US firm ordered: Pay Pinoys $609-M

The National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) has ordered a US-based company to pay 1,975 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) more than $609 million in back wages, damages and retirement pay — a historic decision considered as the country’s biggest award in labor adjudication.

The NLRC ruled that Brown and Root and its local affiliate, Asia International Builder Corp., must pay the amount demanded by the Filipinos who were hired by the US company for construction work abroad.

The OFWs were demanding holiday overtime pay, annual leave differential pay, vacation leave compensation and other claims that were allegedly mandated under Bahrain law, according to copies of the NLRC decision.

The award also includes hazard pay, moral and exemplary damages of $50,000 for each worker plus retirement pay for those who received settlement claims as listed in the annexes appended to the 87-page NLRC decision.

The NLRC order mentioned Bahrain’s laws as the basis for its decision but did not give background on when or where the complainants worked.

It also did not state the ground for the claims that the Filipinos were seeking or the period covered by the decision.

Brown and Root can still file a motion for reconsideration with the NLRC, a quasi-judicial body. It can also pursue the case further in Philippine courts.

The verdict by NLRC chairman Roy Señeres, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, capped a 19-year adjudication which started in the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), then to the NLRC and the Supreme Court. The verdict was promulgated Dec. 11, 2002.

The total amount the NLRC ordered Brown and Root and its local affiliate is $609,695,262.42 or approximately P30,484,763,121.

The 1,975 OFWs who won the case against Brown and Root were among those who filed discrimination suits in June 1984 with the POEA. They pursued their cases at the NLRC arbitration branch and the first division of the NLRC, after the cases were remanded to the NLRC by the Supreme Court.

The OFWs were represented by lawyer Gerardo del Mundo of his self-named Makati law office.

Del Mundo said Brown and Root, a construction company based in Houston, Texas, is affiliated with the Halliburton group of companies. Brown and Root hired and employed the OFWS as pipefitters, welders, riggers, millwrights, heavy equipment operators, crane operators, foremen, fabricators, insulators, electricians, spray painters, layout men, and office personnel from 1976 until the 1990s.

More recently, Del Mundo said that in March 2002 Brown and Root hired and deployed more than 600 OFWs to work and build additional jails in Cuba for members of the al-Qaeda international terrorist network captured by the US military.

The OFWs were recruited through another Filipino firm by BRII to work on its prison cells project.

BRII pays OFWs around $1,500 to $2,000 a month, plus overtime and other variables, Del Mundo said.

In contrast, many of the awardees in the NLRC decision received "scandalous and unconscionable" amounts. Olegario Francisco died shortly after receiving $57; Rodolfo Espiritu received $112.81; Felix Bobiar, $157.68; Gabriel Santos, $ 68.24; and Rodolfo Villalobos, $234.95. They are among claimants who executed illegal quitclaims, quivers, waivers and releases.

Señeres, together with commissioner Vicente Veloso, promulgated the historic decision.

Del Mundo is confident that Brown and Root will honor the NLRC’s decision since the American company has other business interests in the country, including having a stake in the Malampaya project.

He added that Brown and Root and its local affiliate have ten days after receipt of the decision to file a motion for reconsideration.

There are at least five million Filipinos working abroad and the money they send home to their relatives is a major source of foreign exchange.

Filipinos working overseas remitted US$6.23 billion dollars through official channels to the Philippines last year. — With AFP