Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2012, published 102nd ILC session (2013)

Protection of Wages Convention, 1949 (No. 95) - Philippines (Ratification: 1953)

Articles 6 and 12 of the Convention. Workers’ freedom to dispose of their wages and regular payment of wages. Further to its previous comments concerning the reparation claims, including claims for unpaid wages, filed by Filipino workers employed in Iraq in the aftermath of the 1990 Gulf War, the Committee notes the Government’s indications that the Philippine Claims and Compensation Committee Secretariat (PCCC) has successfully completed its mission after 16 years of operation during which it received claims from 42,000 individuals and corporations and remitted US$158 million to Filipino claimants affected by the 1990 Gulf War.

In addition, the Committee recalls that it has been drawing the Government’s attention for a number of years to the need to guarantee the freedom of workers to dispose of their wages in relation to initiatives concerning agreements with certain countries designed to regulate the transfer of the wages of Filipino overseas workers. In its last report, the Government indicates that the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is adopting an employment contract for various skills which provides that the employer shall assist the employee in remitting a percentage of his/her salary through the proper banking channel or other means authorized by law. It also indicates that in recent negotiations with countries such as Jordan and Lebanon concerning a standard employment contact for household workers, it was proposed that the employer should help the household worker to remit the salary to his/her designated beneficiary in the Philippines through proper banking channels. The Committee again stresses the importance of ensuring in those agreements that the discretion of the workers concerned as to the use they wish to make of their wages is not restricted in any form or manner. The Committee recalls, in this respect, that any legislation requiring mandatory remittances to the country of a portion of the wages earned by Filipino workers abroad would be inconsistent with the requirements of Article 6 of the Convention. Recalling the Government’s assurances in earlier reports that discussions on similar agreements would address only matters relating to employment opportunities, terms and conditions of employment and not the manner by which wages may be disposed, the Committee requests the Government to take all appropriate steps to ensure that the proposed POEA employment contract and the standard employment contract for household workers currently negotiated with migrant-receiving countries provide for remittances by overseas workers on a purely voluntary basis.