KSA, Philippine Labor Teams Hold Crucial Talks
A seven-member Saudi delegation, headed by Labor Undersecretary Ahmed Al-Faheed, met in Manila with their Philippine counterparts on Tuesday and Wednesday for the 3rd Joint Committee Meeting.
The Saudi side was accompanied by 22 private sector representatives.
The Philippine side included Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunsad lll and lawyer Hans Cacdac, administrator of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
Ambassador Ezzedin H. Tago told Arab News that the two sides discussed the implementation of the bilateral labor accord as agreed in the Standard Employment Contract between the two countries.
“The meeting aims to monitor the implementation of the bilateral labor agreement signed in the Kingdom in 2013,” the envoy told Arab News from Sanaa, Yemen, where he was monitoring the situation of some 745 Filipino workers.
He had been calling on all Filipinos working there to leave because of the exacerbating security situation in the country.
“The meeting is in furtherance of the agreement to have a legal and ethical recruitment of Filipino household service workers (HSWs),” Resty SM Dela Fuente, labor attaché at the Philippine overseas Labor Office in Riyadh (POLO-Riyadh), told Arab News from Manila.
The issues discussed included passports, day off, resolution of labor disputes between employee and employer and other provisions of the labor accord.
Local industry sources said that under the agreement, HSWs including housemaids should keep their passports. However, they said, these are kept by the employers.
Another problem is the fact that HSWs should have a day off as provided in the bilateral labor agreement but they don’t. “In fact, many of them, including housemaids, are overworked,” said a Filipino community leader.
Documentation process was also high on the agenda. In his report to Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis- Baldoz last year, Labor Undersecretary Danny Cruz said that “the Philippine side committed to seriously study and further improve it.”
Cruz headed the Philippine side during the 2nd Joint Committee Meeting held in February last year in the Saudi capital.