In August 2025, within just a few days, we met two Burmese workers — Pepo and Yilhuang (names changed). Both were employed in Singapore’s bustling food & beverage industry, and both were overworked and underpaid. Pepo worked at a well-known coffee chain with 16 outlets across the island; Yilhuang was employed at a popular local pastry shop of similar scale. Both businesses are instantly recognisable to many Singaporeans. In fact, TWC2 staff often buy coffee and and Portuguese egg tarts from these very same brands’ outlets. We were dismayed to discover that our familiar favourites were built on exploitative labour practices.
Pepo: excessive overtime and no meaningful rest day
Pepo worked 12-hour shifts at a coffee shop branch in the central business district — typically from opening to closing. His duties ranged from brewing drinks to preparing food orders. In a single month, his overtime easily exceeded the legal limit of 72 hours, yet he was not paid for any of it. Though he was given one rest day a week, the long hours spent on his feet left him exhausted all the time.
In early August, just a few months after he started, the employer abruptly terminated Pepo’s employment, citing poor performance. Pepo, however, could not identify what he had done wrong — except for one incident in which he had been reprimanded for casually telling a customer about his long working hours. While he chose not to dispute the dismissal itself, he was determined to claim the overtime pay he was legally owed.
Our calculations showed that Pepo was owed $1,500 in unpaid overtime. With our assistance, he filed a salary claim with TADM, the salary claims unit at the Ministry of Manpower. Fortunately, his case was resolved quickly: the employer agreed to let him transfer to a new employer and to pay him $1,000 in settlement, which Pepo accepted.
Yilhuang: no rest, no justice
Yilhuang was not as fortunate. Like Pepo, she prepared drinks and served pastries to customers — but after just one month at the egg tart shop, she was already desperate to leave. Working 14 hours a day without a single rest day, she was utterly drained.
Under the Employment Act, low-wage workers like Yilhuang are entitled to at least one rest day per week. In theory, she could have refused to work on her rest days; in reality, she knew that refusing would cost her the job. On top of this, her salary was delayed by a week beyond the legal deadline — and when she finally received it, it covered only her basic pay, without overtime or rest day compensation.
The breaking point came when Yilhuang, exhausted and in pain, visited a doctor with our caseworker after a month of nonstop work. The doctor, visibly shocked that she had gone so long without rest, issued a certificate for three days of medical leave so she could recover.
When Yilhuang sent the medical certificate (MC) to her manager via WhatsApp, the response was swift and hostile. Her manager insisted that only an MC from a government hospital would be acceptable and ordered her to return to work immediately. This was, of course, absurd — an MC from a private clinic is equally valid under Singapore law. A forwarded message from a coworker revealed the employer’s contempt: “bread worker [Yilhuang] today no go work,” “no inform, just show MC three days,” “boss don’t want, need to change.” The messages made it clear that the employer intended to replace her for taking medical leave.
Two days later, still on medical leave, Yilhuang decided she could no longer endure it. She resigned and, with TWC2’s help, filed both a salary claim and a wrongful dismissal claim. Under the law, an employee’s involuntary resignation due to the employer’s deliberate and serious breach of contract constitutes a wrongful dismissal.
At TADM mediation, however, the employer denied everything — claiming Yilhuang had never worked overtime or on rest days, despite keeping no records of her hours. It was unclear how they expected the officer to believe that a shop open from 08:00h to 22:00h, seven days a week, could operate without Yilhuang working overtime, especially when there was only one other employee.
After three mediation sessions, Yilhuang was given a difficult choice: accept 50% of her claim as final settlement or escalate the case to the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT), a process that could take six months. Having already endured one and a half months without work or income, Yilhuang reluctantly accepted $800.
She was issued a Change of Employer (COE) letter, giving her four weeks to find another employer. But with agents demanding two months’ salary upfront as fees, the $800 was far from sufficient. When the deadline passed, Yilhuang had no choice but to leave Singapore, hoping she might one day come back.
Observations
This year, we have seen a rising number of Burmese workers in Singapore’s service sector who are overworked and underpaid — stories like those of Pepo and Yilhuang are increasingly common. A recurring pattern is excessive working hours and the non-payment of overtime. Employers often justify this by claiming, wrongly, that overtime pay is already included in the basic salary or a fixed monthly allowance, or that the worker had agreed to waive rest days. Lacking knowledge of their employment rights, many workers accept these explanations, feeling they have no choice but to continue working — unaware that they are victims of unlawful wage theft and exploitative conditions.
Another widespread problem is the denial of rest days. Some employers, like Yilhuang’s, do not grant any rest days at all, while others provide fewer than what the law requires. Out of fear of losing their jobs or facing retaliation, workers often comply. In many of these cases, they are also not properly compensated for work done on rest days.
Taken together, these cases expose only the tip of the iceberg — an epidemic of salary underpayment and wage theft in Singapore’s F&B industry, particularly among low-wage migrant workers. Given their vulnerability, compounded by language barriers and economic pressures back home, Singapore cannot rely solely on workers to call out abusive employers. Speaking up can mean losing the very job they paid thousands of dollars to secure, being stranded for months without income, or being forced to leave the country altogether.
What is needed is Singapore’s stronger commitment to justice for these workers — through proactive wage theft detection, tighter enforcement of labour laws, and stiffer penalties for offending employers. Employers with valid salary claims lodged against them at TADM should be automatically placed under MOM’s monitoring programme to deter repeat offences.
These are the people who brew our morning coffee and serve our meals in neighbourhood eateries. Their stories raise an uncomfortable question each time we see a foreign worker behind the counter or in the kitchen: Is Singapore doing right by them?
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