Salary raise for foreign domestic workers in HK necessary –group

By LUCKY MAE F. QUILAO











The recent salary and food allowance increases given by the Hong Kong government to foreign household service workers is necessary, an organization taking care of migrant workers has said.
“While it is true that one should say ‘Thank you!’ for a well-deserved raise, salaries are not decided upon simply at anyone's whim,” said Cynthia Tellez, general manager of the Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW), in reaction to another migrant-serving institution’s call for a bigger raise as their salary still remains a "slave  wage."
“Hong Kong has at least HK$25,000 (P823,528) per capita income for 2019. Even if you include all that a migrant worker consumes and uses in an employer's household, it does not match what a person should get as an income. Foreign domestic workers are not less human, working people,” she told GMA News Online in an email interview.
Tellez said she understands the frustration of a migrant domestic worker in Hong Kong.
“Government officials are supposed to safeguard the rights and welfare of every single individual working in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, discrimination is glaring in this situation. How can you blame a lowly worker for that political unrest by giving her a minuscule of the deserved scientifically computed wage rate demand? How can one not simply agree that the HK$110 (P724.705) increase in the migrant domestic workers' salary makes that monthly income still categorized as a slave wage?”
Earlier reports said  the Hong Kong government has raised the minimum wage for foreign domestic workers who signed employment contracts on or before September 28 to HK$4,630 (P30,668) from HK$4,520 (P29,939) per month.
Those who get food allowance from their employers, however, will only have a monthly increase of $46 (P305), from $1,075 (P7119) to $1,121 (P7,425) per month.
PHL unemployment rate
“The unemployment rate in a migrant-sending country like the Philippines is never dependent on the situation overseas. It is dependent on the capability of the government of that country to create decent-paying jobs that would not force its people to go overseas to survive,” Tellez pointed out.
In 2018, there were 2.3 million unemployed Filipinos with those from the Ilocos Region registering the highest unemployment rate. —LBG, GMA News

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