The objectives of this petition is for us employees to voice out on the welfare issues surrounding the company, Little Splashes Aquatics (LSA). The employees affected are made up of both current and ex-swim teachers and customer service officers (CSO).

[CONTRACT & POLICY ISSUES]

a. The schedule of many changes according to the bosses' whim and fancy. Employees have to reschedule their plans at the last minute due to the sudden change in working and off days.

Example:
• Initial off days were supposed to be Monday and Fridays.
• After which, it was changed to Tuesday and Thursday.
• Lastly, changed to Tuesday and Wednesday. When asked on the changes and requested for a better off day/s, they told us to do up the request via official email to the management.

b. Employees suddenly made to work afternoon shifts until night time on weekdays, despite the mutual agreement during signing the contract, that they would be working morning shifts. When brought up to the management, employees were told the following, "You were the one who signed the contract."

c. Forced to take No-Pay Leave (NPL) instead of Medical Leave.

d. No additional payouts when employees work beyond working hours for maintenance of the outlet/assisting customers.

f. No allowances given when employees exceed stipulated working hours to do additional work for company. (No OT pay given)

e. No 1.5x for working on Public Holidays, No 2x Salary for working full shift on Off Days.

Notes:

All:
- Uncertain schedules for all Swim Teachers and CSO.

- Frequent changes in off days.

- No additional payout given when employees are working during public holidays. (1.5x working salary).

- No Overtime payouts when employees exceeded working hours and are needed to do closing.

- No allowances given when employees exceeded the stipulated working hours and when having to do closing. (same as above)

- No rest/offday pay when a Swim Teacher has to relief the classes of another teacher on Medical Leaves.

- Workplace unhappiness. (everyone)

- High stress level which affects mental and physical health within employees. (everyone).

- Everyday tiredness due to busy class schedules. (everyone)

*
- Employer wrongly presented contract to mislead staff.

→ 2 year bond and resignation bond.

**
- Uncleared 14 days leave entitlement. (Public Holiday deducted under AL during Term Break)

- Converted to CSO with 1 year bond (from Swim Teacher with 2 years bond) but employer did not revise contract to a new one.

→ Did not receive any certification to entail the 2 year bond.

→ Still required to give 6 months notice despite complete change in job title and job scope.

***
- Unfairness in the increment payouts.

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- Female employer have suggested this bond-repayment option where, if an employee chose not to work with LSA for 24 months (break the bond), employee can choose to work for 5-6mths without salary payouts to REPAY their bond. Employee will only receive monthly CPF payouts. And this is absurd knowing that an employee will have to conduct 6 classes in a span of 3hrs each (12 classes altogether for 6hrs). Imagine that 1 class has a full pax of 5 infants / toddlers / children and having to work for 5 days a week, for 5-6 months without salary, just to repay the $8k bonds.

→ the rest of the employees are not aware of this arrangement to repay the bond.

→ at that time, one of the employees' salary was $2k, after CPF it was $1.6k. The female employer mentioned that she is unsure of how to go about creditting the CPF after making such suggestion.


[SALARY ISSUES]

*
- Company is not transparent with salary issues. When trying to understand how the pay scale and increment works, was told by the female employer the following, "U desperate for money ah?"

- Employees were asked to fix the light bulb and platform even though it was not part of their job scope

→ November 2020

**
- Salary's wrongly paid not once but thrice, all 3 times being the same reason. Employer chose to PAYNOW the balance to one of their staff instead of using official method in B&W. All that the female employer can say was, "Oh I forgot."

[WORKPLACE HARASSMENT/S]

*
- One of their employees, Mr. Joseph Leong, is the main cause that many employees leave the company.

- Involves sexist, homophobic and fat-shaming comments but employer do not want to take any action because to their eyes, "His behaviour has already improved. It is his nature to be that way".

- Employer chose not to take any action against Mr. Joseph for physically / verbally harassing their employees.

**
- Instead of reprimanding Mr. Joseph for shouting unreasonably in front of employees and parents, they banned one of their employees from all outlets and anyhow accused her of taking down email servers when all she did was helping the other CSO employees.

