By William C. Pao The China Post 94/09/11
The Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taipei is introducing a special hiring program allowing employers to hire workers without going through the so-called manpower agencies, or labor brokerage firms, said Reynaldo Gopez, MECO labor representative. In other words, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) taking part in the program no longer need to pay monthly brokerage fees, which eat up a chunk of their earnings. Gopez stressed that this program is in no way an attempt to compete with manpower agencies. “It’s only an option,” he said.
Employers wishing to hire workers through the new program may do so now. In fact, some companies and households are already using the program to hire workers, Gopez said. Given the new hiring scheme bypasses the recruitment agencies, it is ideal for employers seeking to rehire their workers, Gopez said,
"They already have someone in mind and do not have to pick a worker from a pool of candidates,” he said.
MECO proposed the new idea in the wake of complaints workers made regarding their dealings with brokerage firms, which take off a portion of workers’ pay as brokerage fee. Prior to their arrival in the destination country, OFWs need to pay a month’s salary worth of placement fee to Philippine recruitment agencies. Here in Taiwan, monthly brokerage fees are legally set at NT$1,800 a month for the first year of employment, then NT$1,700 for the second year and NT$1,500 for the third year. In certain cases, workers pay a sum of money on top of the above-mentioned amount as part of under-the-table deals they made with recruitment agencies. As a result, some workers are in debt and are unable to take care of their family at home no matter how hard they work.
Given such, MECO is appealing to employers’ “social conscience” by helping OFWs save more money through the new program, Gopez said.
By signing up the special hiring program, employers may help their workers save up to NT$60,000 in brokerage fees over a three-year period, not to mention the illegal brokerage payments, Gopez said.What employers will have to do, however, is to take care of all the necessary paperwork themselves — which is a time-consuming task — instead of enjoying the luxury of having their brokers take care of it, Gopez said.
MECO is currently working with related Taiwanese authorities, including the Council of Labor Affairs and the Taipei Economic and Culture Office (TECO) in the Philippines, to expedite the application process, Gopez said. Specifically, MECO is working with related authorities to help OFWs get the necessary documents here in Taiwan before going back to the Philippines to get a new visa."This way, they can go back to the Philippines for a two-week vacation and get a new visa from TECO in Manila,” Gopez said, adding the process will cut down the application processing time from one or two months to less than two weeks and the number of trips to the related government agencies on the employer’s part.
The labor representative, meanwhile, had something to say about the latest labor issues — especially the riot by Thai workers of the Kaohsiung MRT system and protests by OFWs at Formosa Plastics Corp.’s naphtha plant in Mailiao, Yunlin County.“Exorbitant placement fees collected by some greedy recruiting agencies from labor-sending countries, coupled with illegal service fees exacted by concerned local placement agencies, are, I believe, the main causes of the Mailiao and Kaohsiung incidents,” he said.
Gopez cited local papers as saying the CLA, which has always been concerned with the welfare of workers in Taiwan, locals and foreigners alike, is now seriously considering the introduction of the government-to-government hiring, or SHPT, to employers as one solution to protect foreign workers from unscrupulous manpower agencies. “The Philippines will be in the forefront of this,” he said.