The Phenomenon of Contract Substitution among Overseas Filipino Workers

Abstract

For the past years, the Philippines has been considered as the one of the leading countries when it comes to sending Filipinos to different countries. Filipino nurses, entertainers, domestic helpers, teachers, engineers, caregivers are now everywhere in the world searching for better jobs. Although there are certain laws and provisions that are said to protect these OFWs and their rights, there are still reported cases of OFWs abused in different ways by their employers because of absence of bilateral agreements between the host country and the receiving country. One of the problems faced by OFWs is the substitution of their labor contracts. Contract Substitution, as defined in an article, is one of contract frauds wherein OFWs or migrant workers are forced to sign new contracts either by the employer or the recruitment agencies that processed the migrant5s documents. This phenomenon usually happen when an OFW upon his/her arrival in the workplace, is forced by his/her employer or recruitment agency to sign another contract which contains new working conditions and is different from the original contract the OFW signed through the local recruitment agency in the Philippines. Most of what is written in the new contract, in which the OFW was forced to sign by his employer, includes lower income, allows the employer not to pay overtime done by the OFWs. With the use of case study, interviews and secondary data, his paper aimed to understand the socio-political reasons leading to contract substitution among the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Guided by the ideas of migration scholars such as Salt and Stein, who viewed labor migration as a global business where migration industries like recruitment agencies from the home and host countries run or stand to make commercial gains at the expense of migrant workers, the researcher found out that employers and recruitment agencies, who were the primary causes of substituted contracts, do gain in the migration process. This gain comes from lower expenses, rebates or cut they (recruitment agencies and field agents) get from recruiting OFWs and get higher rebates or cut when substituting contracts. Moreover, the absence of bilateral agreement between the receiving and the sending country is considered to be another factor. On the side of the OFWs, their lack of knowledge on what to do when they are forced to sign a new contract is also a reason. Lastly, the weak implementation of laws and policies by the Philippine government also contribute to prevalent cases of contract substitution.