Showing posts sorted by relevance for query FILIPINO WORKERS. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query FILIPINO WORKERS. Sort by date Show all posts

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Philippines reimposes ban on workers deploying to Kuwait
THE PHILIPPINES OFW WORKERS ARE THEIR ONLY EXPORT
THEY ARE KNOWN AS TFW TEMP FOREIGN WORKERS WHEN
THE EMIGRATE. THEY ARE THE ECONOMIC ENGINE OF THE 
FILIPINO ECONOMY BASED ON THE REMITTANCES THEY SEND
HOME FROM WORK ABROAD 
AFP•January 16, 2020

Philippines to reimpose a ban on its citizens going to work in Kuwait

The Philippines said Friday it was  reimposing a ban on its citizens going to work in Kuwait after a Filipina maid, Jeanelyn Villavende, was allegedly killed by her employer, echoing
a 2018 row between the two countries.

The Philippines said Friday it was reimposing a ban on its citizens going to work in Kuwait after a Filipina was allegedly killed by her employer, echoing a 2018 row between the two countries.

President Rodrigo Duterte approved the ban as his government accused the emirate of covering up the killing of a maid, one of about 240,000 Filipinos working in the Gulf state.

They are among the millions of its citizens the Philippines has sent to work abroad, seeking salaries they cannot get at home.

The money they send back accounts for about 10 percent of the Philippine economy.

Duterte's government briefly banned Filipinos deploying for work in Kuwait two years ago amid a diplomatic row that began with the discovery of the remains of a murdered Filipina maid in her employers' freezer.

"The result of the (Philippine) re-autopsy... indicates that overseas Filipino worker Jeanelyn Villavende was sexually abused," Duterte spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement, referring to the woman at the centre of the new ban.

Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello alleged Thursday that an earlier autopsy in Kuwait had concluded that Villavende died from heart failure arising from physical injuries.

The labour department said in a separate statement that the ban covers all Filipinos going to work in Kuwait, though skilled workers and professionals with un-expired contracts are exempted.

Workers already on the job in Kuwait are allowed to finish their contracts.

Officials at the Kuwaiti embassy in Manila could not be reached for comment Friday.

Panelo said the ban would only be lifted once Kuwait agrees to fully implement the terms of an agreement signed after the 2018 row that offered security guarantees for Filipino workers.

At the height of the earlier ban Duterte alleged that Arab employers routinely raped Filipina workers, forced them to work long hours and fed them scraps.

His government then ordered its embassy staff in Kuwait to help Filipina maids flee allegedly abusive bosses, provoking the emirate to expel the Filipino ambassador.

Tensions later died down and the ban was lifted three months later after the two governments thrashed out the labour agreement and Duterte made a public apology to the Kuwaiti government.

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Web result

Overseas Filipino Worker - Wikipedia

Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) is a term often used to refer to Filipino migrant workers, people ... The Philippine government has stated officially for decades that it doesn't maintain a labor export policy, and has continued to claim so as of 2012. ... Overseas Filipino Workers can only be legally deployed to countries certified ...
Apr 17, 2018 - Migrante International, a global alliance for overseas Filipino workers, have long called for the abolishment of the system. “'Yan 'yung system ...
Feb 9, 2010 - The Philippines and its remittance economy. ... People, the Philippines' best export ... up that are being marketed solely to OFWs, that is, Overseas Filipino Workers. ... Yet returning workers are only a small part of the story.
Jul 12, 2017 - The government has long embraced exporting labor as official economic ... was finding labor markets: The state not only promoted Filipino workers to the ... Overseas Filipino Workers, or OFWs, represent a subset of Overseas ...
Jan 1, 2004 - Although Filipinos have a longstanding tradition of migration to the United ... be promoted, but only for temporary work via regulated channels.
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 07:52 PM August 27, 2012 ... overseas Filipino workers are, in truth, martyrs for slaving abroad just to help their ... The labor export policy was supposed to be a temporary solution to the economic crisis in the 1970s.
Sep 15, 2019 - No country has worked harder than the Philippines to export its ... Since the mid-1970s, the government has trained and marketed overseas workers, not just ... nearly 600 stories a year on overseas Filipino workers, or “OFWs.
by F Cai - ‎Cited by 10 - ‎Related articles
Aug 24, 2011 - The unprecedented growth of overseas contract workers is one of the ... there was an unprecedented 1.4 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) sent abroad. ... In the case of the Philippines, the labour export policy only ...
Feb 9, 2010 - The Philippines and its remittance economy. ... People, the Philippines' best export ... I HAVE been in Manila, where it's clear that the most successful export of the ... going up that are being marketed solely to OFWs, that is, Overseas Filipino Workers. ... Yet returning workers are only a small part of the story.
OFWs work in different countries and most of them are paid in the currencies of the ... Exports have improved the structure and competitiveness of the Philippine ...
Missing: ONLY
by F Cai - ‎Cited by 10 - ‎Related articles
Aug 24, 2011 - In terms of remittances received from OFWs, the number amounted to a historical USD 17.3 ... The first group of Filipino workers arrived in Hawaii in 1906, and more ... In the case of the Philippines, the labour export policy only ...
by E San Juan Jr - ‎2009 - ‎Cited by 27 - ‎Related articles
The accelerated migration of Filipino contract workers in the last two decades, comprising at ... every president since the export of “warm bodies” was institutionalized as an ... valed only by the trade of African slaves in the previous centuries.




