Maid rift: Members must follow club rules

Maid rift: Members must follow club rules

By Bob Ng

SINGAPORE: The controversy over whether maids should be allowed into private clubs, now into its fourth month, rages on.

And what, to most sensible people, seems a pretty straightforward issue has developed political, social and racial overtones that have served only to complicate the subject.

To me, there is just one central issue in dispute: Do clubs have the right to bar certain people from using their facilities -- whether they be maids, bow-legged men, bra-less women, infants-in-arms or those in denim jeans?

The answer to this question must be "yes". Clubs are private organizations which have the power to set down rules on how they are to be run. Ultimately, it is the total membership which collectively bears responsibility for those rules.

Members have the right to have rules changed periodically as they see fit. And this is being done routinely at many clubs, either at annual general meetings or at specially-convened ones.

Once the rules are voted in by members at these meetings, they stay in the books and are meant to be complied with by every single member, even those who did not support them.

That's the only way organizations can function, whether they are 10-member residents' associations, 5,000-strong social clubs, multinational companies, national governments or supranational entities like the United Nations.

Without rules to spell out the conduct of members, there will be, among other things, chaos and mayhem, and no organization can operate effectively.

That is at the heart of the maids-or-no-maids controversy.

If you accept that clubs -- through their members -- have the right to set their own rules, then it must follow that it is well within the rights of the Singapore Cricket Club (SCC), or any other club for that matter, to forbid maids from dining on its premises.

If you, as a member, do not agree with this rule or any other rule which you find offensive, you should try and get it removed. However, you do have to convince the majority of the members of the rightness of your action at a general meeting to get your way.

If you fail, the inevitable conclusion must be that most of the members agree with the rule, whatever your own views on it. And if you can't live with it, the only honorable course of action is to resign your membership.

You do not try to break the rules and hope to get away with it.

That is what I found disconcerting in the behavior of the person who started the furor, Gim Leng Monksfield. Her letter to the ST Forum pages, published on July 21, said she "brought a family friend who is a Sri Lankan" for a meal at the SCC.

There was no direct mention in the letter that the "family friend" was a maid.

It was only in our report of Oct. 30 that she went on public record with this admission when she said: "Yes, the guest whom I brought into the club was a maid."

Then she added: "But this is not the issue here."

I beg to differ. This is precisely the issue here. Indeed, it is the only issue here.

The rules of the SCC specifically bar maids from its premises. As a member, you are obliged to follow these rules. If you cannot or do not want to do so, for whatever reason, then join another club which does not have this rule. There are some which do not bar maids and have, in fact, provided facilities to accommodate them.

This issue has little or nothing to do with racial or occupational discrimination, or our having a colonial mentality. And bringing a maid to the SCC as an attempt to eradicate such discrimination or mentality in society is really stretching it.

There must be dozens of other examples better suited to such a noble cause than this.

Monksfield surely did not set out for dinner that day with her maid deliberately to be caught defying SCC rules, so as to initiate a campaign to stamp out discrimination against maids by clubs.

The controversy erupted only because she was discovered bringing her maid to the club under the guise of a "guest", and then decided to make a public issue of it by writing to The Straits Times.

Sure, most of us are aware of cases of ill-treatment of maids and discrimination against them in many places here. But to base a campaign to end such discrimination by insisting they have a right to have dinner at an exclusive social club? Hardly credible, it seems.

Do you seriously think maids really care about this? Ask them about discrimination, and they will be able to list countless cases they are more concerned with than not being able to have a meal at a members-only club.

If you care for your maid -- and by all accounts Monksfield is a most caring employer -- then please spare her the embarrassment of being caught in the middle of an unpleasant verbal spat in the dining room of a social club over her very presence there.

It could not have been an experience she would cherish, despite the good intentions of her employer.

PS: In case any reader is wondering, no, I am not a member of the SCC.

The writer is Associate Editor of The Straits Times (bob@sph.com.sg).

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network