Over the years we have had numerous instances whereby bad employers will abuse the good nature of their domestic workers.
They’ll typically start by asking for a ‘one-off favour’ from their Nanny. For example, this may be to stay for a few extra hours one particular day, or to work on a rest day or at a weekend.
As domestic staff always like to please their employers (and will certainly need the extra salary), they are often open to working additional hours.
But then the ‘favour’ somehow turns into part of the Nanny’s job and is soon seen as ‘expected’. Over time the option to NOT work is simply removed, as the employer abuses not only the kind nature of their Nanny but the Employment Contract they have signed with PNA.
Promises of overtime payments at the end of the month (along with their salary) often evaporate or the wrong amounts (always lower) are paid.
Employers need to understand that domestic workers will simply leave a job over incorrect or irregular salary payments. As the Nannies rightly see it, they are not rich people and they, too, have bills to pay and families to support.
Unfortunately, we don’t always find out about these abuses but, when we do, it is usually too late to help and the Nanny has already left her employer. Everyone is a loser.
This coercive employer behaviour is, sadly, so commonplace that the girls don't even bother to mention it to us, unless prompted on a review.
Below are some genuine examples of abuse that we have decided to share – to show you how some cruel employers behave towards their staff.
These are all real case studies (and, sadly, there are many more).
Case study 1
About 11 years ago, one of our PNA-registered Nannies rescued her niece from a Thai family in Chiang Mai. Her niece had been working there for two years, but had received no salary for the entire time.
Her employer had deemed that free food and board would suffice!
She was brought to our office in Bangkok and her Auntie asked us to help her.
Outcome
We hired her to work in our own home and she stayed with us for a very enjoyable three years, managing to save enough money to go home, get married and start a family.
She was a wonderful young lady and we are in touch, to this day, via social media.
Case study 2
A Danish family hired a Nanny/Maid from us. The monthly salary was agreed by all parties and the working week, in this particular job, was six days.
Two years later the Nanny contacted PNA to inform us that her employer was leaving Thailand and could we find her a new employer?
When she came into our office for a review, we discussed the last two years. It transpired that, within a month of starting the job, the family discovered that she could cook. So she then became the cook too (for a family of four) with no salary increase.
We also discovered that the family had asked her to work on Sundays too, which meant she was then working seven days a week. It turned out that she had had no days off for two years!
Again, they hadn't offered her any extra money.
We asked the Nanny why she didn’t call us. She said she liked her employer and didn't want to cause any trouble, so she kept quiet.
Outcome
We spoke to the employer just prior to them leaving Thailand. They told us that, as they saw it, the agreed salary was a ‘monthly’ salary and, as such, they had done nothing wrong (conveniently forgetting that the signed service agreement they had entered into was for a six-day week and at an agreed rate for six days’ work).
They were adamant that Sundays were just ‘part of a month’. We were shocked that they would disingenuously distort things in such a manner.
They also didn't pay her for her final months’ salary... they had been ‘too busy’, apparently.
Fortunately, we managed to speak to them when they were still in Thailand and we were able to persuade them to transfer the Nanny’s final month’s salary, along with a proportion of her unpaid salary for the Sundays that she had worked.
Case study 3
We placed a Nanny with an American man, who had arrived in Thailand ahead of his family, to make preparations for his wife and children’s arrival. Part of the preparations included hiring a Nanny.
PNA found him a wonderful Live-in Nanny/Maid (a highly-qualified English-speaker) and within two months the family duly arrived.
However, within days of their arrival, the Nanny arrived back in our office, desperately upset and in tears.
She explained that, before the family had arrived, the employer had spent most of his evenings going out drinking – and he would either bring a girl back from a bar or he would hammer on her bedroom door, demanding to be let in. She wouldn't know which scenario would play out until he arrived home drunk. She was a perpetually scared.
Our office then received a call from this man; he informed us that his Nanny had left (he had no idea she had come back to her Agency). With a perverse sense of reality (and morality), he then complained about our service and requested a full refund, accusing us of providing an unqualified Nanny. At this point, he also owed her the full salary.
