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By Vir B. Lumicao
Foreign domestic workers should know every part of their work contract to be able to tell whether the service that they are required to do is legal or not.
This was the advice of Reginald Frection, a University of York labor law researcher and NGO head whose research focuses on domestic workers in Hong Kong and how the government provides the appropriate means to address violations of their rights.
Frection, chief executive of ARES Human Rights International, was the main speaker in a training workshop, “Making Wrongs Right”, held on Aug 28 at the Resurrection Church in Pak Sha Wan, Saikung.
The workshop was organized by ARES and migrant workers group OFWs in Hong Kong, led by its president Regina de Andres. More than 40 domestic helpers participated in the event hosted by Resurrection Church.
“You must know who the employer is, what type of work you’re gonna do, under what conditions you’re gonna do it, and how much you’re gonna be paid,” Frection said.
He said when a worker finds out the job “is not what was promised, then there is a problem…what you get that’s not there is illegal”. In that case she should have the option to leave, but she cannot, he said.
Hong Kong is not a signatory to the Forced Labour Convention No. 29 of 1930, but its former colonial ruler, Britain, signed it in 1931. China, which regained Hong Kong in 1997, has not ratified the convention.
The convention states that “all work exacted from any person under the menace of penalty and for which a person has not offered himself voluntarily” is considered forced labor, Frection said.
Domestic workers in Hong Kong work and live in conditions that meet the 11 indicators of forced labor identified by the International Labor Organization, Frection said.
Those indications are abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, physical and sexual violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identity documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive working and living conditions and excessive overtime work.
The domestic workers were taught how to identify those elements, understand their contracts and document their working and living conditions, as well as the methods to resolve their problems.
Frection cited a report in The SUN about a helper who was forced to sleep in a wooden box by her employer as an example of violation of a worker’s human rights. He rued that an administrative court, the Minor Employment Claims Adjudication Board, had ruled that the box accommodation was acceptable.
Frection also discussed working hours in Hong Kong, where the legislated norm for local workers was 48 hours over six days a week, with security guards having a longer work week lasting 66 hours, substantially above the national average.
But then domestic workers put in 96 hours a week, excluding work they are required to perform on their day off, without the government regulating their working hours.
He said domestic workers can protect themselves from such abuses by documenting their problems with their phones for audio and video recording and writing on a notebook, as they need a 51-49% preponderance of evidence to prove their case.
Another guest speaker, Assistant Labor Attache Henry Tianero, clarified the issue of abolition of the overseas employment certificate.
“Ano ang sinabi ni Pangulong Duterte noong dumalaw sa POEA at nakita ang mahabang pila? ‘Alisin ang OEC.’ Kaya wala na nang OEC, pero…kailangang mag-register kayo sa BM Online,” Tianero said.
With the OEC gone, the Philippine Overseas Labour Office will now have more time to level up its services to workers by conducting seminars and trainings in post-Hong Kong livelihood activities, Tianero said.
