Vice President Jejomar Binay. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – A new standard employment contract has been agreed upon by the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, a move which is expected to better protect the rights of Filipino house hold workers (HSWs) in the middle-eastern country.
In a press conference Wednesday, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Saudi Ambassador to the Philippines Abdullah Al Hassan announced the new features of the contract, which they said was a product of a year of bilateral negotiations.
“With the new agreement, both governments can work together in enforcing a stronger regulatory regime for the deployment of HSWs and ensure that abuse and exploitation of our HSWs are stopped,” Binay said.
For his part, Hassan said that with the new agreement, erring employers would now be better monitored by the Saudi government, and that they would ensure that house hold workers could turn to the government for help.
As part of the new contract and as earlier announced by the Saudi government, the minimum monthly salary for domestic workers was raised to $400 from $200, granting the plea of the Philippine government.
Early last year, the Saudi Arabian government stopped processing, verifying, and authenticating applications from the country’s domestic workers following disagreements in wages. The Philippines wanted the domestic workers to get a minimum monthly salary of $400 but Saudi Arabia found it too high, saying the average was only $200.
The new contract also provides that the monthly salary for the domestic workers should be monitored through the banking system, in which the employer would be required to open a bank accountant for their workers and deposit the salary regularly every month.
“This would be used to better monitor if the $400 minimum wage is being followed or not,” Binay said.
The new contract also provides special provisions, including the note that the domestic workers’ passports shall remain in his or her possession; that the employer should not deduct any amount from the regular salary of the workers except for lawful reasons, in which case the deductions must be reflected in the payslips; and that workers should be freely allowed to communicate with his or her family and the Philippine embassy on his personal expense or account.
The new contract was also seen to boost ties between the two countries, after Saudi Arabia had lifted its ban on the deployment of Filipino household service workers, which took effect on October 1.