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SINGAPORE – Local radio DJ Daniel Ong Ming Yu and former model Jaime Teo Chai Lin were taken to court on Tuesday (December 29) for crimes under the Foreign Labor Employment Act linked to the Twelve pastry chain. Cupcakes, which they founded.
They allegedly allowed the chain to pay its foreign employees less between 2013 and 2016. There were also cases involving some workers who, for periods between 2012 and 2013, received no income.
The court heard that the staff allegedly did not receive the stipulated wages within a week after the end of the pay periods.
One employee, Zhu Weihong, did not receive his monthly salary of $ 2,000 within a week of the last day of the month. This happened between September 8 and November 8, 2012.
Ong, 45, and Teo, 43, each face 24 charges involving eight employees.
The court heard that Teo intends to plead guilty to his charges on January 26 of next year. Ong’s case has also been postponed until that day.
For each count under the law, an offender can be jailed for up to one year and fined up to $ 10,000.
The firm, under new ownership Dhunseri Group, had earlier this month pleaded guilty to 15 counts of underpaying employees in 2017 and 2018.
District Judge Adam Nakhoda will consider fourteen other similar charges during sentencing, which is expected to take place on January 7 next year.
Twelve Cupcakes was founded by Ong and Teo, now his ex-wife, in 2011. It was acquired for $ 2.5 million by Calcutta-based Dhunseri Group in 2016.
[[nid:512319]]Court documents establish that all seven employees were S-Pass holders at the time of the crimes. It is not stated whether they are still working for the company.
While their fixed monthly salaries ranged from $ 2,200 to $ 2,600, the company paid them between $ 1,400 and $ 2,050.
The court heard that Twelve Cupcakes, under the new owners, underpaid six of the employees, who were in customer service and sales roles, their salaries from December 2016 to September 2018.
One of these six workers was also underpaid from the October and November 2018 wages.
The pastry chain also paid less than the fixed monthly salary from January 2017 to September 2018 due to the remaining employee, a pastry chef.
Court documents establish that Twelve Cupcakes, under the new owners, had initially credited the reduced wages to employees’ bank accounts.
But then they changed tack, paying the workers their full salary from May 2018 onwards, but then told the employees that they had to return some of it to the company in cash.
Twelve Cupcakes, under the new owners, had done so to hide a paper trail of their crimes, said the prosecutor for the Ministry of Human Resources, Maximilian Chew, urging the court to impose a fine of $ 127,000.
He said Twelve Cupcakes would have continued to pay employees less if the crimes had not been discovered.
The prosecutor also said that Singapore relies heavily on foreign employees in many sectors, including the food and beverage industry.
Thus, there is a “huge public interest” in holding companies accountable for their well-being, including full and timely payment of their wages, he added.
This article was first published in The times of the strait.
