Café de Coral denies Filipino DH ban, threatens lawsuit

By The SUN 

Cafe de Coral is threatening to sue people behind the rumor that it is banning Filipino DHs

Hong Kong’s largest fast food chain, Café de Coral, has denied “rumours” which began circulating overnight that it is banning Filipino domestic helpers from entering its restaurants.

A statement released by the company today, May 7, says the matter has been reported to the police and that it reserves the right to file a lawsuit against those spreading the false news.

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“The (Café de Coral) Group is highly concerned about rumours regarding Café de Coral banning Filipino domestic helpers from entry, which are absolutely unfounded and untrue. We have reported the case to the Police and reserve the right to pursue further action against relevant parties,” said the statement.

The claim first came out as a post by a certain “John Richards,” - apparently a fictitious account - that Café de Coral has started banning Filipino DHs into its restaurants, purportedly to help China shift the blame for Covid-19 onto foreign domestic workers.

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The post said helpers are being asked by Café de Coral staff if they are Filipinos before being allowed entry.

Despite no definite incident being cited, or pictures or testimonies to back up the claim, the post was shared extensively by members of the Filipino community.

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Some of those who fell for the rumor called for a boycott of the fastfood chain, which is highly popular among FDHs because of its affordably priced meals.

Others who were more discerning warned of being taken to court for spreading false information on social media.

Many Filipina DHs posted photos of them eating in Cafe de Coral to dispel the rumor 

Under Hong Kong’s Racial Discrimination Ordinance, it is unlawful to hold up any group for vilification or contempt, or treat them less favorably, because of their race or ethnicity.

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Any offender may be liable to a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment of up to two years.

On the other hand, anyone who maliciously publishes any defamatory allegation, knowing the same to be false, shall be liable to imprisonment of up to two years, and in addition, pay such fine as the court may award.

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The rumor was circulated in the wake of news that a number of Filipina DHs had been found to carry the mutated form of the coronavirus after gathering in a flat in Sham Shui Po.

The Café de Coral group was in the news recently after reportedly posting a near fivefold increase in annual net profit despite the pandemic.

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The group’s parent company operates about 450 restaurants in Hong Kong and the mainland, including some 150 Café de Coral outlets, The Spaghetti House and Oliver’s Super Sandwiches.

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Covid-19 crisis most unkind to MDWs, says Mission in annual report

By Vir B. Lumicao 

A worker dismissed last year due to the pandemic 

Migrant domestic workers worked longer hours and became more vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse last year as a result of the pandemic.

This was disclosed by the Mission for Migrant Workers in its Service Report for 2020 which was released Thursday, Apr 15, to coincide with the church-based charity’s 40^th founding anniversary.

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“MDWs have been made to work longer hours, even during their rest days. And more worrisome, there is a resurgence in violence against women,” said Cynthia Abdon-Tellez, MFMW general manager.

“Though this pandemic has caused unwelcome changes for everyone, we cannot deny the fact that it has been most unkind to MDWs,” said Tellez. “Even before the pandemic, migrants had always been vulnerable due to their visa status.”

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According to data collated by MFMW, 17% of its clients reported having been physically abused or assaulted last year, a 2-percentage-point increase from 2019.

Six percent of the clients reported experiencing rape or sexual abuse last year compared with 2% the previous year, said Abdon-Tellez.

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Equally worrying, a whopping 34% of the workers who sought help from Mission reported they were not paid their wages. This was 10 times more than the 3% recorded in 2019, and meant that one out of three MDWs did not receive any salary at all.

The MFMW data also shows 69% of its clients had reported ill-treatment, or almost 7 out of every 10. This was far higher than the 25% posted in 2019.

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“Many migrant workers suffer silently because if they lose their job, they also lose their accommodation here because of the live-in requirement,” Abdon-Tellez said.

“With greater economic instability due to the pandemic, the workers are forced to suffer in deeper depths of despair,” she added.

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She said migrant workers bore the burden of stress undoubtedly experienced by their employers, especially the economic difficulty.

Tellez says many MDWs suffered 'in deeper depths of despair' last year

Emphasizing the workers’ vulnerability was the finding that 2% of MDWs reported getting entangled in money laundering while 4% were cyberbullied or harassed online.

