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| No more cleaning of windows from outside from Oct 15 |
From Oct. 15, employers of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong will
be prohibited from ordering their maid to clean the exterior part of windows.
This is in line with a new memorandum issued by the
Philippine Overseas Labor Office on Oct. 1, and directed to all accredited employment
agencies.
The move came in the wake of calls for the said exclusion from
domestic work, following a rash of cases of maids falling from height while
cleaning windows, including Rinalyn Dulluog who fell from a Lohas Park high
rise on Aug. 9. Her death has led to the coining of the so-called “Rinalyn Exception”.
Philippine Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello tried during his visit to Hong Kong from Sept 23-25 to get his local counterpart Matthew Cheung to agree to the exclusion, but failed to get a definite response.
Following that visit, Labor Attache Jalilo de la Torre issued the memorandum which in part said:
“Pursuant to POLO's mandate to protect the welfare of Overseas Filipino Workers, and by virtue of a directive from the Office of the Secretary of Labor and Employment, effective Oct 15, 2016, all contracts of employment submitted individually and by agencies should contain a Rinalyn Exception in the Schedule of Accommodation and Duties, No. 5, which our online filing system, EmployEasy, will automatically print on all contracts as:
"For safety purposes, cleaning the exterior of windows is not part of the domestic helper's duties."
Please ensure that employers read this part and understand it before they sign the contract you will submit to us for verification and authentication”.
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| AMCB's Eman Villanueva |
POLO’s order was immediately applauded by the Association of
Migrants Coordinating Body (AMCB), a coalition of migrant support groups, and the
Hong Kong Union of Employment Agencies.
Unifil-Migrante spokesperson Eman Villanueva said, “We welcome
POLO’s initiative. It’s a positive move because even with limited capacity and
jurisdiction, Labatt de la Torre found a way to respond to our call for
improved safety for our workers”.
Thomas Chan, head of the agencies’ group said, “My association
supports this idea”. However, he expressed reservations about De la Torre’s
plan to print the exclusion directly on the contract, saying this might invalidate
the document.
“What we told Labatt is that the exclusion should just be included
in a separate document outlining the agencies’ undertaking,” said Chan.
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| HKUEA's Thomas Chan |
He also admitted that some agencies had reservations about the
ban, as they anticipate most employers to express resistance.
“They might be thinking, ‘who would clean the windows then?’, but
we plan to educate the employers so hopefully, they would come to accept it”.
Villanueva said that a ban on window cleaning is not unusual as it
has been in force in Singapore since 2012, also as a result of accidents
involving domestic workers.
But Hong Kong has reportedly balked at the idea because it does
not want to open the floodgates to other concern groups demanding changes in
the standard employment contract, including an employers’ organization that is
pushing for a trial period for newly hired maids.
“Ni-raise na naming iyan noon pang August, pero ang mabilis nilang
sagot e, mahihirapan silang i-amend yung standard contract kasi yung mga
employers at agencies ay may gusto ding ipabago”, said Villanueva.
Still, he said his group will keep on pressing the government to
include the prohibition in the contract to enhance workers’ safety.
In the meantime, he said his group plans to lobby the Indonesian
consulate to also include the prohibition in the contracts for their newly
hired domestic workers.
If both the Philippine and
Indonesian governments would add the safety provision, Villanueva said more
than 90% of all foreign domestic workers would already be covered, and Hong
Kong would not have much reason not to extend the protection to others.- The SUN-HK
