DAMMAM, 24 April 2005 — The Philippine Overseas Labor Office in the Eastern Province has asked Manila to investigate an apparent case of contract substitution involving three Philippine service exporters and a Saudi company.
Labor Attaché Delmer Cruz said he sought the investigation after the POLO-OWWA Eastern Region Operations, which he heads, received complaints from 250 Filipino women saying they were made to do work other than what they had been hired for and as stipulated in the contract they signed in Manila.
Cruz said that most of the female workers arrived in the Kingdom on March 3 and 10. His report identified the deployment agencies as Al-Awael, IRSAL and LTN Manpower Agencies.
The labor attaché said that he already sent his report to the Department of Labor and Employment in Manila to further investigate the three recruitment agencies for alleged contract substitution.
Cruz said the workers were made to sign two separate contracts in the Philippines, one of which provided for a monthly salary of 750 riyals ($200) plus food allowance.
Arab News learned that the second contract provided for a monthly salary of only SR562, or $150.
Cruz said all the women were hired by a Riyadh-based company.
Alma dela Cruz, from the province of Tarlac north of Manila, said her contract also stipulated that she would work as a hospital attendants but when she arrived in Dammam, she was assigned to work in a center for disabled children and home for the aged.
She said the agency that recruited her did not tell her the true nature of her work and that she was not even trained to handle such special patients.
Other workers, who refused to give their names, said that they are working 12 straight hours without overtime pay and that they were being given only two days off in a month.
“But the day off is nothing since we are required to work 24 hours on the day before the scheduled day-off,” said a worker from Quirino province, in between sobs.
A nurse from Baguio complained that her salary was only 562 Riyals, while she learned that the company is paying 1,200 riyals for nurses. “I was hired as a patient attendant but actually my work here is a nurse,” she said.
Cruz said that he was trying to meet with managers of the company in Riyadh to negotiate in behalf of the workers.
He said the management was very cooperative, allowing him and his staff to visit the accommodation of the female workers in Dammam.
The company also immediately gave some of the requests of the workers for free drinking water, cooking gas, and not to deduct immediately the whole cost of their deployment from their first month salary, he said.
The workers said that that they were required to pay $400 for placement fee, cost of their iqama and cash advance of SR200 on their arrival in the Kingdom.
They told Cruz that there will be nothing left with their SR562 salary since they have to buy their own food, shampoo, soaps and other personal needs.