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Issue No. 41                        November 25 - December 1,  2001              Quezon City, Philippines







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Migrant Section:

Filipino Migrant Workers in Hong Kong Oppose Wage Cuts, Discriminatory Policies

After spending Christmas holidays with their families in the Philippines this December, Filipino domestics will be returning to Hong Kong  with uncertainties and even dim prospects of not being able to go back to their jobs at all. They will find their wages cut and the quota of jobs allotted for domestics reduced. Against these odds, organized Filipinos on the island are up in arms.

BY BULATLAT.COM
 

At least 31 federations of Filipino overseas contract workers (OCWs), church and support groups in Hong Kong this week demanded the island’s Education and Manpower Bureau to drop its plans to lower the wages of foreign domestics by January next year and other recent anti-migrant proposals.

The groups, including the United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-HK), Association of Concerned Filipinos, Friends of Bethune House and Filipino Friends in Hong Kong also asked the Chinese government to maintain the current low minimum wage of foreign domestics and allow them to live out of their employers’ homes.

In a statement, the groups cited one legislator, Choy So-yuk, who asked that wages of foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) be reduced to HK$2,500 a month. They also said that the reason given by the Bureau for its plan – economic slump - is no different from what they claimed in 1998 when they lowered wages by 5%.

The Bureau’s plan comes two weeks after it moved to stop from living outside their employers’ domain purportedly to protect the jobs of Chinese domestics. The plan is set to be implemented early next year.

Yet another move by Hong Kong authorities, as proposed by legislator Frederick Fung Kin Kee, is to limit the number of FDHs in the island to 100,000 in order, they said, to protect the jobs of Chinese workers. The proposal however is under further discussion in the light of fears by other authorities that the reduction of quota could lead to a shortage of domestics on the island.

Most lowly-paid

“We are opposed to lower our wages because as we stated in 1998, foreign domestic helpers are already the most lowly paid foreign workers in Hong Kong,” the groups said in their statement. “Since 1991, our wages have increased by only 3 times, the last of which was in 1996, when our wage was $HK3,860. Since the hand-over of Hong Kong to China, not only was there a wage freeze, but a wage cut of 5% in 1999.”

The organizations reminded Hong Kong authorities that the presence of FDHs contributes not only to the Chinese economy but also liberates local women from household chores thus enabling them to find work and increase the earnings of their families.

Reports said that foreign domestics – many of them Filipinos – usually work an average of 16 hours a day aside from being on call for 24 hours.

“They are given crucial responsibilities by their employers, like taking care of the children, elderly and in fact of the whole family,” the groups said. “Since most of them live in their employer's house, they are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation like being made to do illegal work by their employers.”

Lowering the wages of foreign domestics, they said, would lower their purchasing power thus further depressing the earnings of local retailers. It would also affect the remittances that they send back to their families who are faced by rising prices of basic commodities and services.

‘Racist and anti-migrant’

The groups denounced Deputy Secretary for Education and Manpower Philip Chok Kin-fun for suggesting that FDHs are a factor in Hong Kong’s economic slump and for denying labor authorities are being “racist and anti-migrant” whenever government lowers the minimum wages of migrant workers.

In the first place, the groups said, Choc Kin-fun should realize that foreign workers were not behind the economic crisis in Hong Kong. Authorities, they said, are indeed racist and anti-migrant whenever migrant workers, especially domestics, become the target of a series of minimum wage cutbacks, infringements on other rights such as abolishing maternity benefits, imposing a service tax on maids and a levy on employers of FDHs.

Other groups who joined the call against wage cutbacks and other anti-migrant plans were: the Association of Concerned Filipinos, Pinatud a Saleng ti Umili, Dolores Civic Association, Methodist Filipino Fellowship, Alay Kapwa Group, St. John's Filipino Fellowship, San Vicente Migrant Organization, Pasuquin Elite Migrant Association, Women of Philippine Independent Church – Antique Chapter, Balili Alab Workers Association, Tayug Pangasinan HK, Villasis Migrant Workers Association, Quintinians Overseas Workers Association, Binalonan Migrant Workers Association Philippine Independent Church Choir; BMWO, BFTAMP, AGAWA Organization, Kalinga Apayao Hong Kong Workers Association, Association of Filipino Builders, Santiago City Overseas Workers Association, Cordillera Alliance HK, Filipino Migrant Workers Union, Mindanao Federation, United Pangasinan Hong Kong Association,Asia Pacific Mission for Migrant Filipinos, Bethune House Migrant Women's Refuge and the Mission for Filipino Migrant Workers (HK) Society. Bulatlat.com

   


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