THE REGULAnON OF THE SOUTH-NORTH TRANSFER OF REPRODUCTIVE
LABOR: FILIPINO WOMEN IN SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
by
SANDRA EZQUERRA
A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Sociology
and the Graduate School ofthe University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
September 2008
11
University of Oregon Graduate School
Confirmation of Approval and Acceptance of Dissertation prepared by:
Sandra Ezquerra
Title:
"The Regulation of the South-North Transfer of Reproductive Labor: Filipino Women in Spain
and the United States"
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree in the Department of Sociology by:
Linda Fuller, Chairperson, Sociology
Ellen Scott, Member, Sociology
Joan Acker, Member, Sociology
Lynn Fujiwara, Member, Sociology
Lamia Karim, Outside Member, Anthropology
and Richard Linton, Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies/Dean of the Graduate
School for the University of Oregon.
September 6, 2008
Original approval signatures are on file with the Graduate School and the University of Oregon
Libraries.
© 2008 Sandra Ezquerra
111
IV
An Abstract of the Dissertation of
Sandra Ezquerra
in the Department of Sociology
for the degree of
to be taken
Doctor of Philosophy
September 2008
Title: THE REGULATION OF THE SOUTH-NORTH TRANSFER OF
REPRODUCTIVE LABOR: FILIPINO WOMEN IN SPAIN AND THE UNITED
STATES
Approved: _
Dr. Linda Fuller
This dissertation examines the experiences of Filipina migrant domestic and care
workers and the role of the state in the Global South-Global North transfer of
reproductive labor.
On the one hand, Western countries currently face a "care void" resulting from
women's entry in the workforce, aging populations, and limited state support, among
other factors. On the other hand, countries in the Global South have gone through
decades of economic restructuring. This has resulted in the perpetuation of economic
crisis, high unemployment rates, and massive outmigration. In the past two decades, these
migration flows have become increasingly feminized. Women from the South move to
semi-industrialized and industrialized countries and take jobs as domestic and care
workers. Given this scenario, the overall question that guides my analysis is, how do
states regulate the South-North transfer of reproductive labor? Particularly, how do the
vPhilippine, Spanish, and U.S. governments shape this transfer through their migration and
labor laws? How do Spain and the United States regulate the immigration and
reproductive labor of Filipino women? And how do these two receiving countries of
reproductive labor, resemble or differ from each other in all these tasks?
My goal is to contribute to a growing scholarship that studies government
regulation of female migration. I do this by examining Filipinas' out-migration, their
arrival in the United States and Spain, and their labor as care givers and domestic workers
in the San Francisco Bay Area and Barcelona. Although work on the intersection of
gender and the state is growing, there is a need to further analyze the gender factors,
components, and consequences of the regulation of migrant labor in the Philippines, the
United States and Spain.
The methods I use in this study include in-depth interviews with Filipino women,
government employees and officials, and representatives from migrant workers'
organizations, among other subjects, in the three countries. I also conduct participant
observation in the three research sites and analyze multiple documents such as
legislation, newspaper articles, and migrant workers' organizations newsletters.
CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Sandra Ezquerra
PLACE OF BIRTH: Barcelona, Spain
DATE OF BIRTH: August 1, 1976
GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon
University of Barcelona
DEGREES AWARDED:
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology 2008, University of Oregon
Master of Science in Sociology 2003, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology 2001, University of Barcelona
Bachelor of Arts in History, 2000, University of Barcelona
AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Immigration
Gender/Race/Class
Political Economy
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Teaching Assistant (Graduate Teaching Fellow), University of Oregon, 2003-
2008
Research Assistant (Graduate Teaching Fellow), University of Oregon, 2005-
2006
Instructor (Graduate Teaching Fellow), University of Oregon, 2003-2005
VI
Vll
GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Sociology Graduate Student Publication Award, University of Oregon, 2008
Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Fundaci6 Jaume Bofill, Barcelona, Spain, 2007-
2008
OUS-SYLFF Fellow Mobility Program Grant for Doctoral Research at Ateneo de
Manila University, the Philippines. Nippon Foundation, Tokyo, 2007
Benton Johnson Sociology Dissertation Award, University of Oregon, 2007
South East Asian Studies Grant, University of Oregon, 2006
OUS-SYLFF Graduate Fellowship for International Research, Nippon
Foundation, Tokyo. 2005-2006
Center on Diversity and Community Graduate Summer Research Award,
University of Oregon, 2005
Pressman Family International Student Scholarship, University of Oregon, 2005
International Research Grant, Tokyo Foundation, 2002
Laurel Award, University of Oregon, 2002
Doctoral Studies Fellowship, Fundaci6n Caja Madrid, Spain, 2001-2002
PUBLICATIONS:
Ezquerra, Sandra. 2008. "Hacia un analisis interseccional de la regulaci6n de las
migraciones: la convergencia de genero, raza y c1ase social." in Los retos
epistemol6gicos de las migraciones transnacionales, edited by E. Santamaria.
Barcelona: Anthropos.
Ezquerra, Sandra. 2007. "Gender, Migration, and the State: Filipino Women and
Reproductive Labor in the United States" Kasarilan: Philippine Journal ofThird
World Studies 22.
Vlll
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to thank all the women who shared with me their
stories of love, pain, and struggle during the past two years. They touched and changed
me in beautiful ways. Many thanks as well to all the activists, attorneys, government
employees and officials, and other people who made time to meet with me and patiently
answered my questions and shared with me their stories and points of view. Special
thanks to Terry Valen and other kasamas at the Filipino Community Center in San
Francisco and Sister Pau and the many women at the Centro Filipino in Barcelona. I am
also thankful to the staff and volunteers at Migrante International and Kanlungan in the
Philippines. They all welcomed me into their respective organizations and supported me
and my research in any way they could. Maraming salamat po to you all!
I encountered many people during my research who believed in me and my
project. I cannot mention all of them here, but thank you so much to Rose, Maria,
Valerie, Robyn Rodriguez, and Ate Remi. Special thanks to Jeng and Ron, who guided
me through the streets of Manila and taught me so much over beer and wonderful food
and music! I am particularly grateful to Emily Roque, the best research assistant I could
ever have hoped for. She worked hard, listened carefully, provided great ideas, took care
of me when I got sick, and put up with my crankiness and stress. I could have never
managed such an intense fieldwork in the Philippines without you, Emily.
I will never forget the support and nurturance I enjoyed from my sisters at the
Social Science Feminist Network at the University of Oregon. The SSFN was an
incredible space in which I grew a lot as a feminist sociologist. It was amazing to share
IX
thought, meals, articles, and dreams with all its members. All ofthem were amazing! My
time at the University of Oregon was also full of great colleagues who turned out to be
even better friends. Special thanks to Lara, LT, Lora, Barbara, Maria, Hava,Khaya,
Mara, Sarah, and Shannon. Many thanks to Lauren for reminding me there is a world
outside academia and to Jason for having had and showed so much faith in me and my
project. Thanks a lot to Lisa and Tibor for their love and for keeping a home for me in
Eugene, and to Mary, Chris, and Shelley for all their help, patience, and sense of humor.
I wish to express sincere appreciation to my advisor and dissertation chair, Dr.
Linda Fuller. She has taught me a lot during these years and I will never forget her
intellectual guidance and moral support. Special thanks also to Dr. Joan Acker for her
thought-provoking comments and encouragement and to Dr. Lynn Fujiwara, Dr. Ellen
Scott, and Dr. Lamia Karim for their great challenging questions and valuable feedback.
The nurturing presence of some important people in my life was crucial to make it
to the end of this "marathon." My friends Noe, Jesus Ma, Blanca, Raquel, Jaume, Rosa,
Monica, Sandra, Leo Bejarano, and Albert Terrones at times read my work and patiently
listened to me thinking out-loud and expressing endless insecurities. Jose provided
precious support and care. Thank you for travelling half the work to be my side at the
end. I am so glad you are all in my life! I want to end by thanking my family, particularly
my grandparents Carmen and Valero and my aunt Ma Jesus, for their love. My most
special thanks to my parents and my brother. Thank you so much for your enormous faith
in me, you unconditional support, and your beautiful love. Thank you also for letting me
fly and, patiently, waiting and embracing my return.
A mis abuelos Angeles y Jose. Os llevo siempre conmigo.
x
Xl
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1
1. Migration and the State in the Context of Global Capitalism 4
2. The Gendered Dimensions of Globalization 7
3. The Internationalization of Reproductive Labor 10
4. Gendering Migration Theory.................................................................... 12
5. Dissertation Organization and Chapter Outline 18
II. THE PHILIPPINBS: BACKGROUND, CONTEXT, AND EVOLUTION OF
THE LABOR EXPORT PROGRAM 24
1. Introduction 24
2. Political-Economic Background 26
2.1. The Neoliberal Era and Structural Adjustment Programs 26
2.2. The Philippines: Perennial Debt, Structural Adjustment, and
Neocolonialism 28
2.3. The Post-Marcos Era 31
2.4. Beyond the Corruption Argument: External Factors 32
2.5. Neoliberalism and Women 34
3. Labor Export in the Philippines 37
3.1. Labor Export as a Temporary Development Strategy..................... 37
3.2. From Labor Exporter to Protector State 39
3.3. Toward a Broker State: Protection versus Promotion 44
4. Labor Export within the Larger Development of the Philippines............. 47
4.1. Management versus Promotion: Why Don't They Call a Spade a
Spade? 48
4.1.1. POEA's Marketing Branch 50
4.1.2. POEA: The Largest Recruitment Agency............................. 56
4.1.3. The Naturalization of Migration: They Don't Have to
Encourage Migration. All They Have to Do Is to Keep People
Starving 58
XlI
Chapter Page
5. Migration and Development 62
5.1. What Role Has Migration Played in Philippine Economic
Development? 63
5.2. The Philippine Development Path 67
III. RA 8042 AND STATE LEGITIMACY: LABOR EXPORT AND
POLITICAL DILEMMAS IN THE PHILIPPINES 69
1. Introduction 69
2. Toward a Theorization of the State 70
2.1. The Relevance of Hegemony 72
2.2. The State in the Global Context 74
3. The Feminization of Migration: Protection Dilemmas 76
4. Flor Contemplacion and RA 8042: Toward a Systematization of
Migrant Workers' Protection 80
5. Toward a Critical Reading ofRA 8042 83
5.1. Pre-deployment Guarantees: Laws in Receiving Countries,
Bilateral Agreements, and Multilateral Treaties 84
5.1.1. Receiving Countries' Immigration and Labor Laws 85
5.1.2. Bilateral Agreements 86
5.1.3. Multilateral Arrangements 91
5.1A. Challenges to Transnational Regulation 97
5.2. Government Services 98
5.2.1. The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration 99
5.2.2. Insufficient Allocation of Resources 102
5.2.3. Informal Problem Solving 106
5.2.3.1. The Use of Quitclaims 106
5.2.3.2. Cultivating Good Relationships with Local
Authorities 112
5.3. Illegal Recruitment 114
5.3.1. Recruitment Fees 116
5.3.2. Contract Substitution 118
5.4. Deregulation 126
6. Conclusion 128
X111
Chapter Page
IV. TOWARD A FEMINIST POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PHILIPPINE
LABOR MIGRATION 131
1. Introduction 131
2. Feminism and the Theorization of the State 132
2.1. State Protection and the Contradictions of Commodification 133
2.2. The Commodification and Decommodification of Filipino 133
Women .
3. The Lebanon Crisis: One Thousand "Contemplacion Stories" 135
3.1. Filipino Women's Stories from Lebanon 136
3.2. The Role of the Government in the Crisis 139
3.3. Threat to Legitimacy........................................................................ 141
4. First Response: The Supermaid Program 144
5. Second Response: Toward Policy Reform 146
6. The Reform Package: From Supermaids to Household Service
Workers 148
6.1. Minimum Entry Salary of$400 150
6.2. No-Placement Fee Policy................................................................. 154
6.3. Skills Provide Protection 156
6.3.1. Attendance to the OWWA Language and Culture
Orientation 160
6.3.2. Professionalization of Migrant Domestic Workers 165
6.3.3. State Protection 168
6.3.4. State Exaction 172
6.4. Minimum Age . 173
6.5. Targeting Employers and Receiving Countries 175
6.6. Current and Projected Outcomes 179
6.7. Motivations Behind the Reform Package 182
7. Analysis and Conclusion................................................................ 184
XIV
Chapter Page
V. ENTERING THE COUNTRY I: SPANISH AND U.S. IMMIGRAnON
LAWS AND FILIPINA MIGRAnON TO THESE COUNTRIES 192
1. Preface................................................................... 193
2. Introduction 196
3. Socio-Economic Context: The Creation of a "Care Void" 197
4. Spain and the Import of Domestic Workers 200
4.1. Ley de Extranjeria: Only Immigrant Workers are Real
Immigrants 201
4.2. On the Feminization and Racialization of Immigration Flows 206
5. U.S. Immigration Policy: A Shifting Balance between Family and
Employment Migration 210
5.1. Historical Background 210
5.2. From Family to Labor Migration 210
5.3. Immigration Legislation and Reproductive Labor 213
6. A History of Filipino Migration to Spain: From Maids in the Colony to
Maids in the Metropolis 215
7. A History of Filipino Immigration to the United States: On (Neo)
Colonial Ties and Cheap Labor 219
8. Conclusion 223
VI. ENTERING THE COUNTRY II: FILIPINO WOMEN FULFILLING AND
CIRCUMVENTING IMMIGRATION LAW.......................................................... 225
I. Introduction 225
2.Filipino Women's Migration to Spain Today: The Law Shaping
Experiences and Experiences Shaping the Law......................... 226
2.1. On Fictitious Premises 227
2.2. How Are Filipinas Doing It? 230
2.2. I. Entering as Tourists 231
2.2.2. Entering as Workers: The Relevance of Networks 236
2.2.3. Entering as Relatives 243
2.2.3.1. Difficulties to Work and Dependency on Petitioner.... 245
xv
Chapter Page
2.2.3.2. Work Is Still a Requisite 246
2.2.3.3. Who Constitutes Family? 247
2.2.4. Challenging Official Categorizations 248
2.2.5. The Commodification of Immigrant Networks 257
3. Filipino Women's Migration to the United States Today......................... 262
3.1. Entering as Relatives: How Long Will It Take? 264
3.2. Entering as Tourists 273
3.2.1. Avoiding Backlogs................. 274
3.2.2. Employment-Based Legalization for Caregivers: A Dead
End 276
3.2.3. Legalization as Professional Workers 279
3.2.4. Community Networks 281
3.2.5. Opening the Door to Trafficking 285
3.2.5.1. Entering as Workers: The Normalization of
Irregularity 285
3.2.5.2. Entering as Servants: Legalized Trafficking................. 289
4. Conclusion 291
VII. ENTERING NEW LABOR MARKETS: FILIPINO WOMEN AS THE
ETERNAL REPRODUCTIVE WORKERS 295
1. Introduction 295
2. Marginalization in the Labor Market: The Eternal Reproductive
Workers 296
2.1. Demotion: A Constant across the Board 296
2.2. Structural Factors: Racially Segregated Labor Markets 300
2.3. Credential and Language Barriers 302
2.4. Ideological Barriers: "Filipinas are good in the bathroom, for
changing diapers, and have tolerance for bad smells" 307
2.5. Gender dynamics: Who Is the Breadwinner? 314
3. Conclusion 321
XVI
Chapter Page
VIII. WORKING THE COUNTRY: THE REGULATION OF REPRODUCTIVE
LABOR IN SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES 323
I. Introduction 323
2. On the Private and the Public: Intersecting Forces at the Root of the
State 323
3. The Informality of Household Labor......................................................... 328
3.1. Just Like Family............................................................................... 330
3.2. When Informality Is Not so Pleasant 334
4. Spain: Good Will as the Premise of Regulation 341
4.1. Work Hours: You Never Know. It Always Depends on the
Employers................................................................................................ 343
4.1.1. Endless Work Days: Because When We Say Fija We Mean
Fija 347
4.1.2. Daily Breaks 349
4.1.3. Time away from the House 351
4.2. Domestic Workers' Wages: The Law and Reality.......................... 354
4.2.1. Making above Minimum Wage 355
4.2.2. When One Cannot Find a Good Employer 357
4.2.3. A Home Outside the Employers' Home 359
5. Reproductive Labor in California: Exempted from Employment Law.... 360
5.1. Overtime and Wage Provisions 361
5.1.1. Live-In Caregivers: We don't think by hours 364
5.1.2. Live-Out Shift Care Givers 368
5.1.3. Caring for the State: In-Home Support Services Providers 370
5.2. AB 2536: Toward an Improvement of Reproductive Workers'
Employment Standards 374
5.2.1. Drafting the Bill 374
5.2.2. Evolvement and Defeat 375
5.2.3. Relevance of the Bill.................................................................. 377
6. Toward a Comparative Analysis 380
6.1. On Flexibility and Neoliberal States 380
6.2. The State and the Household 384
Chapter
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Page
IX. CONCLUSION 388
I. Summary 388
2. Research Answers 395
3. Future Directions 397
APPENDICES 400
A. RESEARCH METHODS 400
B. QUESTIONNAIRE FOR INTERVIEWS WITH FILIPINO WOMEN.. 420
C. ABBREVIATIONS 424
D. BILATERAL AGREEMENTS 425
E. RATIFICATIONS OF THE U.N. CONVENTION ON THE
PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF ALL MIGRANT WORKERS AND
THE MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILIES 446
REFERENCES 448
xv111
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
2.1. Monitor at POEA warning that there are no available job orders to
Spain 51
2.2. Monitor at POEA literally saying: "Be aware and be cautious of
illegal recruiters" 51
3.1. Quitclaim 109
3.2. Incomplete Contract 122
4.1. Lebanon Crisis 143
4.2. Domestic Work Skill Assessment 167
6.1. Letter from U.S. Embassy in Manila 270
6.2.2006 Waiting Periods for Filipinos 272
6.3. Graffiti about TnTs 283
XIX
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
2.1. Deployment of OFWs by Sex 40
2.2. Newly Deployed Overseas Filipino Workers. Top 10 Occupational
Groups 2006 40
2.3. OFWs in the Service Sector by Sex 40
2.4. Pre-Departure Expenses 55
3.1. Welfare Cases 100
4.1. Montly Salary in Lowest Paying Countries 151
4.2. Salary Ranges by Region 151
4.3. Educational and Professional Backgrounds and Jobs in Spain 158
4.4. Migration Expenses 172
5.1. Work Permits 203
6.1. Age, Entry, Mode of Entry, and Current Status.......................................... 231
6.2. Mode of Entry and Access to Migration/Contract 239
6.3. Previous Networks, Mode of Entry, and Further Family Migration 251
6.4. Marital Status, Existence and Location of Children 253
6.5. Age and Entry Year and Mode 264
6.6. Relatives in the United States 266
6.7. Relatives in Spain 266
6.8. Family Reunification Waiting Periods 268
7.1. Educational and Professional Backgrounds and Jobs in Spain 298
7.2. Educational and Professional Backgrounds and Jobs in the U.S. 298
xx
LIST OF GRAPHS
Grraph Page
7.1. San Francisco County IHSS Racial Distribution 301
1CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This dissertation examines how the state shapes the experiences of Filipina l
migrant workers in the context of the global South to North transfer of reproductive
labor. On the one hand, Western countries currently face a "care void" resulting from
women's entry into the workforce, aging populations, and limited state support for social
services, among other factors. On the other hand, countries in the global South have gone
through decades of economic restructuring. This has resulted in the perpetuation of
economic, crisis, high unemployment rates, and massive out-migration. In the past two
decades, these migration flows have become increasingly feminized. Women from the
South move to semi-industrialized and industrialized countries and take jobs as domestic
and care workers. Given this scenario, the overall question guiding my analysis is, how
do states regulate the South-North transfer ofreproductive labor? In particular, how do
the Philippines, Spain, and the United States contribute to or shape this transfer through
their migration and labor laws? How do Spain and the United States regulate the
immigration and reproductive labor ofFilipino women? And how are the two countries
that receive reproductive labor similar and different in its regulation?
My goal is to contribute to a growing scholarship that studies government
regulation in the context of female migration. To do this I examine the regulation of
Filipinas' out-migration, their arrival in the United States and Spain, and their labor as
care givers and domestic workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Barcelona. The
I There is no consensus on whether it is better to use the tenn "Filipino" or "Filipina" to refer to women
from the Philippines or of Filipino descent. While the Spanish nature of the word allows us to use the
feminine gender (Filipina or Filipinas), with some exceptions and following common practice in the
Philippines, 1 choose to use the English fonn. Thus, 1 talk of Filipino women or Filipinas instead of Filipina
women.
2methods I use in this study include in-depth interviews mostly with Filipino women,
government employees and officials, and representatives from migrant workers'
organizations in the three countries. In addition, I conducted participant observation in
the three research sites and analyzed multiple documents such as legislation, newspaper
articles, and migrant workers' organizations newsletters.
The Philippine state both creates and regulates the context in which women
migrate, while the Spanish and the U.S. governments both create and regulate the context
into which they arrive and where they work. I aim to provide answers to the following
sub-questions: Why do Filipino women migrate? What is the legal andpolitical-economic
contextfrom which they emigrate? Why do they migrate as reproductive workers as
opposed to jobs more in accordance to their formal training or work experience? How do
the Spanish and us. governments regulate their entry and work? How do the three states
under study affect their experiences? In other words, what takes place in these women's
lives both in sending and receiving societies, and what does the state have to do with
this?
Although work on the intersection of gender and the state is growing, there is a
further need to analyze the gender components of migrant labor in the Philippines, the
United States and Spain, particularly regarding the ways in which immigration and
employment laws shape immigrant women's experiences. While the state has started to
take a more central role in the studies of female migration in recent years, further work is
necessary in order to shed light on some of the gendered factors, components, and
consequences of migration control and regulation (Chin 1998; Davies 2002; Goldring
2001; Piper 2004; 2006). The inclusion of the Philippines as one of the world's main
exporters of female labor, as well as two receiving countries to which Filipino women
migrate, allows me to adopt a transnational perspective on state regulation, or what I call
transnationalism from above (Ezquerra and Garces-Mascarenas 2008). Transnationalism
from above involves the analysis of state regulation of women's migration from
departure to the moment they become incorporated into the receiving country as laborers.
In addition, my study has a crossnational component, since I conduct a comparison of
two receiving countries.
3While I see Filipino women as historical subjects, albeit constrained by structural
limitations, my object of study is the state per se, as regulator of female international
migration and reproductive labor. This involves complex processes and requires different
theoretical perspectives. In order to achieve my research goals, an understanding of
global capitalism and how it has triggered both high demands for reproductive labor in
Western countries and an increase and feminization of world migration flows, is very
important. It is also important to take into consideration different factors shaping
receiving countries' immigration policies, such as the needs of local labor markets, as
well as gendered and racialized ideologies behind the regulation of reproductive labor.
Immigrant women in both Spain and the United States find themselves stripped from
many rights that nationals of these countries take for granted, such as the ability to live
with their families or to freely access the labor market. In addition, they find themselves
concentrated in labor niches, especially domestic and care work, which have been
historically undervalued and under-regulated.
The incorporation of gender, race, and class, and how these intersect is an
important part of my work and contributes to bridging different levels of analysis usually
treated separately, such as macro and micro and private and public. I examine how these
categories play out in the lives of Filipino women, and show that power dynamics shaped
by gender, race, and class organize their experiences of migration and in their
workplaces at different levels. Gender, race, and class shape the way their employers
treat them and their everyday experiences. They also shape their particular location in the
global economy, as well as ways immigration and employment laws regulate their lives.
The intersection of gender, class, and race takes place both in people's intimate lives and
in macro processes or entities, such as the state and the global economy. Rather than
being discreet units of analysis, the micro and the macro levels affect and encompass
each other. Women's personal stories conveyed in this dissertation stem from their
migration experience, which, in tum, is an outcome of historical and economic changes
taking place at the international level and of state efforts to adjust to these
transformations. In order to understand the connections between different levels of
analysis, I work toward a feminist political economy from below through the use of
ethnographic and qualitative methodology.
An examination of the experiences of Filipino migrant reproductive workers also
shows the private-public divide acquires different meanings from the ones Western
feminists initially established. State intervention in the "private" household takes
different shapes and acquires different connotations if we include race, gender, and class
in our analysis. The household is a private sphere for many Western women.
Simultaneously, it is migrant reproductive workers' workplace, and therefore a public
place for them. These contradictory definitions of the household impact women's
experiences as migrants and as workers vis-a.-vis their employers. They also affect state
regulation of this sphere and the resulting allocation of rights to different groups of
women.
Finally, by focusing on the gender, race, and class dynamics of global migration,
my analysis sheds light on the importance of the ideological discourses built around
these three categories in order to justifY current scenarios of structural and material
inequalities. More specifically, the construction of Filipino women as servile or
compliant portrays them as "ideal servants." This updates old justifications of colonial
domination and legitimizes and perpetuates their contemporary subordinate position in
the international labor market.
In the remainder of this introduction I provide the theoretical context for my study.
This includes a discussion of migration and the state in the context of global capitalism,
the gendered dimensions of globalization, the internationalization of reproductive labor,
and a gendered discussion of migration theory. At the end of the introduction I outline
the organization of the dissertation.
1. Migration and the State in the Context of Global Capitalism
Academic and political debates around the nature, logic, and social impacts of
globalization have been numerous during the past few decades. While some have
identified globalization as a phenomenon emerging during the last quarter of the 20th
century (Friedman 2000), others have stated it merely constitutes another stage in the
development of the capitalist system, born five centuries ago (Foster 2002; Sweezy
4
51997). While some have characterized it as the economic system that has produced the
most wealth in world history (Friedman 2000; Fukuyama 1992), others identify it as the
ultimate global expansion of exploitation and inequality, which have been inherent to
capitalism since its very birth (Amin 2001; Foster 2003; Meszaros 1995; Tabb 1997;
2001 a; 2001 b). While some have announced the triumph of transnational capital over the
nation state (Friedman 2000; Negroponte 1995), others have insisted the state remains a
key actor in the current global era (MacEwan and Tabb 1989; Tabb 1997; 2001 a; 2001 b;
Wallerstein 1979) .
These debates are crucial to my conceptualization of globalization as well as to my
understanding of the migration of Filipino women in the currant global context. Due to
the nature of my research questions, I put special emphasis on the role of the state in the
regulation of migration in the context of globalization. The following are three ways in
which my research relates to current debates on globalization.
First, I see the current world economic system as the latest manifestation of
capitalism, whose emergence and survival has been possible through the plundering of
resources of Western and non-Western countries and the exploitation of workers and
peasants in both the global North and the global South. The latest manifestation of the
system has been the predominance ofneoliberal practice and ideology, which have
further impoverished countries in the South during the past few decades and perpetuated
their dependent relationship vis avis Western countries. In the context of the Philippines,
these dynamics have prompted millions of people to migrate to other countries in search
of better economic opportunities.
Second, increasing economic inequalities between enriched and impoverished
countries have translated into subtle new forms of political domination of the periphery
by the center in what some authors have called the neo-colonial era. If we want to
understand South-North migration we need to look at the factors behind it in an historical
perspective and recognize economic and political inequalities both within and among
countries. These inequalities are present in the way the Philippine government regulates
Filipino migration, and they often limit its ability to protect its workers. They also
become obvious in both Spanish and U.S. regulation of immigrant flows, which strip
6non-Western nationals of certain basic rights and often turn them into second-class
citizens. Western countries continue to plunder resources, including labor, from the
global South to satisfy their economic demands, and Southern countries rely on and
promote the export of various commodities, including people, under unfavourable
conditions to keep their economies afloat.
Third, the state is a key actor in the context of globalization. The undermining of
state sovereignty has been a dominant theme in the globalization literature. The decline
of the Keynesian welfare state in Europe and North America signaled the emergence of
the debate. According to Friedman (2000), globalization is a new technological-
economic arrangement that financial investors and corporations control, in which the
state sees its capacity to regulate the economy and society greatly diminished. While
capital, information, and people have become increasingly transnational, I argue this has
not necessarily happened at the sake of the state. Tabb asserts the primacy of capital over
globalization and claims that recent changes in the economy (such as capital and labor
de-regulation) are political choices governments have made to support the interests of
capital. The idea that the state is powerless to stop globalization and its negative effects
is a powerful ideological tool allowing capital to present global capitalism as inevitable
(Tabb 1997; 2001 b). With the growth ofneolibera1ism, however, it is not the weakness
of the state per se that is revealed under globalization but the erosion of its public
functions.
As I will show, while I see the state as often safeguarding the interests of capital,
this does not go uncontested. In the case of the Philippines, the state has been forced to
pay attention to civil society demands in order to preserve the legitimacy of its labor
export program. In Spain and the United States, although immigration policy has
provided local economies with cheap and flexible labor, states have been pressured to
protect native labor. State regulation of migration, therefore, needs to be understood
from a structural-dialectic perspective, in which the state often needs to negotiate with
multiple actors, such as capital (both local and foreign), social movements organizations,
and other states (see Calavita 1992). In addition, whereas capital deregulation and trade
liberalization have been frequent, they have not been paralleled by an erasure of borders,
7and wealthy countries are becoming real fortresses to avoid the entry of Third World
migrant workers. Indeed, according to Arango (2007), receiving states are restricting
certain kinds of migration, particularly contract and permanent migration. Freedom of
circulation is an exception reserved for citizens from countries in the North, and
movement regulation, restriction, and control become the norm for most of the world's
population (see also Oishi 2005). In order to capture this, Arango proposes the term
frontier globalization or "a globalization built upon borders and barriers, a
mundialization that has been produced despite them rather than due to their elimination"
(Ibid. 10). In other words, the generalization of migration at the international level has
not taken place because of a weakened state but rather in the context of a reaffirmation of
its presence. While Arango makes this argument with reference to receiving states, I and
other authors suggest the increasing presence and activity of sending states have also
become key to facilitating and regulating migration (see Rodriguez 1999; 2005). The
emphasis on the role of sending countries both contributes to and moves beyond Saskia
Sassen's studies of migration and globalization, which have focused on the immigration
policies of receiving countries as well as economic policies implemented in the
developing world that result in international migration (Sassen 1993; 2004). Building
upon Rodriguez's work, I suggest that, besides the indirect impact on migration that
structural adjustment programs and neoliberal policies have had, sending states also
actively contribute to labor migration through direct regulation, management, and
promotion of migrant labor.
