POEA cancels recruiter's license for contract substitution

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration over the weekend canceled the license of a labor recruiter deploying overseas Filipino workers to Saudi Arabia, after seven OFWs accused it of contract substitution.

 
POEA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said the POEA found Allskills Manpower Services Inc. to have substituted POEA-approved contracts with those disadvantageous to the OFWs.
 
“Obviously, there is misrepresentation not only to the complainants but also to the Administration when the agency deployed the workers to an employer and position different from that indicated in the employment contracts submitted to the POEA,” Cacdac said.
 
He said the POEA also found Allskills Manpower collected excessive placement fees from the workers and did not issue the proper receipts.
 
Cacdac ordered the agency and its surety agency to refund to the complainants the excess amounts collected from them.
 
The action against the firm stemmed from letter complaints of seven OFWs forwarded by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Riyadh.
 
In their complaints, the seven said Allskills Manpower gave them two contracts, the first for processing of their exit clearance at the POEA.
 
But upon arrival in Saudi Arabia, the contracts were switched to those given by the employer.
 
Investigation showed the second contract contained terms "inferior" to the first contract.
 
Cacdac said that while the original contract states the complainants are to be employed as nurses or midwives in hospitals, the second contract had them work in a dental clinic as clinic nurse or dental technician.
 
The POEA also found the workers signed up for hospitals like Qasseem National Hospital, Mayiez Medical Center, Medical 2000 Polyclinic, Al Fereh Hospital, and Al Ahmadi Hospital.
 
Instead, they were sent to a common employer, Onaiza Dental Clinic owned by a certain Dr. Sulaiman Hammad Al-Atiya.
 
Also, the second contract changed the effectivity of the contract from upon the workers’ arrival to “after passing the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties Exam.”
 
The second contract also "reduced or totally omitted" items in the first contract such as salary, transportation allowance, food allowance, and lodging.
 
Cacdac said the agency was liable for six counts of charging excessive placement fees and seven counts of non-issuance of receipt, misrepresentation, and contract substitution.  — ELR, GMA News

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