Saudi sets min wage for domestic workers

Saudi Arabia has set a minimum wage of SAR600-800 (US$160-213) for foreign domestic workers in the Gulf state. Officials in the GCC’s largest country set the cost of recruitment fees at SAR15,000 - 17,000, local media reported citing Saad Al-Badah, chairman of the national recruitment committee at the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Recruitment fees will be inclusive of visa costs, two-year medical insurance, a one-way ticket, residence permit fees for two years and a medical checkup, said Al-Badah, adding that he expected the move to reduce the number of runaway cases amongst domestic workers by 80 percent. Saudi Arabia, like much of the Gulf region, depends on foreign workers to fill jobs at all levels of the economy. The Gulf state is home to around 8m foreign workers. Source: By Claire Valdini Sunday, 1 April 2012 12:39 PM http://www.arabianbusiness.com/saudi-sets-min-wage-for-domestic-workers-452156.html

DoLE

DoLE sees P13-P21 wage-hike range March 30, 2012 Malacaang has avoided tackling the clamor for higher daily wages head on, although a recent assessment made by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz that wage hikes of between P13 to P21 may be imposed by the Regional Wage Boards (RWB), a range way below the P125 increment that labor groups have been asking. We will leave that decision to the RWBs which were already directed to conduct a public consultation for the wage hike, deputy spokesman Abigail Valte said yesterday. It was earlier reported that Baldoz surmised that the much-awaited increase in pay of daily wage earners would only be from P13 to P21. Baldoz said she arrived at these amounts based on five percent of the inflation rate. The Labor secretarys assessment was way below the P125 increment being asked by militant labor groups and not even half the more moderate P90-wage increase being asked by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. Public consultations on the proposed wage hikes will start on May 26. –Rocky G. Nazareno, Daily Tribune

LABOR ADVOCACY GROUP: Trade Union Congress of the Philippines

LABOR ADVOCACY GROUP: Trade Union Congress of the Philippines: MANILA, Philippines—Despite the popular notion that women were now making strides in the workplace, Filipino women still suffer from lower w...

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines—Despite the popular notion that women were now making strides in the workplace, Filipino women still suffer from lower wages and lower quality jobs when compared to their male counterparts, a labor think-tank said Thursday.

The Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) said that, based on the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics’ 2011 Gender Statistics on Labor and Employment, women still bear the brunt of the highly backward domestic economy as they are “concentrated on volatile and informal jobs with low or no wages at all.”

“For instance, there are 2.3 million Filipino women who render unpaid labor especially in the countryside, being classified as part of the ‘unpaid family workers’. This segment of female workforce is mired in rock-bottom poverty and is highly prone to exploitation and abuse,” said Anna Leah Escresa, EILER executive director.

“Since they have no pre-determined scope of work, unpaid female family workers also experience long hours of strenuous work that poses serious risks to their health and reproductive well-being,” she added.

Escresa said there were 1.63 million Filipino women working in private households, normally as helpers, who “suffer measly wages and unsecure employment terms.”

“On an average, females working in private households earn only P123.20 per day, or merely P3,203 a month. Such wage rate is obviously inhumane amid skyrocketing prices of oil and basic commodities,’ Escresa said.

The think tank said that even in the manufacturing sector, women were still in a disadvantaged position since they earn an average wage “that is 7.3 percent lower than men’s wage in the sector.”

Female factory workers earn on an average P296.36 daily, lower than men’s daily rate of P319.75, though both wage levels are still below the highest mandated minimum wage of P426, Escresa said.

“Wage inequality is sharpest in the hotels and restaurants subsector, wherein women workers earn wages that are 77.80 percent lower than their male counterparts,” Escresa she added.

According to EILER, the Philippine Labor and Employment Plan (PLEP) 2011-2016 of the Aquino administration will not address the grim state of Filipino workers as the policy merely hinges on employment facilitation rather than creation of new and decent jobs.

“Ironically, President Benigno Aquino III chose to fancy different women while ironically overlooking the current grim conditions of Filipino women workers,” Escresa said. –Philip C. Tubeza, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Source: http://www.tucp.org.ph/news/index.php/2012/03/2-3m-filipino-women-still-suffer-unfair-labor-practices/

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Subject SSS, GSIS holdings to challenge—labor group

Dismayed by audit reports showing the Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) may not have gotten the best deal for their members when they sold their Meralco holdings for only P90 per share, the country’s biggest labor union proposed that the two state pension funds submit their marketable securities to a “Swiss challenge.”

“A Swiss challenge will allow the discovery of other potential investors who may be willing to acquire at higher prices the securities held by SSS or GSIS,” said Trade Union Congress of the Philippines president Ernesto Herrera in a statement.

The TUCP issued the statement in reaction to a Commission on Audit report that questioned the sale by SSS of its 62,990,638 shares in power firm Meralco for P5.66 billion to a newly formed entity with net assets of only P60 million.

The Meralco shares were sold at P90 each to Global 5000 Investment Corp. in December 2008.

Meralco’s stock closed last Friday at P269 per share.

Source: Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Herrera no longer TUCP General Secretary;

Father of Labor Contractualization

 no longer TUCP General Secretary

 

Good riddance to the Father of Labor Contractualization- TUCP

“Good bye to the “Father of Contractualization” who betrayed the interest of Filipino workers and who was a traitor to the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP)” said Rep. Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza, referring to former Senator and former TUCP General Secretary Ernesto” Boy” Herrera.

The Trade Union Congress Party (TUCP Party-List) dismissed the threats of Mr. Herrera as the “laughable, empty, ridiculous ruminations of a spent political force”. “Mr. Herrera should wake up to face the bleak existence of a politician without a constituency, without a base, and without a future. He is despised universally by Filipino workers as the father of job contractualization. TUCP was greatly damaged by being associated with him. TUCP is glad to end any with association with him now. Good riddance,” said Mendoza.

“Boy” attempted a power grab and failed. He is now misrepresenting himself as president of TUCP. Atty. Democrito Mendoza rescinded his letter of resignation after the majority of the TUCP General Council pleaded with Atty. Mendoza not to resign from TUCP. He remains and continues to be the President of TUCP,” explained Mendoza. “Herrera and his ilk like Alejandro Villaviza of Philippine Federation of Labor do not have any unions and members to speak of. They are spent-forces politically and organizationally who cannot command loyalty from the major labor federations and the unorganized as they have sold out the workers’ interest. They were the ones who practice self-dealing,” Mendoza stressed.

“Herrera mismanaged the TUCP as General Secretary and mishandled the funds intended for TUCP projects as was unearthed by external auditors hired by the TUCP. An ongoing external audit conducted has initially surfaced unliquidated advances of 2.5 million pesos to Herrera drawn from a TUCP account funded through a livelihood grant from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). In the checks Herrera is both the payor and the payee. That is self-dealing of the worst sort and he should be ashamed to even invoke the name of Cory and Ninoy as who Herrera is now and what Herrera is now taints their very memory,” said Mendoza.

“Herrera and his cohorts will face multiple charges of financial wrongdoing after the external audit of TUCP funds is completed. He cannot escape from his criminal acts against the TUCP and the Filipino workers whom he sold to corporate greed by authoring labor contractualization in the country,” he said.

“We are happy to begin anew in TUCP without Herrera, Villaviza and other supposedly labor leaders who do not actually have followers. For the longest time, Herrera was a heavy liability to TUCP as he was tainted with a reputation of corruption and selling out the workers,” Mendoza said.

“His departure opens up a new chapter in history for the TUCP”, said Mendoza.

“For the record, Boy Herrera fielded his own children as party-list nominees under a different partylist and Citizens Drug Watch. All miserably lost because of association with Herrera. They are absolutely shameless in their disloyalty to the TUCP Party-List. Herrera and Villaviza are not the TUCP Party. The TUCP Party are the ordinary workers who are just trying to make a better life for their family through an honest living. TUCP has no place for crooks,” said Mendoza.

“The end of the Herrera period will now energize TUCP to put a stop to job contractualization, by passing stronger laws respecting security of tenure and making labor-only contracting a criminal offense. Herrera used the TUCP badly, by making it a camouflage for his anti-labor and anti-worker biases. He compromised TUCP advocacy if it ran counter to his self-interest. He has used TUCP also, apparently, to unduly enrich himself at the workers’ expense,” the labor solon finally added.

 Source: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=305479442836538&id=100001234550604