The SUN HK : Filipina fired on spot mulls filing discrimination suit vs employer

By The SUN

Jhen (in red) spent two days outside Queen Mary Hospital last year, along with fellow Pinay patient

On Feb. 14 last year, Jhen tested positive for Covid-19 and her employers immediately told her to leave their house in Mid-Levels. It was the height of the fifth and deadliest wave of the pandemic in Hong Kong, and her employers were scared she could infect them and their two young children.

Jhen was given $100 and told to go to Queen Mary Hospital in Pokfulam. But after confirmatory tests at the hospital showed she had Covid-19, Jhen and another infected Filipina were asked to leave, with staff there saying they could not be admitted without a referral.

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Not knowing where to go, the two camped outside the hospital for two days in the dead of winter, and managed to survive only on food donations from strangers who dropped them off before scampering away.\

Fast forward to yesterday, when Jhen was told by the same employers she had returned to after spending more than a month in isolation between February and March last year, to pack her things and go.

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No money was paid to her, and the employers said they would settle all their monetary obligations through their recruitment agency.

Now Jhen is wondering whether she could still pursue a claim for her employer’s failure to pay her any salary for the time she spent in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19.

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She also recalled getting a deduction in her salary for the two days that she had a fever and was unable to work, about three months into her employment.

Most importantly, she wants to find out if she could still pursue a claim for disability discrimination against her employers for driving her away after learning that she had come down with the coronavirus.

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Jhen said she was forced to return to her employers then as she had just moved in with them, and she badly needed money to send to her family back in the Philippines. Nobody also advised her on her options, as the rapidly spreading virus was wreaking havoc across the city.

She said she wants these matters resolved before going to her employment agency to settle her claims against her employer.

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While she was taken aback by her employer’s decision to fire her on the spot after returning from her day-off, Jhen said it was not exactly smooth sailing between them for the past several weeks.

Her female employer had been complaining recently about missing “small things” around the house, and had hinted that Jhen and a second Filipina helper in their employ were behind the losses.

As a result, the two helpers were told to present their bags for inspection each time they left the house for their days off.

Stung, Jhen once told her employer that “pumunta po kami dito sa Hong Kong para magtrabaho at hindi magnakaw” (we came to Hong Kong to work and not steal), an answer that did not sit well with their bosses.

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“Ang sabi, mahilig daw kaming makipagtalo, pero sabi ko naman sinasagot lang namin ang pambibintang niya,” said Jhen. (They said we like to argue but I said replied that we were just responding to their accusations).

After some of the supposed missing items surfaced the employer would just keep quiet and not acknowledge that she had done them wrong by falsely accusing them of taking things from the house.

There were other irritants, said Jhen, like the cramped space where she and her companion had to sleep at night. She said she took photos of their room, but her male employer ordered her to delete them when she found them in her mobile phone.

The employer also found her diaries, and had accused her of setting them up for a claim.

While she did not consider this initially, Jhen now does plan to claim what is due her under the law. Being wronged twice is making her feel she now has to take action to get the relief that she deserves.