NLRC awards 630 OFWs P338-M in labor claims

The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) has ordered a Filipino contractor and its American partner to pay $6.5 million or roughly P338 million to 630 Filipino workers they deployed in Algeria in 1995.

In a decision, NLRC labor arbiter Pablo Espiritu Jr. ordered EEI Corp. and Bechtel International Inc., its American partner, to pay the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) the unexpired portion of their contract, hazard pay, mobilization pay, project allowance, Christmas bonus, vacation leave pay, public holiday pay and 10-percent escalation pay, plus attorney’s fees.

Each OFW stands to receive from $7,000 (about P364,000) to $14,000 (P728,000).

Lawyer Gerardo del Mundo, who represented the OFWs, said in a statement that EEI and Bechtel recruited and deployed his clients in Algeria in 1995.

The OFWs were employed as pipefitters, electricians, instrument technicians, millwrights, insulators, welders, engineers, foremen and supervisors.

But the OFWs, Del Mundo said, discovered, when they were deployed in Algeria, that the place was dangerous, with both companies allegedly failing to inform them about the peace and order situation there.

Del Mundo said 52 of the complaining workers were allegedly illegally dismissed while the rest were allegedly denied hazard pay while employed in Algeria.

The NLRC ruling said the OFWs "religiously toiled and worked" for the two firms despite "being in a foreign and strange land, in a country with (an) epidemic of death, held to ransom by terror."

The NLRC said the liability of both companies are dependent not only on the terms of their job contracts but are specified by law. It cited Supreme Court decisions to justify its ruling.

The NLRC, however, denied the OFWs’ claims for unpaid salaries, sick leave pay, cost of living allowance and moral and exemplary damages due to lack of evidence.