200 Filipino OFWs in NZ go on strike

MANILA, Philippines—About 200 Filipino employees of a New Zealand telecommunications firm joined a nationwide rally Tuesday that was held to protest the adoption of a scheme transforming the employees into sub-contractors.

Migrante-New Zealand, an overseas Filipino workers group, reported that the Filipino engineers working for Telecom New Zealand Ltd’s Chorus Division in Auckland and Northland joined the rally, worried about losing their jobs due to company’s decision to sign a new contract with Visionstream telecommunications project manager and developer.

Half of the 400 affected workers are Filipinos and the rest are British, South Africans and Fiji Indians. Many are on work permits and cannot become self-employed subcontractors.

Migrante-NZ coordinator Dennis Maga said under the scheme, workers are required to switch from working for the company as employees to being sub-contracted owner operators.

However, to become a subcontractor to Visionstream, Maga said one has to have between $20,000 and $30,000 to be in business and the former workers will take on all the associated risk.

“The business model is an example of how companies can forego their responsibilities, increase unemployment and disregard workers’ rights to job security. Workers will have to choose if they want to become heavily indebted or be out of work,” he said.

Maga said Migrante was “very concerned” that Visionstream’s model might be copied by other companies and therefore displace more local and migrant workers.

Guanlao is a Migrante leader in Auckland and member of the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union which organized Tuesday’s strike that crippled the phone, Internet, credit card and automated teller machine operations in many parts of New Zealand.

“I opted to work in this country thinking I had better prospect of job security as I had skills in the shortage list. Telecom has shattered our dreams,” added Ariel Guanlao, a residential faultman who has been working at Telecom for three years, was a former employee of Philippine Long Distance Co. for 16 years before going to New Zealand three years ago.

Guanlao later became a permanent resident under the Work-to-Residence policy. He said he did not believe Telecom was losing profits when it recently announced that 900 jobs will be lost because of the global economic crisis plaguing the New Zealand economy.

“Telecom’s new contract with Visionstream is clearly anti-migrant and one of the worst forms of union-busting and business profiteering at the expense of workers’ rights and welfare. I worry about the fate of work permit holders [because] like them, I have no job to return to in the Philippines,” he said. –Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer