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With over 30 outlets in Singapore, Twelve Cupcakes is known for selling cakes, pies, and of course cupcakes.
But today (December 10), the company pleaded guilty to 15 counts of underpaying its employees, a crime under the Foreign Labor Employment Act, in 2017 and 2018, The Straits Times reported.
According to court documents, seven of his foreign employees were S-Pass holders at the time of the crimes.
Six of them were in customer service and sales positions and were being paid between $ 1,400 and $ 2,050 instead of their fixed monthly salaries ranging from $ 2,200 to $ 2,600 between December 2016 and September 2018.
The remaining employee, a pastry chef, was also paid less than the fixed monthly salary from January 2017 to September 2018.
The muffin chain had initially transferred the reduced wages to workers’ bank accounts, according to court documents.
However, as of May 2018, Twelve Cupcakes paid the correct sum via wire transfer and then told employees to return a portion of their salary in cash.
The prosecutor for the Ministry of Human Resources, Maximilian Chew, urged the court to impose a fine of $ 127,000, citing three aggravating factors: the company had taken “active measures” to cover up its wrongdoing, it would have “continued its criminal conduct” if it were not had discovered and was “clearly motivated by profit,” reported Today.
[[nid:376195]]In mitigation, the attorney representing Twelve Cupcakes, S Balamurugan, told the court that the issue of underpayment was established practice by its previous owners and that the Dhunseri Group had simply followed suit.
He added: “While it was the practice under the previous owners’ management that the salary payments were less than the fixed salaries, the foreign employees agreed and accepted their actual salaries. (My client) agrees that he should have discontinued the practice when he acquired the deal “.
Since then, the company has paid past due wages of $ 114,150 to the employees involved after investigations began in 2018.
Sentencing will take place on January 7 next year and District Judge Adam Nakhoda will consider fourteen other similar charges.
The company can be fined up to $ 10,000 for each crime involving underpaid foreign employees.
Twelve Cupcakes was founded in 2011 by radio DJ Daniel Ong and former model Jaime Teo. It was later bought by the Kolkata-based Dhunseri Group in 2016 for $ 2.5 million.
