26/05/2021 Cases of false declaration of Singapore migrant workers' salaries rising, says NGO, Singapore News & Top Stories - The Straits Ti… MES Group companies, directors face 553 charges of employment offences About 190 employers penalised yearly between 2015 and 2019 for underpaying foreign staff However, in cases where the employee is complicit and willingly agrees to an inflated salary, MOM said it will instead take enforcement action against the worker and bar him from working here. Salary restitution in this case is not applicable, MOM added. The ministry said false declaration of salary cases typically involve S Pass or EP holders due to the minimum salary requirements. This is $2,500 a month for the S Pass and $4,500 a month currently for the EP. The tightening of S Pass quotas for some sectors, such as the service industry, is also a factor, Mr Alex Au, vice-president of migrant rights group Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), told ST. The Direct R1 Scheme, introduced in 2015, which allows construction firms to pay a lower levy when hiring higher-skilled foreign workers, has also led to more cases. This is because there is a minimum monthly salary of $1,600, and at least 10 per cent of a construction firm's work permit holders must be in the R1 scheme before it can hire lower-skilled workers. Mr Au said TWC2 saw a spate of false salary declaration cases involving R1 scheme workers in 2017 and 2018, but has not seen more than two or three such cases in the last 12 months. One reason could be rising salaries in the construction sector. Mr Ian Lim, TSMP Law Corporation's head of employment and labour, said false declarations of salaries may overlap with regular salary disputes. Such disputes - which usually involve an employer failing to pay an employee's agreed salary - are Employment Act offences but are also generally seen as private contractual matters and left to employees to pursue, mainly through TADM and the Employment Claims Tribunals, Mr Lim said. False salary declaration offences can be tough to detect, he added. https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/cases-of-false-declaration-of-migrant-workers-salaries-rising-says-ngo-0 4/11