2. The Gendered Dimensions of Globalization
As noted, international migration takes place within the context of globalization.
Given that current migration flows are becoming increasingly feminized, it is important
to understand what the gendered components of globalization are and the ways in which
these trigger women's migration. Although the historical materialist tradition has
provided a nuanced study of the world economic system, it has important weaknesses,
one of the most important being the frequent neglect of gender and race as key
dimensions of globalization. Entities, actors, and social processes such as markets,
8migrants, and states have been analyzed from a gender and race-blind perspective that
has often neglected how gender and race, among other things, organize and constitute
them.
Feminist research on global restructuring has aimed at analyzing the effects of
macroeconomic and political processes on women's lives. This literature2 has challenged
the patriarchal prism through which political economy has traditionally been viewed
(Brodie 1994; Freeman 2001a; Gibson-Graham 2005; Marchand and Sisson Runyan
2000; Youngs 2000), questioned both the neo-liberal and Marxist emphases on macro-
corporate entities (Bergeron 2001; Gibson-Graham 2005). It has shown that
globalization is a contradictory and multifaceted process with different impacts on
different social groups (Beneda 1999; Beneda 2003; Brodie 1994; Marchand and Sisson
Runyan 2000).3 These neoliberal and Marxist 'conceptual silences' (Bakker 1994) or
'narratives of eviction' (Sassen 1998) have, according to Marchand and Runyan (2000:
17), failed to acknowledge that globalization is a gendered process.
Women feel the impact of globalization in very specific gendered ways:
• Through the gendered divisions oflabor, in which men's work is
privileged over women's in terms of status, pay, and working conditions,
and in the split between men's paid productive work outside the home and
women's unpaid reproductive work within the household,
• Through the feminization of labor, which generates an increasing
incorporation of women into the labor market simultaneously with a
flexibilization and precariousness of labor. The entry of middle-class
women in wealthier countries into the labor market responds to a decline
in traditionally secure male jobs, as a result ofderegulation, corporate
2 Feminist analyses ofglobalization have not only critiqued the "gender-blindness" of the neo-Iiberal
construction of globalization but they also have found such a "gender-blindness" in the Marxist approach
Beneda 2003; Bergeron 200 1; Freeman 200 1; Gibson-Graham 1996. For the sake of simplicity I will not
develop the specific feminist critique to each of the two schools.
3 These weaknesses of the neoliberal and Marxist school, according to Chang & Ling (2000), result in the
absence of the subaltern- in particular the subaltern woman- from the analysis. Two crushing discourses
silence and invisibilize the effects the of globalization on her: a masculinist discourse of imperialism and an
equally masculinist reactionary anti-imperialism.
9restructuring, and outsourcing. This incorporation in tum has increased the
demand for female migrant care and reproductive workers. In developing
countries women have also been entering the workforce, particularly in the
service, sweatshop, sex, and tourism sectors. Poor, working-class, Third
World, minority and migrant women are the cheapest and most vulnerable
sources of labor and fill those jobs characterized by low wages, few
benefits, little union representation, and minimal regulation.
• Through an increasing demand for nurses and other caregivers for the
elderly stemming from population ageing in many Western countries.
• Through the increase of women's migration and/or the feminization of
migratory populations around the world (Oishi 2005), particularly from
poor to rich countries but also within the global South, to earn higher
incomes to support their families and provide foreign exchange for their
governments. According to Oishi, between 1960 and 2000, the number of
migrant women around the world increased from 35 million to 85 million,
and by 2000 women constituted nearly 49% of world-wide migrants
(2005:2).
• Through cutbacks in (and privatization of) state social services- a process
that particularly disadvantages women, particularly poor, working· and
middle-class women, as the major recipients and providers of such
services (see Holmstrom 2003). This has taken place under Structural
Adjustment Programs (SAPs) in debt-ridden nations and welfare
restructuring programs in Western nations. These programs shift public
responsibility for social welfare back to the private realm of the home. The
reprivatization of social services and Western middle-class women's
incorporation into the labor market are key to understanding the increase
in women's migration from the global South to Western countries. While
women in the Philippines have felt compelled to leave their country due to
severe economic conditions and declining state support, there has also
10
been increasing demand for cheap reproductive labor in many Western (as
well as non-Western) countries.
3. The Internationalization of Reproductive Labor
In this section I address the feminization of global migration flows and how it runs
parallel to the increasing internationalization of reproductive labor. I understand
reproductive work as all tasks necessary to reproduce both the current and future
generations of productive and reproductive workers. It also includes the care for the past
generation of workers- the elderly- and those who are not capable of taking care of
themselves- the ill and disabled. Overall, reproductive labor comprises activities such as
purchasing household goods, preparing and serving food, laundering and repairing
clothing, maintaining furnishings and appliances, socializing children, providing care and
emotional support for adults, and maintaining kin and community ties (Glenn 1992).
While reproductive labor may take place in different sites and can be both free and
remunerated, I limit my discussion to remunerated reproductive work taking place in the
household. I do so for two reasons. First, I am particularly interested in how women from
the global South are replacing Western women in the completion of reproductive tasks
within the family as a result of the incorporation of the latter into the labor market in a
context of insufficient government social spending. Second, I am also interested in
understanding how this replacement is connected with gendered and racialized
constructions of the private household and how these shape government regulation of this
realm through both immigration and labor policies in receiving countries.
The capitalist economy has historically relied on a gendered division of labor.
Second wave feminism critiqued the lack of attention to reproductive labor typifying both
neoliberal and Marxist perspectives. According to feminist scholars, these theories
focused on productive labor, without paying much attention to the household work that
made possible the reproduction of the "productive" labor force. In this sense they even
question the productive/reproductive dichotomy (Ehrenreich 1990; Eisenstein 1990;
Hartmann 1981; Rubin 1990 [1976]; Young 1981).
--------------- ----- ----- -------- ------------------
11
Although this scholarship raised important issues about the relationship between
patriarchy and capitalism, it did not initially examine the ways in which race intersects
with gender and class in the organization of paid reproductive work. In fact, as Glenn
(1985; 1992) argues, the racial division of reproductive labor has been a missing piece of
the picture in both feminist literature and theories of racial hierarchy (see Anderson
2000). This overlooks the historical reality of women of color in the United States, who
have been consistently relegated to this sector (also see Glenn 1981; 2002). In addition to
these factors, Misra et al. (2006) discuss the important role class and nationality play in
the global organization of reproductive and care work, or what Romero (2003:811) has
called the "globalization of household labor and caregiving." As several scholars have
pointed out using terms such as "nanny chain," "love chain," "global care chain," and
"international division of reproductive labor", global economic restructuring "has
increased the worldwide demand for migrant domestic workers who often serve as both
caregivers and housekeepers" (Oishi 2005:3). Ifpaid reproductive work has historically
been done by poor women of color in the United States and rural women in Spain, today
it is increasingly being organized within an international system in which immigrant
women of color from peripheral countries provide care for families in the countries at the
developed center (Hewison and Young 2006; 2005b).
Reproductive work has traditionally been treated as a non-economic activity that
housewives and/or slaves perform for free, and through which no economic value is
produced. Even when these tasks are remunerated, this traditional devaluation of the
work depresses wages and working conditions (Fitzpatrick and Kelly 1998). In the core
countries, capital needs women's participation in the labor market, yet neither capital nor
the state nor men make up for the reproductive labor lost at home. Due to the lack of state
response to this situation, we have witnessed a privatization ofthe solution, in which
middle-class families in countries at the center hire immigrant women from the periphery
to do this reproductive work for them.
According to Cindy Katz (2001), insisting on the necessity of social reproduction
highlights a key area, still undertheorized, within which many of the problems associated
with capitalist globalization must be addressed. By making the reproduction of the labor
12
force the entry point of the study of migration, issues such as the role of women in
supporting the global economy and the gendered and racialized dimensions of the state
emerge. An emphasis on social reproduction allows us to examine global processes from
below and to unmask new power relations that have gone unnoticed or understudied.
4. Gendering Migration Theory
Despite all the "women on the move," migration research has traditionally had a
male bias (Kofman 1999; Pessar 1999; Pessar 2003), and women's involvement in
international migration has generally been overlooked (Escriva 2000). The main reason
for this has been the view of women as "dependents," moving as the wives, mothers, or
daughters of male migrants (Nations 1995; Zlotnik 1995). While migration theory has in
the past two decades begun to take women's experiences into consideration, gender bias
and the neglect of female migration still characterize it.
One of the most significant theories to explain international migration has been
network theory, which argues that once the departure of a few pioneering migrants is
triggered, the migration process may become self-sustaining through the construction of
increasingly dense social ties across space (see Hugo 1981; Massey 2004; Massey 1990a;
199Gb; Taylor 1986). As I discuss in Chapter VI, network theory is useful in explaining
Filipino women's migration flows to Spain and the United States, since it has studied the
particular and differentiated uses male and female migrants make of networks. While
men tend to use weaker networks (i.e. acquaintances, people they meet at work), women
tend to use stronger or close networks. In the United States, while Filipino men initially
migrated in search of work, female migration has mostly taken place through family
connections. In Spain, Filipino migration has been mostly female since its beginning.
Once an initial pioneer colony settled in the main Spanish cities, they supported and
sponsored the arrival of friends and relatives, which has exponentially multiplied Filipino
migration to the country.
While network theory has mostly attempted to explain the perpetuation of
international migration once it begins, other theories have aimed to understand the
reasons why people migrate in the first place. One theoretical approach to the origins of
13
immigration has been the push-pull model, which examines "factors of expulsion" and
"factors of attraction." Under this model, individuals are propelled to leave their home
countries because of lack of employment opportunities and economic hardship, and are
drawn toward certain destinations that offer employment and higher wages. This model
presupposes that individuals make rational choices on the basis of the information
available to them (Harris and Todaro 1970; see Lewis 1954; Massey et al. 1993; Ranis
and Fei 1961).
