DOLE to HSWs: Honor your employment contracts

From the Department of Labor and Employment

Secretary of Labor and Employment Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz yesterday enjoined would-be overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), especially Household Service Worker (HSW) applicants, to honor their commitments based on their employment contract to be worthy of the better conditions and standards assured by host countries and overseas employers.

Baldoz said that doing so would redound to a good image for OFWs even as the government, particularly the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), is painstakingly working and pushing negotiations towards bilateral agreements and arrangements to ensure OFW protection, welfare, and benefit.

“OFWs must honor their commitments, too, even while they are still applying for an overseas job to bolster the preference for them by employers in countries of destination,” said Baldoz.

Baldoz made the encouragement after she received a letter from Victor E.R. Fernandez, Jr., president of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc. (PASEI), an organization of licensed overseas recruitment agencies, lauding the DOLE and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for strictly implementing the no-placement-fee policy in the recruitment of HSWs and for exacting compliance with this regulation from licensed overseas recruitment agencies engaged in the recruitment and deployment of HSWs.

“Currently, most recruitment agencies recruiting and deploying HSWs to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are announcing that HSW applicants are exempt from the payment of pre-application medical examinations and personal documents. In most cases, everything is provided free of cost to the HSWs, including the cost of transportation from the province to Manila, food and accommodation while in Manila, skills training, securing personal documents, such as passport and clearances, pre-employment and complete medical examination, and skills assessment. This appears to be the trend in the HSW labor market,” said Fernandez.

Fernandez, however, observed that this development has spawned a negative practice and attitude among HSW applicants.

“We have recorded that more OFWs are abruptly and irresponsibly deserting their applications and commitments for employment overseas without informing and communicating their true intentions to withdraw from or to no longer pursue their applications with their recruitment agencies,” he said.

“In several instances, documentation process had been completed and the HSW advised of her travel itinerary, on the day of scheduled departure, the HSW is a ‘no show’,” he added.

To remedy the situation, Fernandez recommended to the POEA that appropriate sanction, such as temporary disqualification from participation in the overseas employment program, be imposed against HSWs who abruptly and irresponsibly desert their obligations resulting in financial damages on the part of their foreign employers and the overseas employment service providers.

“Disciplining erring OFWs is certainly within the bounds of fairness and justice in the overseas employment industry,” he observed.

dole.gov.ph