MANILA, 5 June — A Labor Department official yesterday denied and at the same time confirmed charges by a non-government organization that Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas had signed an agreement lowering the minimum wage of Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia.
Migrante International had earlier denounced Sto. Tomas for bragging about securing 8,000 new jobs during her visit last month to the Kingdom when in fact what she got was a “nightmare package.”
According to Migrante, the labor chief and her delegation to Saudi Arabia last month agreed to a 25 percent cut in the wages of unskilled OFWs, or to $150 from $200.
The new minimum, which is equivalent to the wage of a non-agricultural worker in Metro Manila, will put some 400,000 unskilled OFWs in Mideastern nation, the group said.
“Not only is President Gloria, through her chief labor exporter, intensifying the marketing of Filipino workers abroad, they are peddling us at inhumane bargain prices,’ said Migrante chairman Poe Gratela Jr.
In explaining the “nightmare package,” Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Rosalinda Baldoz yesterday said the minimum wage for domestic helpers in Saudi Arabia remains at $200.”
What had been lowered is the minimum wage of “unskilled” workers who are not stay-in workers, she said.
“These are workers who here in the Philippines may not even be a high school graduate or definitely not a college degree holder, are unskilled and don’t have any experience at all,” Baldoz told a press conference.
Furthermore, she said, “the sourcing of this kind of workers will be in poverty zone areas.”
She also said these kinds of workers are usually hard up finding decent jobs in the country.
“The wages of these workers can be left to the labor market forces in Saudi Arabia, the prevailing wage rate in Saudi but no lower than the minimum wage rate for non-agricultural workers in the NCR,” she added.
Baldoz was a member of Sto. Tomas’s delegation to Riyadh and Jeddah, which was “a follow up of the visit of the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs (al-Namlah) to the Philippines in September last year.”
Migrante said not only has the delegation agreed to a wage cut but also effectively prevented OFWs from going after unpaid wages and have agreed to leave OFWs with almost nowhere to run to when in distress.
Gratela referred to the “quit claim’ or “waiver’ some distressed OFWs are forced to sign by their Saudi employers before leaving the Kingdom.
He said the agreement with the host government and the Saudi National Recruitment Company (Sanarcom) forces the POEA, the National Labor Relations Commission and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to legally accept the “quit claim” or “waiver.”
This means that OFWs will no longer be able to file cases with the National Labor Relations Council (NLRC) for contract violations such as unpaid salaries, because the waiver stipulates the OFW agreed to perhaps accept only half the amount actually owing them.
Under the package, Sto. Tomas also agreed to declare illegal all OWWA centers outside the Philippine Embassy in the Kingdom, Migrante said.
“Through Sec. Sto. Tomas, this regime is shunning its responsibility to Filipino migrant workers,” the Migrante statement said.
Explaining the waiver issue, Baldoz said: “It is not automatic that whatever agreement our workers would enter into with their employers in Saudi including decisions of the labor courts will be recognized here in the Philippines.”
On the contrary, she said, these require verification by the Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs) and such attested documents will have binding effect in the, POEA and OWWA.”
Baldoz added that the agreement has to be voluntary in nature, the amount of settlement should be deemed reasonable and the worker should agree to the binding effect of the agreement.
The guidelines on this will be worked out by the POLOs with the NLRC.
Migrante said yesterday that no amount of obfuscation by the government would cover up such a “reprehensible” act.
“Given that President Gloria (Arroyo) declared 2002 as the Year of the Overseas Employment Provider, it is not surprising that Sec. Sto. Tomas panders more to the interest of recruiters and employers than OFWs,” said Gratela.
Migrante said it will launch protest actions on June 7, Migrant Workers Day, to illustrate the growing discontent of overseas Filipinos with President Arroyo’s systematic betrayal of their interests.
In another development, around 500 OWWA employees yesterday staged a picket at their own office to protest a supposed plan by Malacañang Palace to merge their agency with the POEA.
They were also protesting President Arroyo’s supposed plan to suspend the forced collection of the $25 OWWA membership fee from migrant workers.
“The mere suspension of the 25-dollar membership fee virtually means stopping the operations of the OWWA both here and abroad,” said Allan Ignacio, president of the Welfarefund Employees Association.
Ignacio said the union had obtained a copy of the president’s speech for Migrant Workers Day, which will be celebrated on Friday.
The OWWA had been under fire lately from OFWs, who said the agency had become a heavy burden on them.
Created in 1982, OWWA was mandated to give protection and welfare to Filipino migrant workers but recent audit reports by the Commission on Audit in Manila have confirmed that the agency had actually been screwing OFWs.
According to the COA, the OWWA had illegally “invested” some 1.2 billion pesos of OFW money in the projects of crony businessmen.
The report also found that a minuscule portion of the agency’s forced collections from OFWs are spent on direct welfare projects because the OWWA had been spending much of these for administration expenses, salaries and benefits for its employees.
It was not know yet how OFW groups all over the world would react to the demand of OWWA employees to oppose Arroyo’s suspension of the membership fee.
Some groups abroad had earlier demanded that the fees should be scrapped once and for all because it has become a source of corruption.