Marxist political economy provides a structural analysis of international migration,
which shows a close relationship between the history of colonization, the influence of
powerful "core" nations in "peripheral" lands, and the onset of migratory movements
from the latter (Massey 2004). Western penetration of former colonies resulted in
underdeveloped economies and impoverished populations. These eventually migrated to
rich countries in search of better life opportunities. Thus, according to World-Systems
theory, international migration follows directly from the globalization of the market
economy, where the penetration of capitalist economic relationships into non-capitalist
societies creates a mobile population inclined to migrate (see Castells 1989; Sassen 1991;
1998). While sharing with neoliberal theory its emphasis on push factors, Marxist
political economy emphasizes the importance of structures as opposed to individual
choices and takes into consideration the colonial history of the world economy.
The push-pull model and the structuralist analysis of international migration have
mostly aimed to explain the origins and/or reasons for the migratory process.4 While they
point to very important aspects of the causal factors at macro, meso, and micro levels,
they do not shed any light on how these factors may be different for women and men.
They provide a "gender neutral" explanation of migration that presents the male migrant
experience as the norm. In addition, they have largely neglected the role states have in the
regulation of out- and immigration. Saskia Sassen has been one ofthe only authors in the
structuralist school linking the effects of global economic policies on women's migration.
As noted above, however, she has mostly focused on the effects SAPs have on women in
4 For a comprehensive and in-depth review of migration theories see Massey et al. 1993.
14
the global South and the way receiving countries regulate the entry of immigrant workers.
She has not addressed, however, the explicit policies sending states have created to
regulate, manage, and promote out-migration. As Rodriguez (Rodriguez 1999; 2005) has
vastly argued, the role of sending states like the Philippines is crucial to understand the
shape current migration flows take.
The structuralist and the push-pull model, therefore, do not present a clear
explanation on how sending and receiving states may contribute to create and regulate
migration flows, as well as the gender components of their policies. For example, Nana
Oishi (2005) has pointed out that, while Asian women's migration to the United States
and Europe is indeed considerable, far more Asian women are ending up in other
countries within Asia. In part, this reflects the restrictive policies industrialized countries
have toward low-skilled and unskilled workers. 5 In addition, whereas men emigrate from
almost all developing countries in Asia, most women tend to originate in only few
countries- the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia- despite the fact that other nations
such as Thailand, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh share with the former push factors such
as high unemployment, low wages, and poverty. Ironically, according to Oishi (2005),
"more men emigrate from low-income countries -Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan- but
more women emigrate from better-off countries -the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and
Indonesia" (Ibid. 5). There is no linear correspondence between high unemployment and
women's migration. In addition, the fact that most Asian women are migrating to middle-
income countries within the region, rather than going to high-income countries in the
West, poses a challenge to structuralist theories that explain patterns of international
migration in terms of a country's role in the international division oflabor and the
exploitation of "periphery" nations by the "core" nations.
These facts reveal the weaknesses in both the push and pull and structuralist
models. While the Philippines certainly presents numerous push factors that explain the
great numbers of people leaving the country, and these factors often stem from its
5 For example, ten times as many Filipino migrants go to other Asian countries as go to North America:
582,584 migrated to Asian countries as temporary migrants in 2001, whereas only 51,308 migrated to the
United States and Canada as permanent migrants (Oishi 2005:4).
15
historical position within the world-system, the same applies to neighboring countries
such as Bangladesh. Why then is it that so many Filipino women migrate and
Bangladeshi women tend to stay home? Further, while many Filipino women migrate to
the United States and Spain as a result of former colonial ties, their destinations have
diversified in the past couple of decades, now including as many as 192 receiving
countries.
I suggest that the failure of the push-pull and the structuralist models lies in their
lack of attention to the state as a key actor in the international migration scenario, and,
more specifically, their neglect of the gender components of state regulation of migration.
Migration policies apply differently to women and men, and this has a direct impact on
the migration profile of each country. Philippine institutionalization of migration through
regulatory policy and government promotion ofFilipino workers becomes crucial to
understanding the massive exodus of female workers from the Philippines in the past
three decades. State gender bias continues in the receiving countries. Facing a shortage of
reproductive workers, Spanish immigration law prioritizes female immigration and their
allocation in the domestic labor niche. U.S. immigration policy does not address the need
of the country for reproductive workers. As a result of other mechanisms such as the
normalization of illegality and institutional barriers in the labor market, however, female
migrants to the United States concentrate in the reproductive labor sector.
A gendered approach to global migration focused on the experiences of migrant
women themselves also allows us to challenge traditional categorizations of the
immigration policies of receiving countries. Below I present mainstream categorizations
of worldwide immigration policies and suggest that taking Filipina migrants' stories as
our departure point may present some challenges to mainstream classifications of
immigration regimes. The differences between both highlight the importance of studying
immigration policy from a gendered perspective and taking women's experiences as the
departure point.
Joaquin Arango (2007) has divided receiving countries into three differentiated
groups in terms of the restrictive degree of their immigration policies. According to his
classification, the first regime accepts only temporary labor migration; the second is quite
16
restrictive in terms of permanent labor migration; and the third accepts all kinds of
immigration. The countries adopting the different regimes, according to Arango, are the
following:
• Middle Eastern and other Asian countries admit only temporary workers or
"contract labor." In these countries, migrant workers have limited rights.
These do not include naturalization, asylum, or family reunification. This
model is based on a utilitarian conception of migration, which views
migrants solely in terms of their labor power.
• Western European countries are also reticent to admit immigrants, but they
do grant certain rights to workers from other countries. The dominant flows
toward these countries have been consisted of asylum applicants,
undocumented migrants, and family reunifications. These countries have
also aimed, through the regulation of labor migration, to fulfill labor market
demands the local population does not cover.
• The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are the traditional
immigration countries. They are characterized by the admission of large
numbers of legal immigrants as permanent residents and fully incorporating
them into the receiving society.
Arango's classification reflects the "common sense" categorization of immigration
policies among mainstream immigration scholars. I argue, however, that once we
consider the way reproductive labor is transferred from the global South to receiving
countries, Arango's categories become questionable. Ifwe take Filipino women's
perspectives and experiences as the starting point, the United States actually is a more
restrictive country than Spain. While both countries present their immigration policies in
neutral terms- and therefore do not have especial programs regulating the entry of
reproductive workers- Spain currently has a policy that allows for women's autonomous
migration as workers. In addition, Spanish family reunification mechanisms, although not
problem free, are becoming more liberal. In contrast, a preference of high skilled workers
and increasingly restrictive immigration policies are gradually replacing the traditional
U.S. emphasis on family reunification since 1965. This may favor the immigration of
17
high-tech professionals or nurses, but it negatively affects the entry of Filipino
reproductive workers.
It is true that among all receiving countries in the world, the United States has the
longest immigration history and has received the largest number of immigrants. A large
portion of immigrants entering the U.S. each year come under family reunification
categories. Yet, waiting periods to obtain family reunification visas can be as much as 25
years, and these are limited to individuals who already have relatives in the United States,
which, in the Philippines, is a small privileged middle- and upper-class minority. This
means that legal entry into the United States through family reunification channels is
barred to most Filipinos. In addition, the United States does not have any labor
immigration program facilitating the entry of reproductive workers and is generally very
restrictive of the entry of unskilled immigrants. This results in an immigration scenario in
which professional and family immigrants, especially those of higher class status, are
privileged over unskilled migrant workers, and where there is no special legal mechanism
for women (or men) to enter as reproductive workers. Overall, most Filipino women I
interviewed outside of the United States perceived this country as being very restrictive,
where only the "luckiest ones" go. Most of my respondents currently residing in the San
Francisco Bay Area arrived after long waiting periods between their application and their
actual migration.
Up to the 1980s, Spain was a labor sending country. Its rapid economic growth and
its incorporation into the European Union have made it into one of the main receiving
countries in Europe today. While it is true that Spanish immigration policy has been
designed fundamentally to regulate the entry of workers local businesses require, the
government has recently implemented changes that facilitate long-term permanent
residency for immigrants. In response to the existing need for reproductive labor, Spanish
immigration policy has favored entry of Filipino women migrating as domestic workers.
Spanish immigration policy requires a worker to receive a job offer while she is still in
the Philippines. Because for the most part private agencies do not undertake immigration
in Spain, it is Filipino women themselves who contribute to recruitment by sharing
information among family and friendship networks. This has facilitated the arrival of
18
Filipinas during the past three decades. A recent liberalization of family reunification
policy is allowing women to bring their husbands and children. As a result, the Filipino
community in Spain is growing fast and becoming increasingly permanent. While Spain
and the U.S. have restrictive immigration policies, an examination of Filipino women's
stories sheds light on the ways the policies of both currently shape female migration
flows and the strategies Filipino women follow to circumvent, manipulate, and comply
with immigration policy in order to achieve their migration goal.
5. Dissertation Organization and Chapter Outline
My dissertation is composed of nine chapters and a methods appendix. The
chapters are grouped into five parts. The first part is an introduction, in which I state my
research and analytical goals, contextualize my research questions, and explain the
organization of the dissertation. The second part is composed of three chapters, which
discuss labor migration in the Philippines. The third part is a comparison of how
immigration and employment legislation affect Filipino women in Spain and the United
States. The fourth is a conclusion in which I summarize the main parts of my analysis and
suggest future research paths leading from my current work. The fifth part includes the
methods appendix, the in-depth interviews questionnaire, as well several documents and
additional information relevant to the substantive chapters. Due to the variety of the
literature used for this project, rather than a separate theory chapter I integrate my
theoretical discussions into the relevant substantive chapters.
