Domestic workers

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Tens of thousands of Malaysian households have been thrown into domestic chaos as a shortage of maids hits a country with a long-standing addiction to cheap foreign labour.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Tens of thousands of Malaysian households have been thrown into domestic chaos as a shortage of maids hits a country with a long-standing addiction to cheap foreign labor.

As a segment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) more prone to abuse and maltreatment, women should be restricted to work as domestic helpers and factory workers abroad, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said Wednesday.

Filipinos working as household service workers (HSWs) cannot avail themselves of Taiwan’s recent minimum wage hike for workers, the Department of Labor and Employment said Wednesday.

MANILA, Philippines—Household helpers, or “kasambahay,” have something to look forward to in the new year.

MANILA, Philippines – More Filipinos are leaving to work as domestic helpers abroad, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said yesterday.

Amid the alarming number of foreign household helpers dying or being abused in Kuwait, the Philippine Embassy there has urged agency owners to step up efforts to ensure the safety and welfare of overseas Filipino workers in that Middle East country.

The Senate yesterday approved on third and final reading Senate Bill 78 which will increase the minimum wage of house helpers or “kasambahays” and will provide them with additional benefits.

MANILA, Philippines—A bill that will provide a higher minimum wage and additional benefits for house helpers, or “kasambahays,” has been approved on third and final reading in the Senate.

MANILA, Philippines – Three housemaids, two of them minors, were rescued by the police in a raid at their employers’ house in Sta. Ana, Manila Tuesday night.

A high-level United Nations (UN) body has adopted a jurisprudence on the rights of migrant domestic workers worldwide and recognized recommendations for the protection of these workers.

Hong Kong – A Filipino maid is challenging Hong Kong’s immigration laws in a bid to win the right to citizenship, a news report said Sunday.

Susana Danio, a Filipina maid from Pangasinan, recently won a legal battle in the United Kingdom over being unfairly dismissed by Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece, reports ABS-CBNNews.com. The London-born princess, heiress daughter of US duty-free billionaire Robert Miller, was ordered to pay Danio almost £7,500 (about P500,000).

Effective next year, Switzerland will implement a new minimum wage for domestic workers in that central European country—the first such law implemented by the Swiss federal government following reports of widespread salary abuse.

Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada broke inter-parliamentary courtesy as he slammed members of the House of Representatives for their inaction on “kasambahay bill,” the measure prescribing decent employment terms for house helps.

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate has approved on second reading a bill granting household helpers or “kasambahay” a higher monthly minimum wage and additional benefits, and ensuring their rights.

MANILA, Philippines (PNA) — An estimated two million household workers stand to benefit from the proposed Batas Kasambahay, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada said on Tuesday as he prepares to sponsor the measure this week.

A 28-year-old Filipina worker in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was “rescued” after allegedly being assaulted by her Egyptian employers, a UEA-based news site reported.

MANILA, Philippines – A bill has been filed in the House of Representatives pegging the salary of maids at no less than P3,500 for those employed in Metro Manila, P3,000 for those in chartered cities and first-class municipalities, and P2,000 in other lower-class municipalities.

MANILA, Philippines – Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim yesterday directed the police to file charges possible against a woman who allegedly physically abused her 17-year-old maid, whose body bore bruises, welts, and bite marks. Lim said he was shocked when he visited the victim in her room at the Jose Abad Santos Mother and Child Hospital…

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada on Wednesday said he is hopeful that the passage of a bill granting better benefits to household workers would become a model legislation that the Philippines’ neighboring countries can look up to.

Spotlight interview with Elizabeth Tang (HKCTU-Hong Kong) “Society’s attitude to domestic workers is starting to improve” Brussels, 14 September 2010 (ITUC OnLine):  The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) (1) is among the organisations most experienced in the defence of domestic workers in Asia. Its chief executive, Elizabeth Tang, looks back on the difficulties…

Recruiters have expressed concern over reports that several overseas Filipino workers bound for Hong Kong have been canceling their employment contracts following the August 23 hostage tragedy in Manila where eight tourists from the Chinese region were killed.

Hong Kong’s wage commission has announced it has agreed on a figure for the territory’s first minimum wage. But the agreed level – likely to raise the earnings of 11% of the working population – is unlikely to satisfy employers or workers.

MANILA, Philippines – Labor leader Ernesto Herrera claimed on Wednesday that reports of massive termination of Filipino maids in Hong Kong are “grossly exaggerated”.

Both private and government sectors are laying down contingency measures in case Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong are terminated by their employers as a backlash of the Aug. 23 hostage incident in Manila that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead.

HONG KONG– Joy Fajardo likes to spend her Sundays meeting friends from her home town in Chater Garden, a famous gathering spot for the Philippine community at the heart of Hong Kong’s financial centre.

Some employers kept waiting for a month; others find way around Manila govt’s demands It’s the US$400 ($540) pay. And the four days off a month. In the past month, Filipinas trying to come to Singapore to work as maids have been held up by a standoff.

Officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) under acting Gov. Ansaruddin Alonto-Adiong are undertaking active initiatives to curb the problem of unemployment, including displaced overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the autonomous region.

A group of accredited Hong Kong recruiters in the Philippines assured that Hong Kong employers have not trimmed their job orders for Filipino workers as an aftermath of the Monday hostage-taking incident at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila.