MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 6, 2012) – The Migrante-Middle East, a Filipino migrants’ rights group, on Saturday expressed doubts over the new standard employment contract for Filipino household service workers which was recently agreed by the Philippine and Saudi governments.
“We expressed our apprehension if the new standard employment contract for our Filipino domestic workers inked recently by the Philippine and Saudi governments will be fully implemented or at the least will be honestly followed,” John Leonard Monterona, the group’s regional coordinator, said in a statement to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The new standard employment contract for Filipino household service workers in Saudi is now $400 a month.But Monterona said standard contracts usually served only for the sake of formality, but often times not honored by many employers.
“The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration standard contracts especially those for land-based OFWs including those of domestic workers have not been followed. In fact, numerous cases of contract substitutions have been documented and are surging,” he said.
Monterona noted that in most of the cases his group has handled, there were always be an issue of contract substitution, wherein deployed OFWs were forced to sign a new contract usually written in Arabic that stipulates onerous provision to the disadvantage of our OFWs and in contrary to the original provisions of the standard contract.
“Notably, some OFWs have been victim of salary downgrading or the reduction of their salary in violation of the standard contract of the Philippine government,” Monterona said.
Monterona also cited the case of the minimum wage set forth by the POEA long-time ago for HSWs standard contract which is $400 that is hardly followed by employers.
Monterona said: “Instead of setting a minimum wage for HSWs, a maximum allowable wage must instead be set forth in the standard contract as our HSWs will be required to be certified worker that makes them competitive.”
He said the certification of Filipino domestic workers must not add burden in terms of additional fees and charges to be imposed on them. He suggested that a joint-monitoring mechanism must be put in place to ensure that the provisions of the new standard contract will be honestly followed and from time to time will be revised to suit international labor standards.
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