Baoshi HR Agency SG Drags Down Hotel Names with Age Discriminating Pay Rates

"Below 40, $X. Above 40, $XX." said the fat man behind the counter whose buttons strained to barely hold the two sides of his shirt together.

Just to be sure, I asked, "What do you mean 40?". 

"Years old." he answered.

So, without doubt. Outright age discrimination right down to the salary.

I said, "This is not fair. Other agencies don't do this.".

He shook it off, "These hotels want younger workers. They pay more for younger. You might work better than them but the hotels still pay the younger workers more.".

Did the guests of those hotels demand to see young workers?

Of course not. It is the hotel management/HR staff that want to see younger workers.

By this method, Baoshi & hotels have a very communist way of filtering out older workers. Simply by paying younger people more. Either the older person tolerates the unjust treatment or walks away. The unfairness is very much a trademark of forced communism.

Of course, it's still free choice.  You can "choose" to work for less knowing that you're paid less just because of your age.

But do you want to work for 1 hour more for $1/hr less than the (younger) person next to you? Both doing the same work at the same time, but you are paid less. 

If you're a true-blooded older Singaporean needing money, it's worse considering that the majority of the "younger" workers are foreign students. 

Can you bear standing beside a student in the same room, knowing that he/she is paid $XX per hour while you are paid $X per hour? It's worse if you look younger than your age & there's no way to change your year of birth.

The hotels represented by Baoshi Agency are many:

Fullerton.
Conrad.
Merchant Court.
Sofitel.
Regent.
Carlton.
Park Royal (Lime restaurant).
Crowne Plaza.

The agency also represents at least 2 F&B establishments, such as Limoncello Italian Restaurant & Dempsey Cookhouse & Bar.

And the agency dares to say it wants to expand. Such a company will not expand from such rotten work ethics. Plus, the hotels tarnish their own names by associating with such an agency.

I have not heard of the other well-known agencies practising ageist pay rates. If they were, I don't think they can get away with it, particularly TCC with actively busy older workers who talk freely with anyone who asks.

People talk. People compare.

If an agency wants to profit more off of every hour of a person's pay, I can understand that it's their way of making money.  But don't pull stunts like age discrimination or gender discrimination.

The bigger the recruitment company with a physical location & with more staff, the less they pay. So you'll see very low rates per hour at $6.5/$7 to $8/$8.50.

That's their way of profitting from human trading.

So different agencies will pay different rates depending on how much they want to "eat" out of your pay.

Take for instance CNY. Direct hire pays $15/hr. For the same hotel, different agencies will pay $10/$11/$12/$13. Meaning, for every hour, they take $5 to $2 per hour off from every worker. That's a lot of money for just 1 event depending on the number of people hired. People easily work 9 to 12 hours or more.  Comparable to an excellent 1 month graduate's salary from just 1 event from other people's sweat.

Since they are already earning so much from my sweat per hour, I will not tolerate further pay-based age discrimination deduction from my pay.

I have put up with various shit in various companies in Singapore but not this.

Rather than work for an age discriminating agency like Baoshi, I would rather work for less for another agency that pays the same for everybody.

And those hotels associated with Baoshi? Such hotels never age-discriminate money. Even if you are old, they still take your money (while running their age discrimination policies). So you can choose to boycott these small & old hotels mentioned above, & take your lovely money to bigger & grander & newer hotels elsewhere with hopefully, better mindsets.  You'll also feel better.           

[Side note:  Big difference of $1/hr = 1 hour less work. Example: 10 hours @ $8/hr = $80. However at $9/hr, you only need to work 9 hours to get $81 (even more than $8/hr). So not only 1 hour less, but also $1 more.]
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With this tip-off from Baoshi, I will be looking more closely at other recruitment agencies & asking younger & older workers whether there is any pay rate difference from the same agencies that they are working under.

[Side note 2: An older lady told me that TCC used to have many older workers.  As the pay was low, no young people were interested. The hotels however, preferred younger workers as the older ones didn't seem able to work. So the agency raised the pay to attract more younger workers. So everybody benefits. That should be the way, rather than penalizing older people by deducting their hard-earned salary. TCC takes money once by getting people to buy their $10 compulsory card, whereas Baoshi is greedy & takes $ every hour off of an older person's salary rather than just once.].

Update 3:52am 27 Mar Tues:  I was talking to the older ladies & the topic of age discrimination came up. So I mentioned Baoshi's different pay rates for younger & older people. They were very surprised. They haven't heard of such a thing & these ladies are very experienced in this hotel industry. They couldn't believe it when I told them. When I emphasized that it's true what Baoshi does, they said Baoshi probaby wants to pocket the difference in pay rates.

Update Sun 1 Apr:  Change in pay rates on Thurs 29.