We may joke a lot around here, but one thing we don’t think is funny: the violence in Libya.
Filipino workers who were sent to perform temporary work in Libya were reportedly abandoned by their employer and Filipino Senator Manny Villar is pissed.
Villar said he will ask Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administrator (POEA) for the full list of staffing agencies that have sent OFWs to Libya. He said he will request the cancellation of the licenses of the negligent agencies.
“The job of recruitment agencies does not stop in the processing of the workers’ papers and sending them off to the airport. They should also be there for the OFWs in times of trouble,” said Villar.
The migrant workers (also known as OFW’s) were left to their own devices after security in Libya basically fell apart last week. They claimed that armed men stormed their facilities and took all of their food and water.
Over 6,000 workers have returned to the Phillipines so far as hundreds have been pouring back into the country every day. And those are the lucky ones.
Many others are still in Libya amid reports that soldiers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have blocked close to 30,000 migrant workers from fleeing into Tunisia. Most of those workers have been forced to return to work in the Tripoli. That can’t be good.
Kind of makes you feel better about your job, doesn’t it?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s foolish to think that Libya is the only place that flagrant human rights violations are tolerated towards overseas employees. What staffing hardball fails to point out is that most of of these Filipino overseas workers are live-in domestic help. He further fails to mention that the problem exists amongst workers from nearly every east-Asian country on the lower end of the economic totem pole (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia etc). They work all over the Arab world, from Morocco to Dubai, for $50-150 per month plus room and board. Predominantly female, they are frequently subjected to physical and sexual abuse for years on end, without access to what few public services the sandbox countries avail their foreign help, not to mention the expensive international phone communication their employers are generally required to provide to family left behind.
If the internet boom had hit the eastern hemisphere first, you might find yourself shopping for a new maid at RentASlave.com. While living in Amman from 2001-3 I was lucky enough to have a host family that respected their help. In fact its true that abuse isn’t as widespread amongst the more democratically open countries (Jordan, UAE, Qatar). It doesn’t change the fact that abuse is widespread nonetheless, and those that reap the profits are Asian-operated direct-placement agencies that lure young women to the other side of the world using the same psychological sale that the Balkan mafia uses to turn out impoverished eastern European teenagers in the titty bars of London and Barcelona.
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What exactly is it that you would expect the staffing agency to do here, keep an aircraft carrier and some combat helicopters around in case of revolution?
This is a humanitarian crisis, a war.
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You’re right this is very much a human rights issue, an issue that is a beast of many colors. The staffing agencies should be held to a certain duty of care to those that they place. I think they should have done something, anything for good faith measure but because they are unskilled impoverished immigrant workers *a shoulder shrug and whatchagonna do*Is it too much to ask that prior to placement they establish a safe house or on site person for every x amount of people OR an in the event of an emergency policy, an evacuation plan that is followed? It may not have done much in the grand scheme of things other than show that the staffing agencies do consider the rights of the workers and their responsibility as employers but even that is something, isn’t it? Combat helicopters waiting at the heels of every placed community may be a bit extreme for preventive action. I know that our workforce is completely different than those in the “sand countries”. When I see staffing stories like this, I am happy to work in the states. I am sad for those that are not afforded the rights that SO many American workers take for granted. Too many businesses prey on the weak to build their empires. A major reason for the low wages of unskilled workers throughout the late 19th century was that management was able to draw on cheap labor on a global scale; and as history proves this is quite the perpetual beast of many colors.
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