Part II is the result of my research in the Philippines and includes chapters II, III,
and IV. Chapter II provides an overview of the political-economic background and
context within which labor export emerged as a development strategy in the Philippines. I
then discuss the evolution ofthe program throughout the past few decades, which
highlights the multifaceted and dynamic approach the Philippine government to the
regulation of labor migration. I show how the evolution of the labor migration program
has responded to an ongoing tension between economic demands, political decisions, and
social movement organization demands for the provision of better protections for migrant
workers. While labor migration has financially benefitted both the government and the
19
private recruitment sector since its inception, it has also opened a "Pandora's box" that
has put thousands of Filipinos- usually women- at risk of exploitation and abuse abroad.
As a result, the government has had to strengthen its efforts to protect its citizens
overseas. Simultaneously, increasing competition in the intemationallabor market has
forced it to aggressively market its labor force. This raises issues about the ability of the
state to accrue foreign exchange through migrants' remittances and keep its people safe at
the same time. Protection and migration promotion have constituted two crucial axes of
public discussion about migration in the Philippines and have also triggered debates on
whether labor export is a viable development strategy. Current economic statistics and
human development indicators show that no substantial economic and social
improvements have taken place in the Philippines since migration was first implemented.
I end the chapter by introducing some of the ways in which the government currently
portrays labor migration and development and how migrant workers' organizations
incorporate and/or contest official discourses.
Chapter III starts with a brief literature review of state theory, particularly Marxist
theorization of state hegemony and World Systems analysis of the geopolitical location of
peripheral states. The Gramscian notion of hegemony highlights the need of the state to
achieve reforms and to enact changes through consent rather than coercion. In addition, a
dialectical-structural understanding of the state acknowledges that this responds both to
business and pressure from civil society. While the Philippine state for the most part
manages labor migration in a way that benefits itself and the private sector, it cannot
afford to do so without addressing civil society raises. I describe the widely publicized
hanging of a Filipino domestic worker in Singapore to show how this triggered massive
reaction against what many people perceived as the government export and exploitation
of its own women. In the face of social and political crisis as a result of the hanging, and
confronted with a loss of hegemony, the Philippine government created a law, RA 8042,
which provided migrant workers with unprecedented levels of protection. The remainder
of Chapter III discusses some the main provisions of RA 8042. This discussion sheds
light on several constraints the government faces in implementing this law and protecting
migrant workers. I stress the weak geopolitical position of the Philippine state,
20
insufficient political will, corruption, and insufficient allocation of resources as the main
factors behind the limited ability of the Philippine government to protect its citizens
beyond its borders.
Chapter IV is a more specifically gendered analysis of Philippine emigration
policy. It starts with an analysis ofthe crisis the 2006 Lebanon War created. Twelve
years after the enactment ofRA 8042, media exposure ofthe war showed the rampant
abuse and lack ofprotection Filipino migrant domestic workers suffered in that country.
Similar to the impact Contemplacion's conviction and death had on the creation ofRA
8042, I argue the "Lebanon Crisis" was one of the main factors behind the 2007 passage
of the Household Service Workers' Reform Package by the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration (POEA). I suggest POEA created the Reform Package to
deter opposition from migrant workers' organizations and maintain state hegemony. The
Reform Package has focused on the professionalization ofFilipino domestic workers,
salary increase, and other provisions as a means of protection. Due to its inability to
protect migrant women, the Philippine government aims to get them better quality jobs
abroad, which will supposedly result in less abuse. The Reform Package illustrates
increasing efforts ofthe Philippine government to market its labor force through the
creation of a "Filipino Brand." Filipino women are marketed and deployed as elite
maids. This further commodifies and objectifies them, and, while it may get them higher
wages than immigrants from other countries, it does not empower them as assertive
workers who can manage to stay safe. Moreover, it promotes and reinforces submissive
and passive attitudes, which construct Filipino domestic workers as feminized and
racialized servants. While the Reform Package it is too soon to know what the outcomes
of the Reform Package will be, I predict it will fail to protect Filipino women who
migrate as domestic workers, particularly in Asia and the Middle East. This is because it
does not address the real reasons behind migrant domestic workers' abuse, which lie at
the intersection of gender, class, and race dynamics and the systemic exploitation
inherent in domestic work.
Part III is composed of Chapters V, VI, VII, and VII. In this part I analyze and
compare the immigration and employment policies of the United States and Spain,
21
specifically how these affect the experiences of Filipino migrant reproductive workers in
those countries. Chapter V introduces immigration policy in Spain and the United States
and discusses the ways it has been used (or not) to address the existing "care void." I
suggest that while the Spanish government directly facilitates the entry of immigrant
women to fill reproductive jobs, the United States relies on the 10-12 million
undocumented workers already in the country to take on these tasks. A comparison of
both immigration regimes shows historical differences as well as their differing
orientations. While the United States has since 1965 emphasized family immigration,
Spain has since the 1980s emphasized labor immigration. Recent changes in the United
States, however, indicate this country is gradually moving toward a labor, particularly
skilled labor, immigration model. Finally, I provide a historical overview of Philippine
migration to both receiving countries as background for understanding current migration
flows. While Philippine migration to Spain and the United States are different in terms of
gender composition and mode of entry, both can be tracked down to the formal colonial,
and eventually neo-colonial, relations the Philippines has maintained with both countries
Building upon the discussion of immigration policy in Chapter V, Chapter VI
examines how immigration law in each country has shaped the experiences of the women
that I interviewed. My interviews with Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona confirm
that their most common mode of entry into Spain is through a work contract. While
Spanish immigration law has important rigidities in its requirements for legal entry,
Filipino women have resorted to different strategies, including mobilization of social
networks, to circumvent these rigidities and establish themselves in Spain. In addition,
narrow definitions of "family members" in Spanish immigration policy have forced
Filipino women to manipulate legal categories in order to facilitate their relatives'
migration. Thus, while Spanish immigration law places a great emphasis on labor and
only encourages those migrants who can be useful to the Spanish economy, Filipino
women find ways to bend the rules and gradually to reunify their nuclear and extended
families. On the contrary, while the U.S. immigration model formally focuses on family
reunification and the rights of families to be together, interviews with Filipino women in
the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as analysis of different legal documents, indicates
22
Filipino migrants endure extremely long waiting periods before they can join their
families in the United States. This creates a lot of stress on families and sometimes forces
them resort to illegal entry mechanisms. In both countries, either directly or indirectly,
immigration policy contributes to the concentration of Filipino women in reproductive
labor activities.
Chapter VII builds on the analysis presented in Chapter VI. While the latter
focuses on institutional dynamics, particularly immigration law, to describe the entry of
Filipino women in Spain and the United States and their concentration in the reproductive
work sector, Chapter VII discusses additional reasons for this concentration. These
include already existing racially segregated labor markets, institutional and language
barriers, and ideological discourses that update colonial constructions of Filipino women
and present them as the perfect candidates for reproductive work. In addition, I discuss
gender dynamics both inside and outside the household that shape women's incorporation
into the new labor markets. I argue that exclusion in the labor market is shaped by, and in
tum shapes, gender dynamics. I also examine gender differences in terms of the strategies
Filipino women and men follow to cope with exclusion and discrimination.
Chapter VIII is an analysis of how employment regulations shape Filipino
women's experiences as reproductive workers in both countries. Although in both Spain
and the United States reproductive labor is legally recognized as work, its regulation does
not provide the same rights as workers in other labor sectors have. In California care
givers are exempted from overtime provisions, while Federal Law does not establish a
minimum wage for them. In Spain, the regulation of domestic work is separate from most
labor activities, and it is rife with ambiguity and legal gaps. I discuss how the under-
regulation of reproductive labor in both Spain and the United States echoes the larger
trend of decreasing intervention of states in labor markets. In addition, under-regulation
of reproductive labor sheds light on particular and complex relationships the state
establishes with households. These relationships reproduce larger gender, class, and race
dynamics and are an illustration of the role the state has in reproducing power relations.
Part IV, which includes Chapter IX, is the conclusion, in which I summarize my
main findings and suggest future directions in which research on migrant women and the
23
state should be taken. The methods appendix in Part V briefly explains the data
gathering techniques I used. While in-depth interviews constituted my main strategy, my
study involved other activities, such as participant observation and analyses of newspaper
articles and policies. In this appendix I also reflect on some of the methodological
challenges I encountered during my fieldwork, such as the difficulties of accessing
undocumented Filipino women for interviews in the San Francisco Bay Area and my
inability to verify some stories from interviews in the Philippines due to government or
media censorship. I also reflect on my own social location, both on how it helped me
achieve my research goals and how it made this task more difficult. Besides my in-depth
interview questionnaire, the rest of Part V consists of various tables and documents I find
relevant to better understand my research.
24
CHAPTER II
THE PHILIPPINES: BACKGROUND, CONTEXT, AND EVOLUTION OF
THE LABOR EXPORT PROGRAM
I thank God for this honor and I express gratitude to my country and government
for this opportunity. I accept this distinction with both joy and sadness. There is
joy in my heart right now because once again I have proven that there is a reward
for hard work, dedication, and excellence. But I am sad right at this moment, I am
sad for our country and for our people. I am sad for you fellow graduates. And I
am sad for myself. I am sad that the Philippines, the homeland of brilliant, highly
skilled and very articulate people is now becoming the number one supplier of
cheap labor including domestic helpers into the booming world of global markets.
We can kid ourselves by saying that there's nothing wrong with being a domestic
helper. Oh come on! I am a domestic worker myself and I'm not ashamed to be so.
But then, what? I am looking at the big picture and I am looking at our country and
I am disappointed that there is not much hope if we remain there. I am regretful
that every single day, no less than 3,200 Filipinos are leaving the Philippines,
many of them for good, in the hope of finding jobs that can send our children to
school, buy medicines for our sick, repair our dilapidated shanties or pay for all
our indebtedness. What happened to the Philippines? Our country is supposed to
be the Pearl of the Orient Seas. In 1961, many Malaysians used to envy the
Filipinos. They dreamt of study in UP, La Salle, or Ateneo. Today, Malaysians are
the employers of Filipino domestic helpers. They have sent an astronaut into
space, while the Filipinos are still quarrelling about government contracts and
alleged rigging of elections.
