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| Many FDWs are told they can't get paid for the days they were unable to work due to Covid-related reasons |
A Filipina helper who was terminated recently is claiming unpaid
salary for the months she was left alone at home when her employer and her
family went to China in December, and were subsequently locked down as a result
of the coronavirus outbreak.
The employer is reportedly insisting that the maid’s few
months’ wait was a “no pay leave.”
The plight of the abandoned domestic worker is just one of
scores of termination cases that helpers had reported to the Mission for
Migrant Workers these past few weeks.
Johannie Tong, community relations officer of the
church-based non-government organization, said in an interview on Apr 23 that
the helper had been left alone in the flat for a few months while her employers
went to the Mainland, and got stuck there.
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| Tong joins mask-distribution to FDHs enjoying their Sunday day-off |
But, one day, the worker was contacted by a representative
of her employers who told her she was being dismissed because the family wouldn’t
be returning from China.
“She is trying to talk to the employer at the moment because
we helped her calculate the compensation,” Tong said.
Settling the compensation has been muddled by the no-pay
leave argument many employers are using, citing the Covid-19 pandemic as reason.
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But in many of the cases, it is the helper who was unable to
return to work on time, after the Philippines imposed a three-week ban on travel to Hong Kong starting Feb 2.
Tong said that as the Labour Department or Immigration
Department has not made a clear stand on the issue, the maid’s employers are
insisting they have no obligation to pay her during the time that they
were away.
The employers reportedly insist the helper should not get
paid during their absence as she had nothing to do at their home for
months.
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“They were telling the helper, ‘You are here but you are not
working at all,’ as they considered the situation as a no pay leave,” Tong
said.
The employers told the worker she wouldn’t get paid for that
period only when they terminated her.
“So we told her, ‘This shouldn’t be happening because she
didn’t inform you in the first place that you stay here but you are not
receiving any payment',” Tong said.
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As of this writing, the abandoned worker is still awaiting
word from her absent employers about her compensation claim.
Tong said terminations had become frequent since the
coronavirus contagion reached Hong Kong in late January this year before it
became a pandemic.
