7 laid-off Filipino welders in Qatar finally get compensation - report

MANILA, Philippines Seven laid-off Filipino welders in Qatar have finally been given back their wages with one-way airplane tickets to the Philippines to follow, an online report said on Thursday.

“We were given our wages for the past four months on December 30 and our air tickets for the Philippines will be given either on January 8 or 9," Willy Catian, one of the welders, told the Peninsula.

The welders, who were deployed in April 2007 by Alwael Manpower, were reportedly laid off four months ago when the construction company they were working for closed down.

Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) Doha officer Hector Cruz said that workers were able to get their compensation after the first hearing of their labor case when they agreed to an out-of-court settlement with the representative of their former employer.

However, Cruz deplored on the news that he reportedly failed to help the welders pursue their complaint against the said employer.

“I was disheartened with the news that spread in the Philippines that I didn’t help the seven Filipinos who were laid off and were stranded here," he said in the report.

He said that he did not turn down the welders’ request for assistance but merely explained the legal options they had as well as the process in filing of cases in Doha.

“The workers filed a case with the Labor Ministry Arbitration Department without first passing through POLO. What they should have done was to come to us first, and then we would have assisted them," he said.

This, he said, was because the Office of the Labor Minister issued an order that all pending cases must first be submitted to their office for resolution so that there would be a record of the complaint.

“When their previous employer was delayed in granting them their request, that was the time they came to POLO. I told them they should have come to POLO first so we can produce a record that they filed. That is the process here. So then I told them to re-file the case now that there’s a record already," he said.

Cruz said he told the workers “manalo man kayo or matalo, dumaan kayo dito sa office para ma-refer ko kayo sa (whether you win or lose the case, you should come to our office so we can refer you to the) deportation department as soon as possible."

But Catian said that hearing this statement made him and the other workers think that the POLO was not serious about helping them.

However, Cruz said that the deportation department has always been the place to go when there are labor issues similar to the welders’ case.

“There’s a committee in the deportation department that handles labor cases and this committee contacts the employers to compel them to pay workers’ back wages," he said.

He said it was the Qatari government that formed this committee so foreign workers are paid whatever the company owes them before they leave the country.

According to Catian they weren’t aware about the assistance committee at the Deportation Department and admitted they made a mistake in filing a case before going to the POLO office.

“Some Filipinos here advised us to just file the case with the Arbitration Department directly to hasten the proceedings," he said. - GMANews.TV

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