abt it( as we cannot take him to court). the court will not take a case that does not even has a employer-employee relationship. even if we really can take him to court(which is practically impossible), all the court can do is only to issue us a piece of paper, telling us that he has owned us money. but so what?? he said that all we get is just documents, not the money itself, so we will only be back to square one again. the boss obviously does not have the intention of paying us liao... he mentioned we can take the case to dunno what small claims tribunals... but the result is still the same. he can actually just say, i dunno this ppl... i never employed them, so none of my business. the officer said, "whether the employer wans to pay depends on 2 factors: abilities and intention. without anyone of them, u will never get back our pay. the boss might be really having a cash flow problem now, but on the other hand, he may just be avoiding payment. i can tell u lots of nice stories now, how u can get back your money, theoretically. but reality is harsh u see..." i bet he knows that we can no nothing abt it. thats why he's not paying us...
another problem which was discovered much later is that kw was the one who signed all the contract, and yet he didnt wanna come today. so the officer said, u ppl should get your money back from kw, instead of the boss, coz he's the one who employed u, he's the contractor. he called the bastard today infront of us(he actually picked up the call? wat miracle).... and dunno what he say also. the officer just said, the bastard say he will pay on friday and that he couldnt pay the phone bills, thats why its cut off. its all so rubbish.... pay us on friday?? forget it lah.... wat fucking excuses!!! and since the boss now recognises the officer's hp no., the officer said he will most probably not take his call anymore.
other den all this, the officer(whom i think is quite a nice guy)... also told us some lessons in life. he said," well, through this whole thing, at least all of you now learnt a lesson in life, and know that there are just these ppl in the society... some ppl only learned a lesson much later in their life and they paid a very high price for it. for u all, at least now u know something about labour laws(and lesson in life) much earlier den others and the price u paid is relatively lower lah. i do agree to this fully becoz from now on, no matter wat job i take, i will make sure that all the contracts/agreement are made legally and that there's a low chance that a similar incident will happen. i can promise myself that i would NEVER take a job that i am not familiar with, interms of my employer, job scope, company and salary and my rights as a worker. id u are not sure of a contract, dun ever sign it. consult your frens who are more knowledgable in labour laws or we can ask from MOM's help. the officer actually told us many more things, its just that i cannot remember all of them liao...
i am also fed up at the fact that singapore, being such a secure and safe country with strong govt, actually cannot stop this kind of things from happening. dun u think its ridiculous? i have always thot that MOM can settle for us, but now den i know they are well... useless sometimes. i know we got our own faults, but i really dun see why there isn't a law to protect us?? we are cheated of our salary, and yet the highest authority in labour relations cannot help us. why?? so wats the point of having MOM to protect us?? i believe that we are definitely not the only ppl in s'pore to suffer from these kind of cases. there are plenty of ppl out there, who perhaps doesnt wanna lodge a complaint. MOM should be able to at least do sth to help us wat...i am just so disappointed loh. i can only yan ba ba look at our hard earned salary go into the bastard's pocket. fuck.
most importantly, i would strongly urge all PEOPLE OUT THERE, NOT TO GIVE FLYERS AGAIN. EVEN IF THE PAY IS $10/HR.
THERE IS NO LAW TO PROTECT U. THE HIGHER THE PAY, THE HIGHER THE CHANCE OF GETTING CHEATED.
I SINCERELY HOPE THAT WHOEVER READS THIS ENTRY TO TELL ALL YOUR FRENS AND RELATIVES NOT TO ANYHOW ACCEPT JOBS WITHOUT KNOWING WHO'S YOUR BOSS AND WHATS THE COMPANY REALLY LIKE.
EVEN IF FRENS INTRODUCE TO YOU, DUN BELIEVE IT TOO READILY. I AM A VICTIM ALREADY, DUN GET CHEATED BY THESE HEARTLESS COMPANIES AGAIN.
THEY ARE JUST TRYING TO MAKE U(WE STUDENTS ESPECIALLY) THEIR FREE LABOUR!! even working at macdonalds is more reliable than giving out flyers.
next, message to victor the bastard: May you get knocked down by a car or struck by lightning or a pot just falls on your haed and kills you, u heartless fellow. your conscience must be eaten up by. u will get your retribution in the future for cheating poor students like us. if u really too poor to pay us, den fine, i forgive u and i take back wat i said above. but if u just wanna cheat us of our money, U WILL GET YOUR DESERTS ONE DAY!!! e you e bao, bu shi bu bao, shi cheng wei dao!!! ni yi ding hui you bao ying de. u fucker!!! FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER. GO AND DIE. as for that kw, i m not going to talk to him again. he better dun appear infront of me.
i have learned my lesson. this lesson costs $180, but its worth much more than that. all of a sudden, i feel that i have grown up a little. though i know i will not get back my money anymore, at least i have fang xia xin zhong de dao shi. throughout the months that i've been chasing the money, i feel kinda xin1 hen3 bu4 an1 like that. sth just seems to be in my mind everyday(esp when my parents asked abt it). u ppl will not undertand how i feel but from now on, i need not think of the money again. rather relieved. really. at least its over.
for those who has faithfully read each and every word i wrote, i really wanna thank u. i know the entry is really damn long, but thanks for reading it.
10:32:00 pm;