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Monday, November 07, 2022

Philippines lifts ban on sending workers to Saudi Arabia


Mon, November 7, 2022 at 5:21 AM·2 min read


MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines lifted a ban on the deployment of workers, including maids and construction workers, to Saudi Arabia on Monday after steps were taken to reduce frequent abuses, officials said.

Labor officials stopped sending workers to the oil-rich kingdom a year ago due to the abuses, including the non-payment of wages to thousands of Filipino construction workers, and the coronavirus threat.

Susan Ople, who heads the country’s newly established Department of Migrant Workers, said months of negotiations with Saudi Arabian officials have led to an agreement on additional safeguards, including the adoption of a standard employment contract that provides insurance coverage for workers for non-payment of salaries and allows workers to change employers in the case of abuse.

“Under a new employment contract that ensures greater workers’ protection, our workers would now be able to find gainful employment in one of the world’s biggest labor markets,” Ople said in a statement.

More than 189,000 Filipino workers were deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic hit. Other top destinations of Filipino workers include the United States, Singapore, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

A more transparent and fair arrangement for settling disputes between workers and employers will be adopted in Saudi Arabia and human trafficking complaints will be handled directly by Saudi officials who focus on the problem for a better response, Filipino officials said.

Ople said Saudi Arabian officials will visit the Philippines this month for a joint review of salaries of Filipino workers and resume discussions on complaints over the unpaid salaries of thousands of Filipino construction workers dating back to 2016.

About a tenth of the Philippines’ 109 million people work and live overseas and the large amounts of money they send home have helped keep the country's consumption-driven economy afloat for decades. Last year, a record $31 billion was sent home, bolstering the recovery of the Philippine economy, which slumped in its worst post-World War II recession in 2020 due to prolonged coronavirus lockdowns.

The downside of the largely poverty-driven diaspora has been continuing reports of abuses and exploitation, especially of maids, that have sometimes led to serious injuries or deaths and sparked uproars in the Philippines.

Philippine officials are under increasing pressure to do more to monitor the safety of Filipino workers worldwide. There have also been calls for the government to boost employment and living standards at home, where millions live in poverty, so that fewer people need to abandon their families and find work abroad.
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Monday, January 30, 2023

Filipino workers: Oil company abandoned us in Hurricane Ida




- A view of flood damaged buildings are seen as President Joe Biden (not pictured) inspects the damage from Hurricane Ida on the Marine One helicopter during an aerial tour of communities in Laffite, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, on Sept. 3, 2021. Ten Filipino men who worked for a major offshore oil industry employer claim in a federal lawsuit in Feburary 2022 that they were treated like prisoners at a company bunkhouse — and that two of them were abandoned there when Hurricane Ida struck the Louisiana Gulf Coast in 2021. 
(Jonathan Ernst/Pool via AP, File)

KEVIN McGILL
Fri, January 27, 2023 

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As Hurricane Ida struck the Louisiana Gulf Coast in August 2021, Renato Decena and Rosel Hernandez watched the storm punch a hole in the roof of the bunkhouse where they were sheltered — abandoned, they allege, by their offshore oil industry employer as the hurricane bore down.

