Errant recruitment agencies face axe

Manpower agencies violating the new recruitment norms set by the Philippine authorities will see their pre-qualification certificates cancelled.

"Actually, I already cancelled one in Ras Al Khaimah," Labour Attache for Dubai and the Northern Emirates, Virginia Calves, told The Gulf Today.

Abu Dhabi Labour Attache, Nasser Mundir, stressed that housemaids and all Filipinos hired in households as nannies, tutors, cooks and gardeners must not hesitate in securing assistance from the Philippine missions if they realise that they have been cheated by either their recruitment agencies or their employers, or both.

Reports from the Department of Labour and Employment (DoLE) in Intramuros, Manila, say that investigations are underway into recruitment violations. Calves had said in an earlier interview that there were no violations in her jurisdiction, as there have also been employers who request for a certification from the Philippine Consulate about it.

The Gulf Today sought an update from both the officials about the implementation of the nine-month old Reform Package in the Foreign Deployment of Household Service Workers.

The package principally increased the monthly salary of all Filipino domestic workers to $400 (Dhs1,460) from $200 (Dhs700). Under the new package it is now compulsory for the Filipino maids to pass a household management-language-culture course from the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, before they go abroad.

"I am thankful to our household workers who know what to do when they don't get their dues. Their employers are also co-operative and when they ask for the certificate, I fax it to them," Calves said.

Meanwhile, according to the Manila report quoting DoLE Secretary Arturo Brion, principals and employers in cahoots with these agencies would also be blacklisted.

His decision was an offshoot of feedbacks from the Philippine Overseas Labour Office (Polo) in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia of agencies and employers hiring cleaners but ended up as domestic workers earning $268 a month.

Brion also got a report from the Polo in Kuwait involving the same violations of underpayment of salaries and contract substitution as well as reprocessing of contracts.

Calves said she decided to cancel the participation of the Ras Al Khaimah-based agency after a housemaid had complained that her employer refused to give her due of $400 and despite follow ups by a Filipino community leader regarding her case.

"The agency simply did not bother to work things out so I decided to cancel its pre-qualification and without this, this agency and its accredited licensed counterpart in the Philippines could no longer do business with us," Calves said, pointing out the joint liability clause for all UAE-based and Philippine-based manpower agencies under Philippine laws.

She also had taken note of the employer.

Calves said that in a recent meeting with all 28 accredited agencies in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, no one among these questioned the implementation of the policy as it has been made clear to them time and again that should they get unco-operative, the Philippines would not be sending domestic workers for their prospective clients.

No placement fees

On the other hand, Mundir disclosed that among wards at the Filipino Workers Resource Centre at the Polo in Abu Dhabi are domestic workers who became victims of recruitment agencies charging them placement fees.

"We have some cases of that," Mundir said when asked about the DoLE report stating that domestic workers bound for Hong Kong and other destinations had been promised refund of placement fees.

These victims, he said, had admitted to being willing victims and paid their recruitment agencies between Dhs400 and Dhs850 just to be able to go abroad quickly.

"That's why, my advice is to immediately inform our Philippine Overseas Employment Administration because we cannot be successful in this if the people we are protecting with this reform package are the ones colluding with erring agencies," Mundir said.

Under the reform package, all domestic workers seeking overseas employment should not be charged placement fees equivalent to three months salary.

As former Consul General for Dubai and the Northern Emirates Antonio Curameng once told The Gulf Today: "The reason they are going abroad is to earn money. It defeats the purpose if we charge them placement fees."