by Rachel Chan

LATE salary payments. Twelve-hour workdays. No meal or toilet breaks. Sacrificing a third of your stated salary to 'training fees'.

A former assistant manager and at least five other foreign workers at a local chain of food and beverage outlets endured the above conditions for months - before they were sacked without reason in July. They then had to serve one more month before they were let go in August.

The 30-year-old Filipina - who prefers to be known as Annie - contacted my paper after she realised that her employer might have been abusing the Special Pass (S Pass) scheme.

This was despite the fact that the cafe was already under investigation by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on foreign worker- related issues.

A MOM spokesman said: 'MOM is investigating the company for possible breaches of the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.'

In August, Annie and her colleagues were called up by a MOM investigation officer.

She said that her colleagues were told by the F&B chain's assistant director to lie. They were told to say that they did go for training and that $600 of their $1,800 monthly salary went into paying for it.

But Annie said she told the officer the truth. 'Of course, we never went for any training classes at all,' she said.

Her other colleagues were less forthcoming to the MOM officer in their first interview.

They had preferred not to have their real names printed for fear of being blacklisted by future employers. It also did not help that they had signed a contract that stated $600 would be deducted monthly from their salary, and that it did not specify the type of training involved.

When told about their plight, Mr Jolovan Wham, executive director of migrant worker charity Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics, said he was not surprised.

Under MOM guidelines, a services company such as Annie's former employer can hire foreign mid-level-skilled workers up to 25 per cent of its workforce under the S Pass scheme.

They must earn a fixed monthly salary of at least $1,800.

This means that the employee should take home $1,800, after deduction of overtime pay, allowances and Central Provident Fund contributions.

However, Mr Wham said: 'Not all companies, particularly some SMEs, go by the book when it comes to foreign-worker welfare.' SMEs refer to small and medium-sized enterprises.

Annie and her university- graduate colleagues from the Philippines, who preferred to be known as Fae and Joanne, had joined the local chain of F&B outlets, based on their agent's recommendation. They had paid him more than $3,500 each in processing and placement fees.

Fae, 24, was the most shortchanged. She said she had signed a contract for a $2,600 monthly remuneration but took home only $1,200. As for Joanne, 22, she said: 'I had wanted to come to Singapore for a better living, and a cousin who lives here said it's very easy to look for a job here,' she said.

But things have looked up since. They changed job agents and found new positions at Delifrance in August. The company is paying and treating them fairly, they said.

However, their passports are still being held by MOM, as their former employer is still under investigation.

'I'm just glad I found a new job. The former one was like a bad dream,' Annie said.

'I will be more careful in future before signing any contract or looking for an agent.'

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