DOLE repatriates 39 OFWs from Libya

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said it has repatriated 39 overseas Filipino workers from Tripoli, Libya after protracted negotiations to settle their complaints, such as delayed salaries and unsuitable accommodation. In a belated release on Friday, the DOLE said the workers were repatriated on August 22, after their company released the unpaid salaries of all 39 workers. DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, citing a report of labor attaché to Libya Nasser Mustafa, said the OFWs were deployed by First Cosmopolitan Manpower and Promotion Services, Inc. (FCMPS), a licensed overseas recruitment agency, to the Al Makarem Company in Al Jameil, Libya. According to Baldoz, the workers’ problems were first brought to the attention of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Libya in early June this year by an affected worker. The worker, she said, was later joined by the other workers in filing a formal complaint. Apart from complaining about their salaries and accommodation, the workers lamented the inadequate food and water and lack of medical benefits. In his report, Mustafa said he got in touch with the company after verifying the complaints and demanded payment for the workers’ unpaid salaries, which by then had reached the total of five months’ pay. “I also demanded the provision of other contractual obligations and benefits, such as humane accommodation and medical attention," Mustafa said as quoted in the release. He said that despite early assurances by the employer and the deploying agency that the salaries, including airfare for repatriation, of the workers will be paid, Al Makarem failed to fulfill its obligations and only three of the workers were repatriated. Later on, FCMPS advanced the salary of all 39 workers for March 2010. The promised full payment before the Ramadan, however, had not yet materialized, prompting 15 of the workers to ask that they be repatriated. “Last August 18, the company released in full to all the 39 workers their unpaid salaries. On the same day, five of the affected workers were given their airplane tickets. The settlement was witnessed by a POLO staff," Mustafa said. Early this week, six OFWs from Libya were also repatriated, the last group among 62 Filipino workers who demanded for mass repatriation in December 2008 when SRL Enterprise Libya failed to pay them their salaries and benefits. (See: DOLE: Last batch of 6 Pinoys arrives from Libya)—Jerrie M. Abella/JV, GMANews.TV