Filipino Domestic Workers in Brunei Now Get $400 Monthly Salary – DOLE
MANILA – Employers in Brunei have guaranteed to implement the increased minimum monthly wage of at least $400 (about BN$520) for Filipino domestic workers, the Philippine labor attaché in the ASEAN member-country said.
In her report to Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, Labor Attaché to Brunei Violeta Illescas said the full implementation of the new wage took effect January 5 this year, with job orders and individual employment contracts submitted to her office for verification already showing the BN$520 monthly salary for domestic workers and unskilled/lowly skilled workers.
Baldoz said the new wage is based on the labor quotas issued by Brunei’s labor department.
“It is reassuring that the household service workers’ sponsors and company owners submitted a Letter of Guarantee that once the Filipino overseas HSWs arrive in Brunei, they will be given the prescribed salary and will be covered by the Company Workmen’s Compensation Policy for lowly and semi-skilled workers, and even for professionals,” the labor chief said.
Labor Attaché Illescas said Brunei’s recruitment agencies for household service workers and owners of establishments hiring semi-skilled and unskilled workers have adopted the minimum salary of not less than $400 per month, or BN$520, as prescribed by the Department of Labor and Employment through the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, and as per the Philippine embassy’s letter to the Commissioner of the Labor Department of Brunei.
Publicized wage increase
The pay increase was featured in The Brunei Times, the English language newspaper of the country which counts as its readers “the nation’s opinion leaders in government and the corporate sector.”
“Local recruitment agencies in Brunei were grateful for having the [issue of] minimum salaries [of Filipino household workers] published in the local newspaper. Brunei employers/agencies informed the POLO (Philippine Overseas Labor Office) that despite the increase in minimum salaries of the Filipino workers, they will still hire them because they are admired and valued for their skills, dependability, and work attitude,” Illescas said in her report.
According to The Brunei Times report, Nur Judy Abdullah, vice president of the Brunei Council on Social Welfare, a non-government organization that advocates the rights of migrant workers and other vulnerable groups, said: “It [minimum wage] is definitely a favorable news for Filipino domestic workers who are often seen as invisible, work long hours without overtime, and sometimes do not have any off-day in a week or month.”
Illescas assured that the POLO will closely coordinate with Brunei’s labor department regarding the new wage implementation, as well as other Brunei and Philippine labor laws and regulations protecting Filipino workers against sponsors or companies who do not comply with the new wage order.
The wage increase is part of the Household Service Worker Protection and Welfare Enhancement Reform Package of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
According to the POEA, the $200 wage rate for domestic workers has been the minimum salary when the overseas employment program started almost four decades ago. It said the increase is justified as the work is not the regular eight-to-five work with domestic workers on 24 hours a day and 6 to 7 days a week, without overtime pay.