Address by Ophelia A. Beto, Filipino domestic worker in Malaysia (in The
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 11/07/2007)
1. Introduction
In this chapter I outline the framework in which Philippine labor migration can be
inserted. The enactment of neoliberal policies in the Global South, including Structural
Adjustment Programs, and a discussion of their social and economic effects, constitute
the first section. Once I provide this framework, I review the evolution of the Philippine
25
economy since the beginning of the 20th century until the 1980s, and suggest that
colonial and neocolonial relations, perennial foreign debt, and the implementation of
Structural Adjustment Programs have been its main features. Special attention is given
to the effects ofneo1iberal policies on Filipino women. A further examination of the
economic policies that different administration between President Marcos and the
present have adopted sheds light on a continuation of the trend toward liberalization,
privatization, and deregulation. While the predominance of political corruption in the
Philippines has been an important factor behind economic crises in the country, I provide
in the next section an explanation for economic stagnation that is not exclusively based
on corruption. Both internal and external factors are relevant, and these include corrupt
politicians as well as structural changes imposed from the United States and International
Development Institutions. The analysis of the politica1~economic conditions of the
Philippines during the past few decades is meant to provide a framework within which I
analyze the emergence of labor migration as an economic development strategy in the
country. Subsequent sections, thus, examine how the Labor Export Program was created
in the early 1970s as a response to high unemployment rates and severe social opposition
to the Marcos regime. Initially thought of a temporary development strategy, labor
export has become increasingly institutionalized. Its key role in the Philippine economy
and social movement organizations' increasing demands for migrant protection have
forced the Philippine government to adopt protective measures to maintain the
legitimacy of the overseas employment program. Also, in a context of increasing
competition among labor-sending states for a share in the international labor market, the
Philippine government has become increasingly aggressive in its deployment efforts, and
has adopted diverse measures, such as marketing its labor force, that have turned it into a
broker state. These sections introduce what will be a more in-depth discussion of the
Philippine government role in labor migration in Chapters III and IV.
In addition, the continuation and growth ofthe labor export program more than
three decades after its implementation has made social movement organizations question
its temporary nature. A lack of substantial improvement in economic conditions of the
country has provided labor export the role of permanent development strategy. It is not
26
clear, however, whether it is actually working as such. In the latter sections of the
chapter, I illustrate how both the government and social movement organizations
currently view migration. I shed light on government efforts to preserve the legitimacy of
the program and migrant workers organizations' claims that substantial changes need to
be enacted in order to improve economic conditions in the Philippines. According to the
latter, migration presents high social costs and development has not taken place since its
inception. Their eventual goal is to work toward economic and social conditions that will
allow Filipinos to stay and work in their homeland.
2. Political-Economic Background
2.1. The Neoliberal Era and Structural Adjustment Programs
The 1970s witnessed a world recession with devastating effects on the economies
of so-called developing countries.6 Eager to invest increased deposits from the oil boom,
Western banks offered low interest loans to Southern countries. To a great extent, these
used the loans to finance their imports, perpetuating, therefore, the indebtedness of the
South to the North and severely limiting economic growth in the Global South.
Between 1980 and 1982 Southern governments continued to borrow money to
finance their growing trade deficits and debt. Increasingly high interest severely
impacted the ability of underdeveloped countries to pay back their loans. Facing severe
budget deficits, many countries turned to the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank for assistance. These were willing to loan money and reschedule debt payment on
the condition that governments applied economic reforms. The reforms Southern
countries had to adopt are known as Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Programs
(SAPs). These have been applied until the present and have required governments to
prioritize export production, remove trade and investment barriers, and balance their
budgets through cuts in public spending.
6 There is no consensus around the denominations used to describe "developing" and "developed"
countries. Throughout this dissertation, I use developing, underdeveloped, peripheral countries, and global
South interchangeably. Similarly, I use developed, industrialized, Western countries, countries at the center,
and global North as synonyms.
27
SAPs have been a component of the broader economic perspective known as
neoliberalism, which argues the free market system is the best mechanism to create
wealth and jobs and increase people's living standards (see Gibson-Graham 2005).
Neoliberalism expects state intervention in the economy to be minimal. Since the 1980s,
free trade, privatization/ and the liberalization8 oflocal economies were seen as key
tools to create sustainable growth (see Friedman 2000; Fukuyama 1992). In addition,
countries should specialize in those products they could produce most cheaply and
efficiently. In the Philippines agricultural goods such as sugar and coconut were
encouraged, and the absolute land area used for domestic food crops actually declined.
The shift in land allocation had mid- and long-term effects on local farmers' subsistence
and their economic strategies (see Sassen 2004). Also, the strategy of relying on primary
exports, was flawed, as the total value of exports declined with the fall in commodity
prices (Montes 1991), and oil prices and interest rates increased sharply (see De Dios and
Rocamora 1992).
SAPS have not always created the significant economic growth predicted, and
poverty and unemployment have increased under them. They have not alleviated the debt
of the developing world either, which was of $1.5 trillion in 1993 (Witness for Peace
2003; see Sassen 2003). During the 1980s a steady flow of wealth from the South to the
7 Privatization meant the conversion of public enterprises into private ones. The idea behind this was to
unburden the government from inefficient enterprises, which, in tum, would become more profitable being
operated by the private sector under the logic of free competition. Prices were expected to go down and
labor would have more incentives. According to Joseph Stiglitz, former Vice President of the World Bank,
the problem with this measure was that it was often done too quickly and as an end in itself rather than as a
step to achieve growth. The reality is that it brought decreases in the quality of services, increases in prices,
as well as the deterioration of working rights and conditions (see Bello et al. 2004; Stiglitz).
8 Liberalization has meant, under the IMF definition, the suppression of public interference in financial and
capital markets and trade barriers. The goal has been to promote efficiency as well as attract foreign
investment to indebted and stagnated countries. One of the problems with liberalization has been that, while
Western institutions have required it from Southern countries, Western countries have been selective in
their application of this measure. Trade liberalization in the South, therefore, has not been fully
reciprocated in the North. Goods produced in the South have often not been able to compete with foreign
ones in their own market and have not been allowed entry into foreign markets due to selective
liberalization (see Bello et al. 2004; Stiglitz 2002). In addition, drastic liberalization of financial and capital
systems has meant, particularly in Southeast Asia during the late nineties, that when economies have
slowed down, foreign capital has been able to flee overnight, leaving those countries to face their crisis on
their own.
28
North took place. Foreign debt and the policies designed to address it during those years
had devastating effects on the lives and living standards of millions of people.
2.2. The Philippines: Perennial Debt, Structural Adjustment, and Neocolonialism
All [Philippine] consulates in the world, they are an agent of the Filipino
government to look for investments, foreign currency and that, because the policy
of the Filipino government is to develop the Philippines through debt. So instead
of developing our [country] and finding resources for the Philippines they would
rather go [in]to debt. [But] what happens to our resources?9
The endemic negative trade balance of the Philippines and its debt-servicing
problems have seriously undermined the economic growth of the country for the past four
decades (see Chang 2004). According to De Dios and Rocamora (1992), the painful
Philippine experience with debt results from three key factors: first, the dependency
relationship existing with the United States, which has actively promoted the "growth-
through-borrowing" philosophy; second, U.S. "protection" of the corrupted and
totalitarian Marcos administration; third, the constant use of the Philippines of loans and
neo-liberal policies to address economic crises. This has facilitated the dramatic and
unbearable indebtedness rates of the Philippines.
In order to understand how neoliberal policies have shaped the Philippine economy,
we need to take a historical approach that goes back to the early 20th century and
considers the colonial relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines. According to
Fulleros and Lee (1989), it was during U.S. occupation that the Philippines saw the
beginning of the concentration and accumulation of land by Filipino landowners. I0
During this time wealth also became concentrated within a small elite of local and
foreign- particularly U.S. - firms.
As early as 1909, the two countries agreed on the Payne-Aldrich tariff, which
opened up free trade between them. Having been granted parity rights, U.S.
multinationals operating in the Philippines were able to export their goods to the United
9 Fieldnotes, Philippines, April 2007
10 Land concentration had already taken place during Spanish colonization and the implementation of the
hacienda system, but this was mostly done by the Catholic Church and the colonizers from the metropolis.
It was the U.S. who "returned" the land to Filipinos (Wurfel 1988).
29
States and enjoyed privileged access to the Philippine market and goods. The Philippines
was to remain an exporter of cheap agricultural goods, such as coconuts and sugar, and
an importer of finished goods (Fulleros Santos and Lee 1989). This arrangement favored
the creation of a dependent Philippine economy, a chronic trade and balance of payments
deficit, as well as a weak national industry. Also, export orientation and foreign capital
and import dependency required low wages from the very start in order to make export
products competitive and favor foreign investment (Wurfel1988).
In the mid 1940s, having been the most severely devastated South-East Asian
country during WWII, the Philippines needed over one billion U.S. dollars in aid. The
United States imposed some conditions to provide this postwar reconstruction assistance.
These included the alteration of the Constitution to give U.S. citizens equal economic
rights and parity with Filipinos in the exploitation of natural resources, as well as other
measures to solidify military and economic ties between the two countries (Wurfel 1988).
As the Philippines' main trade partner, the U.S. provided bilateral development and
private loans for decades (Wurfel 1988:59). The main outcome was the creation and
perpetuation of a dependent neocolonial relationship. The 1950s saw various attempts to
change these trends through import-substitution industrialization. However, the U.S.
government and the local agricultural elites sabotaged them and the 1960s continued to
see an increasing reliance on U.S. capital. The decade of the 1970s started with
government overspending during presidential elections, corruption, and the outflow of
capital to the United States (Fulleros Santos and Lee 1989). The resulting economic
problems were met by further international borrowing. Conditions for such loans
included lowering tariffs, decreasing social expenditures, and currency devaluation.
Despite these reforms, the Philippine economy steadily deteriorated throughout the
following two decades as a result of the sharp increase of the costs of imported oil and
the 30% decrease in the world price of coconut and coconut products. Almost
simultaneously, the world price of sugar, the Philippine second most important export, hit
a ten year low. GNP and GDP growth rates went down to 2.6% in 1981 and -4% in 1985
respectively, and the real annual growth in per capita income dropped from more than 2%
to zero (Wurfe11988:238). Facing trade deficits and a balance of payments crisis in 1983,
30
(Montes 1991), the government continued to borrow heavily, II particularly from U.S.
banks, the IMF, and the World Bank. Due to the international credit market recession in
the late 1970s, the loans presented increasingly higher interest rates and shorter payment
terms.