“I could not think of anything to do but to pray and to pray,” Decena, who court records indicate worked for the company for about four years, told The Associated Press.

Decena and Hernandez are two of 10 Filipino workers who are suing their former employer, major offshore oil industry company Grand Isle Shipyard, alleging they were virtual prisoners at their bunkhouse and that the company abandoned Decena, Hernandez and some of their co-workers there during the storm. The 10 plaintiffs also allege they were illegally underpaid and that those among them who tested positive for COVID-19 were quarantined on vulnerable moored supply boats or other vessels, sometimes without adequate food or medicine.

Grand Isle Shipyard not only denies the claims but has struck back with a counterclaim accusing the workers — whose lawsuit invokes federal human trafficking and fair housing laws — of defamation. The judge in the case dismissed the defamation allegations in a Jan. 20 order but said the company could pursue them again once the workers' lawsuit is concluded.

The competing court filings at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans lay out starkly different views of life for Filipinos who work under federally granted visas at the Louisiana-based company.

Overseas employment of Filipino citizens has been a key part of the Philippines' economy since the government of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, according to nonpartisan research and analysis organization the Migration Policy Institute.

The Philippines' worldwide remittances — money sent back to family and friends from Filipino workers employed abroad — totaled more than $36 billion in 2021, according to data from the World Bank.

“As part of its labor export policy, the Philippines has developed a significant government infrastructure to regulate labor migration and the recruitment industry, and to manage relations with labor-receiving countries and provide some protections for workers at destination,” Michelle Mittelstadt, spokesperson for MPI, said in an email. “That said, foreign workers can be vulnerable to abusive conditions at destination, at the mercy of employers and recruiters.”

Decena and Hernandez said the better-paying jobs in the United States help them provide for their families.

“We have dreams for our family and children,” Hernandez said in an email. “We want them to have a better future.”

They and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege they suffered abusive conditions while employed and housed by the company, and that discrimination played a role.

Aside from Decena's and Hernandez's claims that they were abandoned at the bunkhouse during Ida, they also allege poor care and cramped quarters for those among them who were quarantined on moored tugboats or supply vessels when they tested positive for COVID-19.

“Not one medicine, not one tablet, not one vitamin. Nobody gave these things to us. We were on our own,” Hernandez told the AP.

A 15-year employee of the company, Hernandez said there was little food when he arrived at the quarantine vessel.

“I drank juice and hot water with salt to cure my coughing,” he said.

The company denied such allegations in its counterclaim filed Oct. 10, 2022.

“The houseboats and vessels that workers were quarantined on have fully stocked kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms," the company filing said. "Breakfast, lunch and dinner for workers was delivered by Defendants to all such quarantine sites."

“GIS’ on-site clinic physician routinely visited those in quarantine, dispensing medicine and monitoring symptoms,” the filing said.

The lawsuit alleges that the company used threats of deportation to keep the workers from leaving the bunkhouse.

“All workers are free to come and go as often as they wish,” the company said in its counterclaim.

Early on, the argument had been over whether the workers' claims should be heard in U.S. federal court or whether the contracts the men signed meant the claims had to be settled by arbitration in the Philippines.

The workers' lawsuit says the Philippines' agency that administers arbitration won't enforce legal remedies called for in U.S. law, and that the arbitration process is corrupt.

“We want a fairer treatment,” Hernandez said in the AP interview. “We know that the system here is better.”

In a Sept. 23, 2022, ruling in New Orleans, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said the workers’ disputes over wages — they claim the company did not pay promised rates and denied them overtime for periods when they were effectively on call for offshore work — would be subject to arbitration in the Philippines. Barbier allowed the U.S. court case to proceed involving the allegations that the men were confined to the bunkhouse and treated unfairly, claims invoking U.S. human trafficking and fair housing law.

The workers' lawsuit seeks class-action status — meaning, if Barbier agrees, it would cover roughly 90 other Filipino men who worked for Grand Isle Shipyard. A victory would mean unspecified damages paid to the workers for the alleged human trafficking and fair housing allegations.

Grand Isle Shipyard is seeking damages, too, accusing the workers of making false allegations they claim were “maliciously fabricated” and could carry criminal implications that would damage the company.

