Australia Sponsors Exploitation of Canberra Filipino Hospitality Workers

MELBOURNE -- AUSTRALIA is once again host to the further exploitation of Overseas Filipino Workers with the latest report that 15 Filipino guest workers on skilled migration visas were subjected to sub-human conditions in the hospitality industry in the country's capital, Canberra, in January 2006. Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers' Union (LHMU) claims the 15 were among 30 workers brought to Australia six months ago under a special arrangement with the Philippines Government and promised good jobs and pay. Instead, some have found these promises being ignored and worse made to work in slave-like conditions and threatened. David Bibo, a chef for 20 years in the hospitality industry before becoming an ACT (Australian Capital Territory) LHMU organiser, said these disappointed workers are now owed tens of thousands of dollars but are threatened with deportation if they stand up for their rights. "The union is aware of workers who have been forced to work 12-hour shifts in hot kitchens without a drink or a break, a worker who was refused medical treatment after suffering a severe burn, and a worker who was grossly racially vilified and threatened with deportation if he did not eat food scraps taken from a rubbish bin", said Bibo. Guest workers Donabella Cruz, Dario de Guzman and Louie Sales, forked out 50,000 Philippine pesos each (A$1500) for a promised job in Canberra, only to be underpaid by up to $16,000 by restaurant employers, after working up to 60-hour shifts. An additional A$1500 were deducted from their wages. According to LHMU, when Ms Cruz complained about getting less than A$30,000 (the promised wage was A$39,100 gross annually as a skilled chef with international standards) after working 60-hour weeks, she was then told she was paid as a trainee. When she sought help from LHMU to lodge a claim with the ACT Human Rights Office, she and colleague Napoleon Arrieta were locked out from the workplace by their employer within hours of the complaint being lodged. Ms Cruz, a single woman from Pasig City with extensive work experience in international standard hotels in the Philippines, said this is the first time she has worked overseas and what she has experienced in Australia has made her reluctant to want to travel and work in other countries. LHMU will lodge more complaints with the Human Rights Office at the request of other Filipino workers. According to the workers, one was kidnapped by thugs and driven to Sydney for a plane home and he escaped luckily, when police pulled the car over for speeding. Still another guest worker - Dario de Guzman - has taken out an AVO (Apprehended Violence Order) against his employer after receiving reports of threats made against him by his employer. "The union is also concerned that some restaurant owners are now campaigning to have chef Dario de Guzman deported because they consider him a leading troublemaker," said Bibo. Meanwhile Mr de Guzman, 35, a highly experienced chef from Makati City who came to work in Australia to feed a wife and 2 young children back home, is now out of work and deciding what to do next. He is unhappy with the disparity with what he agreed to in his employment contract and the actual working conditions he was forced to endure in Australia. Union organiser Bibo asserted that these restaurant owners should take a long hard look at their behaviour. Canberra politicians may not be aware of it but one of these restaurants where these Filipino chefs work is where they dine frequently. He said that there is now an alarming trend whereby some elements of the Canberra hospitality industry increasingly rely on making profits by cheating guest workers from nearby Asian countries. He also said that the Department of Immigration seems to have created a loop-hole for the restaurant owners: deeming the national capital a regional area, not a metropolitan area thus giving Canberra restaurateurs a big dollar incentive to exploit these guest workers by allowing them to ignore the Federal Award. (Australian chefs working in Canberra are paid under a Federal Award which treats national capital workers the same as their co-workers in Melbourne and Sydney. However, proposed Industrial Relations law changes which would come into place in March 2006 threatens to drag down minimum award conditions.) MIGRANTE supports the Filipino hospitality workers' and union's moves to have the workers' basic rights and dignity protected and just working conditions upheld. Migrante applauds LHMU ACT's efforts to raise these matters directly with the ACT Government, the ACT Human Rights Commissioner and relevant OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) bodies. Migrante also supports the call of the union to make the Immigration Department accountable to its international obligations on maintaining optimum job standards for all workers, to police sponsorship agreements and to ensure fair working conditions are actually met and maintained. Migrante also calls into account the Philippine Government which encourages a Labour Export Policy that drives its citizenry to extreme conditions of deprivation and exploitation in nearly 200 countries while often dismally failing to protect them. The Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime gleefully announced this year a rosy economy while neglecting to announce the absence of any real jobs, industry and agricultural production at home and the enormous contribution of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). (A major reason for the increase in the Philippines' GNP or Gross National Product from 5.7% to 6.5% last year were money OFWs sent home, a total of more than US$10 billion.) The practice of OFW export is so entrenched and systematized that the International Labour Organization stated that the Philippines is now the number one exporter overseas of guest workers. Released by: Migrante Melbourne; Gabriela Australia & Philippines-Australia Youth Action Group (PAYAG) Email: hlb@scenovia.com or migrante.melbourne@optusnet.com.au Reference: H Bassig Ph 0404 034397; Greg Cabanos Ph 0415 154352

09 Feb 2006

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