Twelve cupcakes refutes accusations by TRS

By Terry Xu

The Real Singapore (TRS) strikes again with yet another “sensational expose” (source). This time, they published an article from a contributor named, Vettel, decrying the exploitation of foreign workers by the local company, Twelve Cupcakes.

In the article published on 25th November, the contributor writes,

I believe many Singaporeans would be aware of this brand call “12 Cupcakes” in Singapore. Spanning over Asia like Malaysia, Taiwan and now, setting up in Hong Kong (based on Daniel Ong’s Twitter), the “local brand” cakery is making its presence felt with at least 12 outlets around the island. Business is brisk and there is always a shortage of working staff (based on their advertisement in hiring workers). However, recently, I visited a few of their outlets in town and spoken with some staff and realized that many of them are being exploited.

In the article, it is said that the contributor has interviewed the supervisors of the outlets and gained insider information of how the company exploits their workers.

The article writes that the company’s working hours are ;

• 12 hours a day, 6 days a week with 1 day off for a full time foreigner.
• 8 hours a day, 5.5 days a week with 1.5 days off for a full time local.

and highlighted other issues with the company’s employment policies.

• Some of the baking staff have to shuttle between 2 outlets during working hours.
• Baking staff paid below a $1000.00 from the accounts of a certain PRC baker.
• Kitchen staff who are foreigner are earning around $850.00.
• Summarized that the foreign workers are earning $3 an hour based on the above working hours and pay.

TRS wrote in the footnote of the article which was published at 10.52am,

This article has been forwarded to TAFEP and Twelve Cupcakes for clarifications. No response as of yet. Anyway, we doubt they are doing anything illegal. Unlike other Developed Nations, Singapore does not have any functional worker’s union (NTUC is not a Worker’s Union) or minimum wage laws to protect the rights of workers.

So CEO of Twelve Cupcakes, Daniel Ong wrote in reply back to TRS at 6pm, 25 November,

You write us a message at 9am in the morning , and say you will publish this at night if we don’t revert. We see that you go against your word and publish it at 10am… Without finding out the facts.

You do so without finding out the REAL truth, and also not finding out whether your info is right or wrong. It’s pretty obvious from your lack of research that you don’t care about right or wrong, you just care about sensationalizing a story. But I guess as people who run such a website , you don’t really care about credibility to what you wrote as long as you have readership.  (Full message by Daniel Ong)

While Daniel maintains that he was only informed about the mail at 9 am and was not given the time to reply before TRS’s publication but TRS insisted that they have sent a mail the day to ask for his reply. So who is right in this case?

On 25th November, 9.05am, TRS sent an email to Daniel to ask for a clarification on the article which they received.

And though they have stated that they would publish the article on the night of email, which would reasonably be placed at about 6 or 7pm. TRS went ahead and post the article without clarifications at 10.52am.

Well, TRS might have already check over the details to be certain that the article contributor who have sent them the allegation is a real person, and that the details are legitimate, didn’t they? And didn’t they also say that they have sent an email to Daniel the day before?

Looking at the email thread which Daniel forwarded to us, we can see that the article contribution was submitted to them at 8.57am on the SAME day.

Which means either they conduct their source verification at record-breaking speed, or they simply just published something that was forwarded to them without verification from either parties.