In its counterclaim, Grand Isle Shipyard said it discovered that two of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit — who like Hernandez and Decena were said to be among numerous workers stranded in the bunkhouse when Ida hit — were actually in the Philippines at the time of the storm. Lawyers for the workers have since filed an amended version of the lawsuit, keeping the two as plaintiffs over living conditions and wages but removing the claim that they were with Hernandez, Decena and other workers in the bunkhouse at the time of the hurricane.

Grand Isle Shipyard has not granted telephoned requests for interviews or comment.

The workers are represented by attorney Daniel Werner in Georgia and lawyers with the Tulane University Law Clinic.

___

Associated Press reporter Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report.
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Sunday, January 12, 2020

THE MOST VULNERABLE WORKERS
Asian workers caught in a bind as Middle East tensions soar

Filipinos in Iraq question Duterte's evacuation plan while Indonesians in Mecca say they have not heard from Jakarta.
There are as many as two million Filipinos working across 
the Middle East region [File: Rolex Dela Pena/EPA]

It was early on Wednesday when the music at a bar near the United States consulate in Erbil abruptly stopped.

"They suddenly shut down all the ... establishments still open at that time, and ordered us all to leave immediately," recalled Mark, a Filipino migrant worker who asked to be identified only by his first name for safety concerns.

A commotion ensued, with people running towards every direction, Mark said. Meanwhile, at a military facility nearby, alarms rang out to warn of an impending attack.

Iran on Wednesday launched missiles at bases in Iraq hosting US troops in retaliation for the assassination last week of its top military commander, Qassem Soleimani, near Baghdad's international airport. Washington said Tehran fired 16 short-range ballistic missiles, with at least 11 striking Ain al-Assad airbase in Anbar province and one hitting a facility in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

As he hurried back to his apartment, about five minutes drive from the facility, Mark's immediate thought was how he and other Filipino workers could escape the violence.

He immediately bundled his backpack and alerted other Filipinos to get ready. Then he realised, they had nowhere to go.

Despite an earlier request for guidance, Philippine embassy officials in Baghdad have failed to provide them with information such as where to assemble in case of an evacuation order, Mark said.

The assassination of Iran's Quds Force commander Qassem 
Soleimani in Baghdad has triggered fears of a wider conflict
 in the Middle East region [Iraqi Prime Minister Press Office via AP]

The assassination of Soleimani and Iran's retaliatory missile strikes have created many unintended consequences, including the prospect of mass evacuation of millions of migrant workers in the Middle East.

The Philippines and Indonesia are among the leading exporters of human labour in Southeast Asia, deploying tens of thousands of migrant workers to the Middle East every year.

There are an estimated 1.2-2 million Filipino workers in the Middle East, almost half of whom are in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, there are as many as 1.2 million Indonesians in the region, with most working in the kingdom, according to the Jakarta labour advocacy group, Migrant Care.

Order to evacuate

Amid the escalation in tensions and insecurity across the region, Manila and Jakarta are scrambling to figure out how to safely bring their citizens home.

Interviews conducted by Al Jazeera with several migrant workers based in different Middle Eastern countries paint a picture of evacuation plans in disarray, or virtually non-existent.

On Thursday, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte created a taskforce to coordinate the government's evacuation plan. A day earlier, he had ordered a mandatory evacuation of all Filipino workers in Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, only to be contradicted by his own labour secretary, who on Thursday said the order only covers Iraq.

There are an estimated 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon; some 6,000 in Iraq; and another 1,600 in Iran.

In an earlier exchange on social media, Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin had assured Al Jazeera that a repatriation plan was in place.

Duterte's special representative to the Middle East, Roy Cimatu, a former general, was dispatched to Baghdad on Thursday to lead the evacuation there.

As of Wednesday, there were already 1,592 Filipinos, out of 6,000, who signed up for immediate repatriation, Cimatu said, adding that gradual evacuation had already started right after Soleimani's killing.

In a video posted online, Vice Consul Jomar Sadie, officer in charge at the Philippine embassy in Baghdad, also said that Filipinos in Iraq, including those in its Kurdish region, "are assured that the Philippine government is prepared to repatriate" them.
Failed contingency plan

Mark, the Filipino migrant worker who witnessed the chaos in Erbil, however, said embassy officials in Baghdad "failed to provide [a] basic contingency plan" for them.

