By The SUN
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| HK-bound workers are being held up by the difficulty of booking OWWA's zoom training (OWWA photo) |
Government red tape in Manila has become a growing concern
for employers who have wasted money on cancelled flights and quarantine hotel
bookings because their domestic helpers could not leave for Hong Kong on
schedule.
The delays are being blamed on a new system adopted by the
Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration (OWWA) recently, where newly-hired overseas
Filipino workers are required to book online to attend a three-day seminar
conducted in zoom.
Attendance in this online seminar is required for OFWs to be
issued an overseas employment certificate (OEC).
But because only a limited number of places have been made available,
the seminars are fully booked and the earliest appointment available is at least
two months away, according to at least two employent agencies.
“Currently, a worker spends even longer time in OWWA
processing than a visa application in HK immigration,” said Thomas Chan, chairman
of the Hong Kong Union of Employment Agencies. “ All parties -- employers, workers and agencies -- are
very disappointed.”
“Disadvantaged talaga ang mga new hires from the Philipines,
kasi sariling government natin nagpapahirap para makaalis sila, (New hires from
the Philippines are really disadvantaged, because their own government is
making it difficult for them to leave),” a Filipino employer messaged The SUN
in frustration.
“Walang (there is no) sense of urgency on their part; either they are used
to being laid back or talagang tamad lang (they are just lazy),” she added.
The employer took a month's leave from work, thinking her helper would arrive before her leave ended, but was told the earliest schedule available was not until next month.
Another agency staff confirmed the news, saying they have a number of applicants who already have visas but could only get a slot for the OWWA training next month. The appointment schedule is said to have been backed up for the past two months at least.
Complaints and appeals for help, sent to various government
agencies and copies of which were obtained by The SUN, have remained unanswered
while the delays have even worsened.
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| Chan says employers are complaining about the long delay in getting their helpers into HK |
Chan cited one extreme case of “an employer (who) signed (a)
contract with her worker in July and now the OWWA (seminar) appointment is in
Nov 2022.”
“This is very ridiculous to be accepted by employers in Hong
Kong,” he said in an Aug. 22 letter to Labor Attache Melchor Dizon.
Instead of a reply, POLO forwarded a letter from an OWWA director dated Aug 31 in which it was said that the number of enrollees for the online training had "significantly increased" in July, necessitating a corresponding increase in the number of OFWs being admitted in each of the six online classes, from 80 to 95.
The OWWA director also said two more classes would be opened, and additional Cantonese language instructors would be hired to meet the demand. Thus, the next available schedule for the language training was the first week of October.
Not satisfied with the explanation, Chan wrote another
letter on Sept 8 to Bernard P. Olalia, Undersecretary at the Department of Migrant Workers and concurrent officer-in-charge of the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration, seeking to facilitate the processing of
another OFW who was hired through his employment agency.
“The visa of this worker was ready and so (is) her ticket to
HK and also the quarantine hotel confirmed on 12 Sept 2022,” he said in the
letter.
“Her OEC expired on 16 Aug 2022 and my partner agency in
Manila… immediately rushed to apply for revalidation in your department but
until today, 8 Sept 2022, the new OEC is still pending your approval. Remember
her flight is on 12 Sept and after this Friday, there is no more time for her
to get any remedy.”
He stressed that hotels in Hong Kong do not allow any change
of check-in date (unless for easily verifiable emergencies, such as if the worker catches Covid-19 just before departing Manila).
“… the worker is the victim of your department’s sudden
change of policy and now her employer becomes the second victim of delayed
approval of new OEC,” he said. “It is really UNFAIR to both this worker and the
employer.”
In his earlier letter to Dizon, Chan said: “We hope the
administration understands that time is very precious for HK employers. Once
they sign contracts, HK agencies process visa immediately and all hope the
worker can depart from Manila two to three weeks upon receiving their visas.
However, the situation is totally different from the normal expectation.”
He suggested the following:
1. All workers should get a seminar date which is two weeks after
submitting their application.
2. The OEC is issued to these workers within one week after their
OWWA seminar.
3. It will be better if they get their OEC by the time their
visa is approved.
Others in the industry wonder why this fiasco has evolved at a time when there is already a separate government department that is supposed to focus solely on overseas Filipino workers, unlike before when their concerns were dealt with by the Department of Labor and Employment.
It would be slightly understandable, they say, if the OWWA training is so useful that the new recruits come to Hong Kong well-versed on the kind of work that is expected of them, and they have learned basic Cantonese, which is a big plus in making their life easier when they come here to work.
However, this does not seem to be the case, so that premature termination of contracts still happen on a regular basis. Workers still struggle to cope with the workload, and are hard-pressed to remember even the simplest Cantonese words or phrases.
