By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff reporter

Filipino worker Marvic Babasa has been working in Korea for four years but has already changed companies three times due to various problems, such as unpaid wages and verbal and physical abuse from employers.

``I've had problems before, like the company did not want to pay some of my wages. Now, my current company, I've had to endure verbal abuse. It seems that every time my supervisor sees me, he curses and screams at me. It seems like he only does that to us Filipino workers,'' said Babasa, who currently works for a steel threading company in Wolgok, Gwangju, south of Seoul.

Babasa is one of around 500,000 workers from countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Mongolia and Indonesia, who were brought to Korea under the Employment Permit System.

The Philippine and Korean ministries of labor signed an agreement on the EPS in 2006. It allows Korean employers, who have failed to hire local workers, to legally employ a certain number of foreign workers. Most of them work in manufacturing jobs that are classified as ``3-D'' jobs: difficult, dirty and dangerous, which many Koreans do not want to do.

``The EPS has been around for six years, and nothing much has improved,'' said Aquilino Juanites, Jr., who is one of the leaders of the Filipino EPS Workers Association (FEWA).

FEWA, an organization of Filipino workers around Korea, recently came out with a paper on its complaints and recommendations regarding the system.

Juanites noted some Korean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were still avoiding giving legitimate benefits to Filipino workers, which were assured under the EPS. This includes minimum wages, annual and monthly paid leave, night differential pay, overtime pay and menstruation leave for female workers.

Workers are currently paid 856,000 won for 40 hours of work, and 928,000 won for 44 hours of work. ``But it's still common for many small companies not to pay the workers overtime or night differential pay. Even the female workers aren't allowed to use the menstruation leave, which is once a month,'' Juanites said.

Another common complaint is discrimination and physical and verbal abuses. Theo Como, who works for a book manufacturing company in Susaek, Seoul, has endured abuse from his Korean boss for the last three years.

``When the machine breaks down, he blames me. He's always shouting and cursing me, even though I did nothing wrong. One time, he tried to punch me, but I had to protect myself from him. It's a good thing the company's president sided with me, and asked him to change his attitude,'' Como said.

Some SMEs are reluctant to report industrial accidents in the workplace, and as a result, the foreign workers cannot claim compensation benefits from the Korea Labor Welfare Corporation.

Employers also lack knowledge about the immigration and labor laws and guidelines, which sometimes lead to employees overstaying their visas.

One of the objectives of the EPS was to increase transparency of sending and receiving workers, and to protect their rights and prevent abuse and discrimination.

However, FEWA noted there are lapses on the part of the Ministry of Labor, since there seems to be no monitoring or assessment of whether the companies adhere to the labor or immigration laws.

The association urged the government to fully implement its labor laws, especially the Labor Standard Act, Act of Employment of Foreign Workers and related insurance acts.

``The full force of the law will transform the inhumane practices of their fellow Korean workers and employers into more educated ones, especially for the benefit of the EPS Filipino workers,'' Juanites said.