Study reveals problems OFWs face in S. Korea

Long hours of work, poor working conditions, delayed or unpaid salaries, and misunderstanding due to language and cultural differences are the most common problems Filipinos working under the Employment Permit System are facing in South Korea, a study has revealed. The study entitled, “Issues and Challenges under the Employment Permit System (EPS)" conducted by Joyce Ann O. Dela Cruz in 2007, aimed to describe issues and challenges confronting Filipino workers in South Korea. “The findings in the study could be of help in assessing EPS for future policy review," Dela Cruz said in an interview with GMANews.TV on Friday. Korea’s Employment Permit System (EPS) is a government-to-government hiring scheme intended to curb the problem over illegal recruitment. South Korea’s labor ministry has increased by 20 percent the job roster quota of the Philippines in 2007 to 12,000, from 10,000 in 2006. Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) attributed the quota increase to the Filipino laborers’ good performance in 2006. The EPS replaced the Alien Industrial Trainee System (AITS) that allowed hiring through private recruiters. Korea had abolished the trainee scheme and stopped issuing trainee visas since Jan 1, 2007. As a result, Philippine licensed agencies that used to hire trainees for Korea could no longer recruit workers under the trainee scheme. Under this scheme, Korean employers can only get foreign workers legally through the EPS. The POEA is the only government agency authorized to implement the scheme in the Philippines. Dela Cruz is a research analyst of the Department of Labor and Employment’s Occupational Safety and Health Center. She conducted the study under a research grant from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) University Network Exchange Fellowship Program for 2007. According to her, the most common problems EPS-hired Filipino workers encounter are: conflict with employer and/or Korean co-workers resulting from language and cultural differences, heavy work load and long hours of work, verbal and physical abuse, poor working conditions and other safety and health concerns, delayed or unpaid salary, and discrepancies in the computation of overtime and night differential pay. The Philippines is among the first countries to sign a memorandum of understanding with South Korea in August 2004 to implement the new EPS. There are 17,683 Filipino workers deployed in South Korea under the EPS, Dela Cruz said in the study summary she sent to GMANews.TV. The summary added that the workers were recruited primarily to do “3D jobs" or the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs. Under the EPS, South Korean firms could employ an appropriate number of migrant workers for jobs rejected by locals – mostly manual labor. Foreign workers are issued unskilled employment visas (E-9), allowing them to find manual jobs in small-and-medium-sized manufacturer with less than 300 employees in the agricultural, livestock or coastal fishing industries. Work contract could extend up to three years. Labor related laws apply to foreign workers during the period of employment such as Labor Standard Act, Minimum Wages Act, and Industrial Safety Health Act. According to Dela Cruz, the study was largely descriptive and exploratory, and that it used the purposive sampling approach that involved face to face interviews with 60 Filipino workers. Interviews were conducted from August to October 2007 in Seoul, South Korea, she said. Key informants that gave valuable inputs to the study were the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, the Filipino Catholic Center in Hyewa-dong as well as the Filipino EPS Workers Association and POLO registered workers’ organizations. However, Dela Cruz noted that the full study report has not been published yet as it has to undergo thorough review by the board of the Asean University Network Exchange Fellowship Program. - Luis Gorgonio, GMANews.TV ** The author is a graduate student of Asian Studies( major in Korea) from the Asian Center, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. She is an awardee of Exchange Fellowship Program under Asean-ROK Academic Exchange Programme 2007 facilitated by the ASEAN University Network through which the conduct of field research in South Korea was made possible.