“These issues are connected to love scams, wherein vulnerable women migrants are preyed upon by unscrupulous partners. This underscores the loneliness MDWs feel being far away from home and unable to go home for a visit,” said Abdon-Tellez.

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Obviously the most common complaint of the MDWs was working longer hours, with 98% of the clients reporting this kind of abuse, said Abdon-Tellez.

“Related to this, almost 1 in every 2 (or 46%) is made to work on her rest days, while more than 1 in every 3 (or 39%) are made to work on their statutory holidays,” Abdon-Tellez said.

“Of course, this translates to even more overworked MDWs who are also suffering from economic hardships. They are silent and invisible sufferers, and that means more help should be extended to them. If only migrant domestic workers had a live-out option, this could have been avoided,” she said.

On a positive note, the MFMW has helped its clients recover $3,230,624.47 in 2020. This is a 40% increase in claims compared with 2019.

Much of the settlements were the result of labor claims filed by MDWs whose contracts were terminated by their employers because of the economic hardship due to the pandemic.

The Mission also engages in advocacy work for migrant workers (File)

The 2020 Service Report also features the MFMW’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The MFMW referred 873 migrants to shelters, a 24% increase from last year. It also distributed 137,057 pieces of face masks and 6,218 bottles of hand sanitizers, with the help of fellow migrant advocates,” Abdon-Tellez said.

“Many MDWs have trouble procuring their own supply because either they are not included in the household they serve or due the prohibitive prices of these essentials. This underscores the vulnerability of migrants, especially in this pandemic,” she said.

The global crisis brought about the need for new services. In 2020, the MFMW started serving new migrants, or those who just arrived and were quarantined in hotels.

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Being new here, they had no resources yet, and thus had to put up with insufficient, repetitive and unhealthy food served them while under quarantine. Many were also not given basic provisions such as water.

The MFMW provided 3,511 hot meals to them, Abdon-Tellez said.

She said there were also 415 migrants who were given meal coupons good for two people or meal packs that could feed at least five people while staying in boarding houses in-between jobs, or because they were stranded by flight cancellations.

“We also provided other forms of support for those unable to be accommodated in shelters,” Abdon-Tellez recounted.

She said that due to the pandemic, MFMW shifted some of its activities online.

“Some of our 135 Life and Work Skills seminars and training classes were done online to reach more migrants. We also had our Migrant Festival online for International Migrants Day, as a celebration of MFMW's services throughout the year,” Abdon-Tellez said.

The Migrant Festival may be accessed with these links: https://youtu.be/aELAkyavSjo or https://www.facebook.com/watch/275507625853776/201793074885968

“To cope with the new services arising from the pandemic, the MFMW is calling on kind-hearted individuals, institutions, and corporate donors to support its programs by clicking https://www.migrants.net/to-donate. A $100 donation will feed and shelter a migrant for a day,” Abdon-Tellez said.

To download full version of “2020 Service Report”: https://www.migrants.net/reports

Support the Mission: https://www.migrants.net/to-donate

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Philippine peso jumps to new 4-year high

By The SUN

The peso is forecast to strengthen further this year

Good news for the Philippine economy, bad news for overseas Filipino workers who regularly send money back home.

The peso closed at Php48.065 to US$1 on Friday, its strongest performance in more than four years, or since Sept 23, 2016, when it closed at Php47.99 to the greenback.

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In Hong Kong, where the local currency is pegged to the US dollar, the exchange rate is now down to Php6.20 per HK$1.

This was the second four-year jump for the peso. On Nov 9, it closed at Php48.145, the strongest since its Php48.10 close on Oct 20, 2016.

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Analysts say falling imports which have severely cut demands for the US dollar, plus the continuing inflow of remittances from Filipinos abroad, have combined to boost the peso’s value.

Other analysts attributed the peso’s strength to the country’s all-time high foreign reserves, which stands at US$104.82 billion as of end-December 2020, up by US$5 billion from November.

This was a second year of gains for the Philippine peso, and a Bloomberg survey indicates it will rise further to 47.50 by the end of 2021. The currency rose 5.4% last year, the biggest gainer in Southeast Asia.

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But the peso’s strength comes at a price. The Philippine economy is among the slowest to recover from the pandemic, largely because of falling imports and a big decline in domestic spending. 

