Halting placement fees ‘helped end ban on workers in Hong Kong’

Agencies/Hong Kong

Organisers of a petition, endorsed by more than 100 community organisations in Hong Kong, said it was the reason why a society representing domestic helper agencies in the Philippines last week lifted a ban on sending workers to Hong Kong, a report said.

The Society of Hong Kong Accredited Recruiters of the Philippines (Sharp) revealed it would end the moratorium on sending Filipino domestic workers to Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post.

The move came after Sharp said a “substantial number” of agencies agreed to stop pursuing the reinstatement of a placement fee of one month’s salary levied on domestic helpers, banned by the Manila government some years ago.

Petition organisers argued, however, that Sharp ended the moratorium before Manila imposed stricter measures which the petition urged. The petition was sent more than a week ago to Philippine President Benigno Aquino. It called for direct hiring in Hong Kong to be enforced, and punishment of recruitment agencies for violating the government’s no placement fee policy for Filipino domestic workers overseas.

Some 114 organisations and 15 people signed the petition, after only two days of calls for support from organisers. Among them is the Mission for Migrant Workers, the Filipino Chaplaincy in Hong Kong, United Filipinos in Hong Kong, Migrante Sectoral Party, Philippine Alliance, Isabela Federation, Lakbay Dangal, University of the Philippines Alumni Association Hong Kong and The Sun Writers Club.

Sharp claimed the boycott was to force Hong Kong agencies make local employers pay the full cost of the deployment - instead of passing it on to workers. But one of the petition’s organisers, Daisy Mandap, said it was simply a dispute between the two countries’ recruitment agencies about who should get the bigger share of fees charged to workers.

“Forcing both employers and workers to go through recruiters when they could lawfully process their own employment contract, serves no other purpose than to unjustly enrich the agencies,” she said.

Mandap, head of an association representing 300 Hong Kong recruitment agencies, also said she knew of very few agencies who agreed with Sharp.

Teresa Liu Tsui-lan, vice-chairwoman of the General Chamber of Manpower Agencies, called Sharp’s move an excuse to end a moratorium on recruitment which was harming the business of Filipino agencies.