Outcome
We informed him that his Nanny was now safe with us and that she had told us what had been happening. We suggested that, if he wanted to keep this despicable episode from his wife, he should pay the outstanding salary and forget about a specious refund.
He duly paid the Nanny’s salary and, thankfully, we never heard from him again.
We were sorely tempted to report him to the authorities, but they can often make a bad situation worse (for the Nanny), so we elected not to take that course of action.
Case study 4
A Live-in Maid returned to PNA after only three months working for a Middle-Eastern family.
She explained that her bedroom had been given to a family member and that she was told to sleep with the dog! To make things worse, her food was served to her on newspaper.
Outcome
We didn't send a replacement Maid (as per our usual contract terms) and we didn't receive a request for one either! If we had, we’d have declined it immediately.
Case study 5
A Norwegian, single father hired a PNA Nanny/Maid to help look after his two sons and to keep the house clean and tidy over the period of a three-week vacation.
It was long after the Nanny had left that it came to light that she had been coerced into sleeping in the father’s bed and told to provide him with sexual favours.
As she didn’t have the money to escape and get a flight home, she felt trapped. So she endured the whole three weeks and unwillingly complied with his demands.
She was a very sweet and naïve young woman and simply didn’t know how to rebuff his abusive behaviour without endangering herself.
No one deserves to be treated so badly.
Outcome
The Nanny was too ashamed to return to our office (where she had sometimes worked). Sometime later she confided to her close friend (another PNA Nanny) about what had happened. Sadly, we never saw her again.
Case study 6
We had an instance where a Nanny had returned home to her family in Northern Thailand for Christmas and New Year… an arduous 10-hour trip by coach.
Within hours of her arriving home, we received a call from her irate Thai employer, who was convinced that she had stolen some jewellery. We advised her, if she was absolutely certain, to call the Police, which she subsequently did.
We then called the Nanny to see if she could shed some light on the situation. But she was totally bemused; she insisted that she hadn’t stolen anything.
We told her that, as the Police were now involved, she would need to come back to clear her name. Even though she was very scared and confused, she returned on the very next coach.
Outcome
At the Police station the employer’s husband, a French citizen, confessed that he had given her the jewellery as a Christmas present – a ‘thank you’ for being such a good Nanny to their children.
He had hoped to keep it secret from his wife!
The Nanny was not charged – much to her relief – but the family were fined for wasting Police time and making false allegations.
The fact that the Nanny’s Christmas had been ruined went unnoticed by all (except us).
Conclusion
When a family hires a PNA worker, everything about her employment is agreed beforehand, so that all parties are happy with the arrangement.
We agree the salaries, the hours and the scope of work. But, for the relationship to work well, we need the employers to honour the contract and to treat the Nannies with decency and respect.
Sadly, it is not uncommon for some employers (often particular nationalities) to simply alter or ignore the terms of her employment within days, or even hours, of the worker starting her new job.
For this reason, a large section of the domestic work force refuses to work for certain nationalities.
In Bangkok, there is a very active grapevine among the 600,000 local domestic workers. They talk to each other and share their experiences, particularly the bad ones.
Difficult or abusive employers, unsurprisingly, struggle to retain their staff and inevitably become ‘black-listed’ (by both workers and principled Agencies alike).
They then struggle to attract applicants to replace the staff that have left.
These selfish employers often proceed to blame everybody but themselves for the situation they find themselves in, and will lazily defame the Agency (if an Agency was involved).
At PNA, for both the well-being of our workers and in order to protect our hard-earned reputation, we fully brief our Nannies ahead of any interview we send them for. And we tell them they always have the option to say ‘No Thank You’.
This is where PNA really comes to the fore.
Our duty of care and philosophy of ‘parity’ is at the very heart of how we work, because we believe it is the right and proper way to conduct business.
Any other approach to placing domestic staff introduces risk and ambiguity – and leaves things to chance.
Don't leave things to chance, leave them to PNA.