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Filipina ‘job-hopper’ ordered to leave after 2 terminations, one back-out

By Daisy CL Mandap 

Letter sent by Immigration telling Ludy she must go back home

Two days before Hong Kong Immigration announced that it was reverting to its policy of allowing terminated foreign domestic workers to remain for only 14 days, a  Filipina was told she needed to go back home after being terminated twice in six months.

Ludy C., 56, was set to leave for Manila today, Jan 3, after more than two months of trying to get another employment contract approved by Immigration. But as (bad) luck would have it, her Philippine Airlines flight was cancelled at the last minute, so now she's back to worrying about where to get the money to sustain her needs while she remains stuck in Hong Kong.

Ludy was terminated for a second time this year on Oct 27 and managed to get another employer to sign her up, but apparently because she fell into the “job-hopping” category, Immigration rejected her bid to secure a new employment visa.

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In line with existing practice, FDWs whose contracts are terminated repeatedly with no valid excuse are deemed as job-hoppers, and as such, are denied the chance to remain and secure a new job.

On Dec 30, Immigration tightened the restrictions further by announcing that it was reverting to its standing policy of allowing all terminated FDWs to stay for only two weeks after termination. Exemptions will only be allowed in “exceptional circumstances,” such as when the employer dies, relocates, or runs into financial difficulties.

This so-called 14-day rule, which has been in place since 1987, was relaxed for the first time this year amid the pandemic, which left many FDWs stranded in both Hong Kong and their home countries because of travel restrictions.

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Ludy said that after Immigration’s initial advice to her that she would no longer be allowed to stay and wait for her new employment contract to be processed, she managed to ask for a reconsideration.

She got herself a new employer, who unfortunately, was stuck in China so could not attend a pre-employment interview scheduled by Immigration. In the end, the employer decided to just back out of their contract, which could have amounted to a third black mark in Ludy’s employment record.

Subsequently, Ludy received a letter from Immigration dated Dec 21 in which she was told that that she could only stay another week.

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The letter read: “Having considered all the circumstances of the case and all available information, the Director of Immigration is not satisfied that you have met all the eligibility criteria given in the “Guidebook for the Employment of Domestic Helpers from Abroad. Your application is therefore refused.”

She was told to leave “on or before Dec 28”, but when she tried to book a flight home, Ludy found out that because of the busy holiday period, the earliest she could depart was Jan. 3.

She went to Immigration on Dec 27 and asked for another visa extension, bringing along her new plane ticket as proof. To her dismay, not only did the immigration officer who interviewed her denied her application, he also reportedly shouted at her in front of a lot of people.

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After her repeated pleas that there was no way she could go home by the following day, the officer ordered her to go to the Consulate and ask for a letter certifying that there were really no flights immediately available.

Ludy then reached out to Rain Tuando, an administrator of the Facebook group Domestic Workers Corner, who lost no time in relaying her request for urgent help to Consul General Raly Tejada.

The next day, Ludy was given a letter written by Consul Paul Saret, head of the assistance to nationals section, requesting Immigration Commissioner Au Ka-wang, to extend her visa long enough for her to get on a plane back to Manila.

 

Saret asked Immigration to give Ludy time to get on next available flight home

On the eve of her supposed departure, Ludy could only express regret at how her first job termination in April this year had led to a series of misfortunes that ended with her being told to leave Hong Kong.

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She said she first came here to work in 1990, then decided to go back home for good after nine years. But with her two kids about to start college, she decided to come back in early 2016, and ended up looking after an elderly male employer for four years.

When she was released in December last year, a month away from finishing her second contract, Ludy was signed up to look after an elderly woman who lived alone. But an accident that led to her elderly ward getting operated on for a bone fracture that was left untreated for two months, led to her termination on Apr 3.

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She then managed to secure another job, but for reasons Ludy says she is not clear about, Immigration rejected their employment contract.  

Luckily, because of the relaxed rules amid the pandemic she managed to stay on and got herself a new elderly employer. But her luck again turned when her prospective employer suddenly passed away while her employment visa application was already being processed. 

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She remained jobless until October, when she was signed up by a new employer. But this time, Ludy said she had to do house chores and attend to the needs of a couple, their baby, an elderly parent, and a dog.

She said she got so tired that when she was asked to wash dishes after taking her day off on Oct 25, she begged off. In an act of pique, she sent her employers the part of the Employment Ordinance that stipulates the penalty for employers who make their FDWs work on their day-off.

