Oppression of migrant workers
The Estrada government has neither the interest nor the capacity to create jobs because of its avid implementation of antiindustrialization policies in accordance with the dictates of imperialism and the interests of the local ruling classes. Thus, the huge army of the unemployed continues to grow.
Not unlike previous regimes, the US-Estrada regime regards the export of workers as the key to solving this problem. Estrada continues to auction off to foreigners at rock-bottom rates the contractual labor power of Filipino workers.
The Philippines is one of the largest exporters of labor in the world. There are now more than seven million Filipino migrant workers and a growing number of people who, driven by extreme poverty, are ready to suffer and work like slaves in other countries just so their families could survive. They can be found in around 180 countries worldwide.
More than 60% of all migrant Filipino workers are merely under contract. Thus, they usually endure even more oppressed conditions involving slave wages, absence of job security, maltreatment and the utmost deprivation of their rights as workers and as human beings.
Most migrant Filipino workers are to be found in the Middle East (one million, half of whom are in Saudi Arabia), Japan (250,000) and Hong Kong (180,000). Only less than three million of them are documented. They work in factories, construction sites, hospitals, ships, oil rigs and others. Many of them are employed as domestic helpers and entertainers and are vulnerable to abuse. There are also a number of professionals.
In the last quarter of 1999, migrant workers' remittances to the Philippines surged to $8 billion from $2 billion in 1998. This has, in recent years, been the single most important factor that has kept the sinking national economy from completely going under. As the government's official statistics are unable to conceal this fact, migrant workers have been hailed as the country's "new heroes" in a fit of tokenism. Despite this, the reactionary regime is still the foremost accomplice of foreigners in exploiting Filipino migrant workers. | EVEN BEFORE THEY COULD TRAVEL ABROAD, MIGRANT WORKERS ARE ALREADY BURDENED BY THE GOVERNMENT WITH VARIOUS, OFTENTIMES RIDICULOUS FEES, SUCH AS THE VOLUNTARY MEMBERSHIP FEE , PLACEMENT FEE, PAYMENT FOR A PASSBOOK , TRAVEL TAX, AIRPORT FEE AND MANY MORE. |
Collections. Even before they could travel abroad, migrant workers are already burdened by the government with various, oftentimes ridiculous fees such as the "voluntary membership fee", placement fee, payment for a "passbook", travel tax, airport fee and many more. This is apart from the bribes they have to shell out.
As a result, the government collects up to P76,000 from each migrant worker bound for Taiwan. The latter are thus often mired neck-deep in debts, especially workers who are forced to come home without having saved enough.
In Hong Kong, both the Philippine and Hong Kong governments slash more than P14,000 a month from the salaries of Filipino migrant workers.
The scheming government rakes in millions but not a single centavo benefits migrants or their families.
Slashing already meager wages. The Philippines is known for being a reservoir of one of the world s cheapest labor. Aside from paying them relatively low wages, foreign employers and governments devise various ways of siphoning money from Filipino workers.
Workers employed as domestic helpers in Hong Kong are among the Filipino migrants who receive the lowest monthly wages (HK$3,670 or P18,000). Worse, government collections leave them with an even smaller amount to take home to the Philippines, too meager to provide for the basic monthly needs of a typical family.
In Asia, the collection of forced savings is rampant. Foreign employers collect forced savings supposedly as a guarantee against abandonment by an employee. Amounting to up to a third of an employees' monthly salaries, the fund is supposed to be given to the workers at the termination of their contracts. But whether migrant workers actually get it or not is all up to the whim of their employers. At the Ching Yang Tech Co. in Taiwan, for example, a total of NT$6.8 million (P95.2 million) in forced savings was amassed from 94 Filipino migrants.
No job security. As unemployment worsens in capitalist countries, more and more migrant workers are being arbitrarily laid off from foreign businesses that are going bankrupt. In fact, migrant workers are the first to be retrenched. This year, around 40,000 Filipino migrants in Japan and 7,000 more in South Korea were forcibly repatriated ostensibly in a drive against undocumented migrant workers.
Repression of workers' rights. Migrant workers are expressly forbidden to organize unions anywhere in the world. Because they are merely contract workers, they are denied the right to negotiate for additional wages, job security and benefits. They are forced to accept working conditions stipulated in onerous contracts drawn up by placement agencies here in the Philippines.
In Saudi Arabia, anyone who attempts to form any group to advance the rights of migrant workers is slapped with a jail term if not executed.
Those who dare to stand up and complain about their oppressive conditions are blacklisted. Anyone on this list loses any chance to work abroad.
Abandonment by the reactionary state. The reactionary government failed to act on as many as 3,007 cases of migrant workers in 1999, proof of its apathy in the face of migrant workers' worsening oppression and violations of the numerous international conventions on labor to which it is a signatory. Many migrant workers have attempted to flee from their employers because of maltreatment, physical and sexual abuse, contract violations, dire working conditions, long working hours, lack of overtime pay and intense discrimination.
That the reactionary government is reneging on its responsibility to protect migrant workers is a glaring fact. As of the end of 1998, around 2,000 migrant workers imprisoned in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Japan had been abandoned by the government. At the end of 1999, around 200 former migrant workers were being treated at the National Center for Mental Health due to various psychological illnesses caused by severe maltreatment. Around 700 Filipino migrant workers die every year, 25% under suspicious circumstances. Every month, an average of 10 Filipino migrant workers are brought home in coffins to the Philippines.
The subjugation of Filipino migrant workers is sure to continue with the full deregulation of labor migration that takes effect this year in accordance with the Migrant Act of 1995. With this, the government outrightly shakes off all responsibility in matters concerning migrant workers' wages, terms of contract and working conditions, claiming that these are "exclusively between the employer and the employee".
Their very experience teaches Filipino migrants that they could never hope to have a bright future for their families under the current reactionary system. Not surprisingly, growing numbers of migrant workers are joining the revolutionary struggle.
It is proper and necessary for the Party to ceaselessly arouse, organize and mobilize migrant workers to tread the path of revolution. Their families should also be painstakingly made aware of the ruling system's inutility to look after the people's interests and shown that only a revolution could lay the basis for economic stability.
| 
