Twelve Cupcakes to be Unionised After Underpaying Foreign Employees

By
Boon Hun
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In case you’ve missed it, it was proven that Twelve Cupcakes had underpaid their foreign employees for two years.

Founded by celebrity ex-couple, Jaime Teo and Daniel Ong, they sold the company to India-based Dhunseri Group a few months after their divorce.

Twelve Cupcakes was fined S$119,500 and the employees who were underpaid got their money back.

Teo was charged for underpaying the employees almost S$100,000 when she was a director at the cupcake chain.

She has pleaded guilty to 10 charges and will be back in court later this month.

Meanwhile, Ong isn’t getting off scot-free and has a court date scheduled for Mar 2021.

Now, you’re thinking, that’s the end of the saga, right?

Well, not really.

Twelve Cupcakes to be Unionised After Underpaying Employees

As people say, once bitten, twice shy.

And seeing as Twelve Cupcakes now has a track record of underpaying its employees, it makes perfect sense that the union in the F&B industry is looking to unionise it.

On 16 Feb 2021, the Food, Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU), which is an affiliate of the National Trade Congress Union (NTUC), revealed their intention to unionise the confectionary company.

The General Secretary, Tan Hock Soon, said that they’ve been engaging with the company since “late 2020”.

By unionising the company, they hope to “represent and speak up for the employees”.

They will also “work with the management” to educate them about fair employment laws and practices, as well as employee welfare.

“FDAWU endeavours to offer protection for the employees and partnership with the management to recover from this episode,” he added.

How Unions Work in S’pore

Different people have different impressions of the union in Singapore.

Ask the older people and they’ll go, no use one lah. 

Ask the younger ones and they’re like, got union meh? And when you ask, NTUC? They’ll stare at you blankly and go, “Supermarket?”

The trade union here in Singapore aren’t like the ones you see in Korean dramas: full of people holding strikes and gangsters coming to clear them out.

It’s a bit…friendlier here.

The trade union here works in a tripartite partnership (consisting of NTUC, the company and the government) to ensure the well-being of all Singapore workers.

Dialogues are often held, and typically, things are settled at the negotiation table.

That doesn’t mean that the unions aren’t afraid to fight back, however, as the Eagle Services Asia incident has shown.

In fact, you can thank them (in part) for expanding the scope of the Employment Act to protect every single employee, including PMETs, back in 2018.

For those interested, they also provide mediation services as well as free legal advice. You can check them out here.

Feature Image: Twelve Cupcakes

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Boon Hun
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