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The next day, her male employer terminated their contract and asked Ludy to leave their house. He reportedly cited as reason her having failed to meet the employers' expectations.

Ludy said she wants to come back to Hong Kong to work, as she is still sending her two children through college. But given her age, her having been sent home for repeated terminations, and the continuing travel restrictions because of the pandemic, there’s just a slim chance that will happen, at least not anytime soon.

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Terminated FDHs can no longer stay and change employers

By The SUN 

The return to the 14-day rule could see thousands of FDHs heading for home soon

The Hong Kong government will no longer allow foreign domestic helpers whose contracts have been prematurely terminated to remain beyond the 14 days provided by law so they can change employers. 

But those whose contracts are already under process will be allowed to remain and wait for the release of their employment visas.

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In a press release issued on Dec 30, the government said the decision to revert to the prevailing policy was meant to avoid overcrowding in boarding houses and prevent FDHs from job hopping.

 “In view of recent concerns about the health risks posed to FDHs staying in boarding facilities and to prevent the abuse by FDHs of the aforementioned facilitation measure to change employers frequently (commonly known as "job-hopping"), the Government decided that FDHs whose contracts are prematurely terminated can no longer apply for extension of limit of stay as visitors; and that, in accordance with the prevailing policy of the Government, FDHs are required to leave Hong Kong upon completion of their employment contract or within two weeks from the date of termination of their employment contract, whichever is the earlier,” said the government statement.

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The move could lead to thousands of FDHs currently staying in boarding houses to leave Hong Kong in the next few weeks. Many have left their employment or were terminated, and are hoping to find new employers in line with a relaxation of the policy adopted since the pandemic caused travelling to other countries more difficult.

It comes at an inopportune time, as the Philippines has just imposed a strict 14-day quarantine rule in a government-approved facility for all Filipinos coming from Hong Kong, as one of the 20 places flagged for having cases of Covid-19 acquired from a highly transmissible coronavirus variant.

At least 12 infections were recorded from a boarding house in Fung Nin building in Taipo

The Hong Kong government has been under pressure in recent days to tighten visa restrictions on FDHs after a recent outbreak of Covid-19 in a Tai Po boarding house led to at least eight helpers being infected, along with four members of an employer’s family.

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Only those whose termination is due to “exceptional circumstances” such as the death, relocation or financial hardship of the employer, may an FDH still apply for an extension of visa as a visitor, and process a new employment contract without leaving Hong Kong.

However, the statement said Immigration will continue to consider and speed up the processing of employment visa applications already submitted by FDHs who are in Hong Kong. But it will continue to step up scrutiny of the job applications, such as the number and reasons for their premature termination in the last 12 months.

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“For suspected "job-hopping" cases, the ImmD will refuse the employment visa applications concerned and require the applicants to leave Hong Kong,” said the statement.

Thousands of Filipino migrant have been stranded in HK because of the pandemic

In another move, the government said it will continue the flexibility arrangement it adopted on four previous occasions to allow employers to extend the validity of their existing contracts with their outgoing FDHs for up to three months. This rule will apply to contracts that will expire on or before March 31, 2021.

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However, if the newly hired FDH cannot still come to Hong Kong within the three-month extension, the employer should apply to retain the existing FDHs as a further extension of their prevailing contract will no longer be allowed.

For FDHs who have renewed their contracts with their employers, or are due to start working for a new employer after their previous contract had ended, they can apply to Immigration, with their employers’ consent, to defer their home leave for not more than one year after the existing contract ends.

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But if the FDHs are still unable to return to their place of origin because of the pandemic, they may, with their employers’ agreement, apply to Immigration to extend their visa until the end of their contracts.

The same rule applies to those who have already been granted an extension of stay under the previous flexibility arrangement announced by the government on Mar 21, Jun 30 and Sept 30.

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But, the government said the requirement for FDHs to return to their place of origin for vacation continues to be in place. 

Thus, employers should arrange for their FDHs to take their home leave within the extended period “as far as practicable.”

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All enquiries on employment rights and benefits may be directed to the Labour Department’s dedicated FDH hotline, 2157 9537 (manned by "1823") or by email to fdh-enquiry@labour.gov.hk. For enquiries on FDH visa applications, please contact the ImmD by calling the enquiry hotline at 2824 6111 or by email to enquiry@immd.gov.hk.

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