"They know that there are a lot of us working here. But they did not bother to provide any information as to where we can assemble for pick up, or if they have transportation available," Mark said.

Every year, the Philippines deploys tens of the thousands 
of Filipino workers in the Middle East [File: Rolex dela Pena/EPA]

"I called the other Filipinos in Erbil, and they also told me that they don't know where to go."

Rolando Antisoda, another Filipino working in Erbil, was also critical of Philippine government officials, expressing frustration at the lack of "quick response" from embassy officials.

"Even a simple phone call, it takes them forever to answer."

In an interview with ABS-CBN television network, Sunshine, a Filipino manicurist who works in Baghdad, said she "does not trust" embassy officials there to help them.

She said she and 60 other Filipino employees were prevented by their company to evacuate until they pay $8,000 each to their employer.

Al Jazeera contacted Vice Consul Jomar Sadie for his response, but he did not pick up the call. Al Jazeera managed to contact the embassy's Administrative Officer Jerome F Friaz, but he declined to comment and directed all queries to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.
Philippines to end Syria peacekeeping mission (2:49)
Another Filipino diplomat, not assigned in the Middle East, insisted to Al Jazeera in a private message that there is always a contingency plan, but officials are careful in releasing information to avoid "panic" and "paranoia" among the affected Filipinos.

At the Philippine embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which was included in Duterte's original order of mandatory evacuation, more than 1,000 Filipinos, mostly women and some with children, showed up on Thursday to sign up for free repatriation. But it is unclear if they will be evacuated after it was announced that the alert level in Lebanon was downgraded.

Eljean Ello, a domestic worker in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera that she and her fellow workers never received word from embassy officials and that they only heard about Duterte's announcement from the news.

Filipinos in Iran also told Al Jazeera that while they received an alert from the embassy, there was no mention of an evacuation.

'We are safe here'

Meanwhile, Indonesian migrant worker Rajis Khana, who lives in Mecca, told Al Jazeera he had never heard from the Indonesian consulate about the latest escalation in the region but said he was confident that the tension would not affect Saudi Arabia.

"Mecca is safe because it's the holy city. Also, it's far from Iraq," he said.

Rajis, who has been working as a driver in the Gulf for 12 years, said other migrant workers shared the same sentiment.

In 2015, Jakarta banned the deployment of women workers to 21 Middle Eastern countries. By 2018, the country announced that it was poised to lift the ban. Deployment of male workers, meanwhile, has been going on for decades.

Most of the 1.2 million Indonesians migrant workers in
 the Middle East are employed in Saudi Arabia [File: Mast Irham/EPA]

Wahyu Susilo, executive director of Migrant Care, warned that if the conflict escalates, Indonesian President Joko Widodo might be forced to also order the evacuation of the more than 1.2 million workers in the Middle East.

So far, the Indonesian government has not ordered an evacuation.

Wahyu said there are as many as 10,000 Indonesian migrants working in Iraq, and most of them are "undocumented".

Migrant Care urged the Indonesian government to immediately register the workers, and possibly establish a crisis centre to handle a possible influx.

"If it's too ambitious to fly them back, the best thing that Indonesia can do is to open a crisis centre," Wahyu said.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizsyah, but he has not responded to the request at the time of publication.
Indonesian dies in Saudi residency protest (1:43)
In Tehran, the Indonesian embassy issued a letter urging its citizens to take precautions.

"Avoid places which are crowded or prone to conflict as well as places suspected to be targets. Only bring necessary items and prioritise your and your family's safety in the event of an evacuation," the embassy said in a statement posted on the foreign ministry's website.

In a separate statement published on the Antara News website, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said it is prepared to evacuate Indonesian citizens in Iran.

"We are ready, so everything is completed," she said. There are 400 Indonesians living in Iran, while there are 800 officially residing in Iraq. It is unclear why the evacuation order only covers Iran.

As for Rolando Antisoda, one of the Filipinos working in Erbil, he told Al Jazeera that he will likely defy Duterte's mandatory evacuation order.

"It is better for us to face threats of incoming missiles than let our families back home go hungry. If we go home, how are we going to feed them?"

With additional reporting by Febriana Firdaus in Indonesia

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS
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