- Mr. Joseph threatened to give the affected staff's life hell because she supposedly gave him “hell”.

***

- 2 employees have been physically harrassed by a Caucasian parent in an Infant 2 class held on separate day/date on 3rd & 10th June 2022, Friday. This was about trying to rectify the incorrect positioning of the infant made by the parent during safe exit and safe entry. The infant can fall into the water anytime hence the reason the employees wanted to hold the infant safe but their hands were smacked hard by the parent instead. When this issue was raised to the management, we were told this instead, "Prob just telling (the teacher) don't touch his kid. So lesson here learnt is always ask for permission 1st before u assist.", while ignoring the safety issue. The physical harassment complaint was ignored and got swept under the carpet instead.

- Happening between 22 - 24 June, there have been a few exchanges of Whatsapp messages for a certain employee. Only the female employer knows that the said employee has depression and anxiety. The female employer used it to her advantages and used the employee as the main target in the whatsapp chat in Balestier, just to get her to react negatively e.g. angry reply. The employee has always been doing her part to assist her team in maintaining the cleanliness and tidiness of the facility, but they did not see that at all even when there are CCTVs around and instead, still targetting her to cooperate with the team, as if she does not do her work.

[WORKPLACE'S OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS AND SAFETY & HEALTH ISSUES]

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- During training period at Jln. Selaseh, employer made trainees who were still in their wet clothes, to climb ladder and fix ceiling lights.

**
- No covers / insurance / compensations if in any cases employees are facing health issues while on duty.

- Not sure if pool are adequately maintained as there is NEVER a day that they close the outlets for maintenance, like public pool.

→ NEA visited the pool for water quality check on 10 June.

- Platform pole hit one of their staff in the face and made her face shield crack, could have potentially hurt her.

- Slippery platforms, pool wooden decks and walls.

- Pool's metal ladders are also slippery and loose. People can fall back into the water or hurt their legs if got stuck in between the ladders.

-Skin issues faced many:
 - Eczema flares, raised red patches, small boils and blisters on body, mainly the stomach, feet & ankle areas.

 - Bad skin reactions due to chlorine burn.

 - Hives.

 - Flares on folds, e g. both on or behind elbows, behind knees and on the neck area.

 - Smooth, shiny legs. If scratched, can get reddish & blisters easily. If too dry, skin will appear like cracked skin, resulting in itchiness.

 - Slight burning eyes even if we never do any swimming activity in the pool.

 - Itchiness on body.

 - Flaky and thinning of fingernails.

 - We have informed our employer and managements on these issues but they informed us to hydrate, soap down and moisturise ourselves more. We all did that but the issues still happens. Plus, they will say something like, "I also have eczema..." and "I have so much eczema on my body but I can still do work. What is your excuses".

Ear Infection Cases

- Happened to a few swim teachers without any history of this issue in their lifetime. Symptoms: throbbing pain from inside or outside the ear/s, may cause headaches, itchiness from inside or outside the ear/s, yellowish discharge, muffled hearing, ear/s hurt when moving the head or pulling the earlobe. Affecting swim teachers mainly at Yio Chu Kang and Balestier outlets.

Asthma Case

- One employee has a history of childhood asthma and did not know the weight of the jobscope of being a swim teacher in LSA. Ever since the employee have been tasked to cover some classes for other teachers and classes have been opened for her to conduct, the employee have been relying on Symbicort inhaler frequently. This proves to be a problem for 2 doctors after being consulted. First was from Raffles Medical Group on 31/05/2022 and another one, was a respiratory appointment at Sengkang General Hospital on 28/06/2022. Two doctors, after consultation, have advised not to continue with the job. This is evidently clear through the breathing test conducted which shows that the asthma control have worsened and is poorly controlled. A doctor's memo has been provided as evidence.

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1. During the closure in July, company did not inform employees that they were going to use our leave to cover the days that we weren't working. No discussion was done with the employees until the company sent us a message saying they will show us the updated number of leaves each of us had.

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No firm bond incentive, no form of employee welfare, no leave except unpaid.