Public sector debt also continued to increase due to government lending to the
private sector. In a context where corruption permeated the relationship between business
and the political class, many of these loans were never repaid and were rarely used to
enhance local industry or agriculture (Ibid.7). The 1980s were also marked by galloping
inflation, rampant unemployment, and a predictable foreign capital flight (Constable
1997; Wurfel 1988). Many companies shut down, which resulted in massive lay-offs of
workers. In addition, import liberalization and currency devaluation increased basic need
products prices and therefore further impoverished the Filipino people. As more
borrowing from the World Bank and the IMF became necessary throughout the 1980s,
these institutions included other conditions such as wage depression, labor force
restructuring, and the limitation of trade union rights, and have, therefore, penetrated the
core of policy formulation. They have imposed constrictions consistently focused on the
reduction of state intervention in the economy. Compliance with IMF-WB structural
programs has reinforced the old dependent economic structure and has promoted
privatization, semi-industrialization, further import liberalization, foreign loans, and
export dependence. 12
11 From 1970 to 1983, Philippine foreign debt increased from $2 billion to $24.6 billion (Fulleros Santos
1989).
12 Semi-industrialization was promoted through the creation of Free Trade Zones, also triggered by the
country's low wages and the existence ofa large pool of unemployed and underpaid men and women. In
addition, FTZs did not bring industrialization, since they reprocessed imported goods for export for the
most part. This meant the creation of a- government funded through additional debt- industry that does not
allow the profits to stay in the country and employed hundreds of thousands of workers, often women, who
suffered long shifts, unhealthy working conditions, and low wages. The expansion of FTZs was
accompanied by IMF and government promoted tourist development as an economic strategy. Manila took
over from Bangkok as the cheap sex capital of South East Asia while the Marcos administration
encouraged sex tourism as an attractor of foreign exchange toward debt payment. This, not very differently
from the labor export program, meant an institutionalization of the exploitation of women as a response to
the country's economic hardships.
31
2.3. The Post-Marcos Era
The underlying pattern in all presidencies since Marcos' replacement by Aquino
has been weak state intervention, the prevalence of neoliberal policies, and free-market
policies as a way to further incorporate the country in the world economy and satisfy its
foreign partners, particularly the U.S. This has resulted in a gradual dilution of the public
!unction 13 of the Philippine state and the perpetuation of unemployment and social crisis
(Bello at al. 2004).
Although particularly prominent before and during the Marcos years (1965-1986),
the economic patterns discussed in the previous section have continued through the
present. Economic stagnation did not stop with Marcos' removal. While the Philippines
saw the restoration of a democratic system with the election of Cory Aquino in 1986, the
nature of her economic policies did not substantially vary from her predecessor's. Aquino
(1986-1992) failed in key projects such as land reform, and she prioritized the payment of
the debt Marcos accumulated (see Bello et al. 2004; Collins 1989). This perpetuated
dramatic social inequalities and continued to bleed the coffers of the country, limiting
thus resources necessary for meaningful reforms. Her successor, Fidel Ramos (1992-
1998), in line with neoliberal ideology and developing plans such as Philippines 2000,14
aimed to trigger economic growth by further liberalizing trade, deregulating the
Philippine economy and privatizing state and state-run enterprises. Far from bringing
growth, however, his reforms left the country in a dreadfully vulnerable situation when
the 1997 Asian crisis hit, with the government powerlessly watching while speculative
foreign capital fled and brought down the economy (Bello et al. 2004).
Gloria Magapacal Arroyo, the current president, has also failed to provide social
and structural reforms that would address the rampant poverty and social unrest in the
13 I choose to talk about the dilution of the state's public function rather than erosion of the state itself.
While neoclassic economists have long announced the demise of the state in the era of globalization, I
claim here that the state remains a very relevant actor. Rather than disappearing, the state has shifted its
priorities, and this has typically resulted in an undermining of its public service dimension in favor of its
support to the private sector of capital.
14 Philippines 2000 was a development plan aimed to uplift the Philippines as a newly industrialized
country by the year 2000. According to Kim Scipes, "Ramos stated his goals for the end of his presidency
in June 1998: to raise per capita income to 1000 U.S. dollars; for the economy to grow by at least 6 to 8
percent, and for the poverty rate to decline to at least 50 percent. He missed all three" (Scipes 1999).
32
country. In fact, under pressure from the World Bank, the IMF, and the Asian
Development Bank, one of Arroyo's first important policy initiatives was the
privatization of the state-owned power-generation firm (Ibid. 221), which resulted in
higher prices and decreased quality of services. More recently, she introduced the EVAT
(Expanded Value Added Tax), which taxes basic need products This has had severe
effects on the poor, in a context of perennial economic crisis. In addition, her numerous
opposers have featured her as the "Number 1 puppet of the U.S. government,,15 due,
among other things, to her military protection ofD.S. investments in the Southern region
of the Philippines and her unconditional support of U.S. Anti-Terrorism policies. 16
Politically, bloody and corrupted elections, political repression, and rampant violations of
human rights against progressive politicians and activists have characterized her
presidency.
2.4. Beyond the Corruption Argument: External Factors
If we are to understand the factors behind economic crisis and debt in the
Philippines we need to adopt a multi-approach analysis that takes into consideration
dynamics going on both within and outside the Philippines.
Debt, as I have argued, has been crucial to preventing sustainable growth. Debt has
been identified with both an unfavorable economic and geo-politicallocation as well as
with scandalous corruption. In that sense, as James Henry argues, the "debt problem" is
not only a question of too much foreign borrowing but also a question of what was done
with the money" (1992:3). A substantial portion of the Philippine debt has, indeed,
stemmed from mismanagement of reserves that ended up in unproductive investments
and failed policies at home or "crony" capital abroad. In addition, the dependent and
weak nature of the Philippine state has translated into the absence of necessary policies
such as land reform, as well as an excessive reliance on traditional, profitless exports, the
inability to collect substantial tax revenue, mismanagement of foreign aid, and inability to
renegotiate the terms of the payment of one of the most fraudulent debt legacies ever (see
15 Fieldnotes, San Francisco, May 2006
16 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
33
Bello et al. 2004; De Dios and Rocamora 1992). The government, especially during the
Marcos years, used many of its funds to finance private debt and lend to the private
sector, which further increased the public sector debt.
According to Bello, besides "crony capitalism,"]? the problem resulting from the
creation and mismanagement of foreign debt speaks to the weak and anti-developmental
nature of the Philippine state, which has constantly been captured by upper-class
interests. This has "prevented the emergence of the activist "developmental" state that
has disciplined the private sector in other societies of postwar Asia" (Bello et al. 2004:3).
In other words, the root problem has not only been a corrupt state but also a weak one
that has consistently complied with the economic restructuring u.s. dominated
international financial institutions have designed rather than coming up with development
strategies focused on its people. The distinction between a corrupt and a weak state is
key, since it introduces a useful nuance that complicates the study of Philippine political
economy. While the Philippine government- before, during, and after Marcos- has been
characterized by rampant corruption that deserves condemnation, the idea that corruption
is to blame for Philippine underdevelopment is misleading and distracts us from the real
reason: neoliberal policies (Bello et al. 2004:243), both at home and overseas. The
discourse that equates poverty with corruption blames stagnation in the South on the
depravity and avarice of its corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, and business people, and it
does not acknowledge that corruption has been common in countries like the United
States as well. While keeping in mind the dimensions and context of each situation, one
question that could be posed is: Why is Philippine corruption used to explain economic
crisis in that country while ENRON, for example, has apparently nothing to do with
social inequalities in the United States?
The "corruption discourse" has a racializing- and racist- component, that portrays
corruption in the South as generalized and chronic, while in the North it only appears in
isolated and deviant cases. In other words, in the North it is the exception; in the South it
17 Crony capitalism refers to a capitalist economy where success in business depends on close relationships
and connections between businessmen and government officials. It may translate into favoritism in the
allocation of special tax breaks, government grants and subsidies, and legal permits, among others.
34
is the rule. I suggest that the individualizing effects of the corruption discourse run
parallel to the ideological construction of poverty in the Global South as stemming from
its inability to follow neoliberal economic policies. Blaming poverty on local politicians'
failure to implement Western-imposed economic logic, as well as on Third World
people's backwardness, is ahistorical. It does not take into consideration the roots and
conditions of peripheral countries' incorporation into the world economy or the
disastrous effects neo-liberalism has had on them. Far from analyzing neoliberalism as
part of the problem, it presents it as the solution.
Moreover, if political corruption is the problem, then state shrinking is in order, and
this has been at the core of neoliberal mandates. Indeed, the "corruption discourse" is
politically charged since it advocates the weakening of the state and absolves external
players (i.e. the United States government or the IMF) from any responsibility they may
have in how events have developed in the Philippines. According to this logic, poverty in
countries like the Philippines has little to do with SAPS (Bello et al. 2004) or abusive
trade agreements, but everything to do with local politicians' greed.
While it is important to understand the political and economic constraints the
Philippines has faced due to its geopolitical position, the Philippine government is not
powerless. As I discuss in the next two chapters, despite the historical limitations
imposed on it, its policy making has also been an outcome of its own political decisions,
which have been often masked behind and as economic imperatives. In other words,
compliance with external impositions is ultimately a choice, and a very political one. I
suggest throughout the next chapters that political priorities, the geopolitical position of
the country, and corruption constitute three factors in the shaping of the Philippine
political-economic situation, including the contours the regulation oflabor migration has
taken.
2.5. Neoliberalism and Women
In this section I examine some ofthe effects neoliberal policies in the Philippines
have had on women and how they have, therefore, acted as an indirect factor behind
female out-migration.
35
Despite the official intention to promote economic growth, SAPs have mainly
functioned to open up the economies and peoples of developing nations to exploitation
(Witness for Peace 2003). According to Chang (2000) and Sassen (2003), SAPs hit
women in developing countries the hardest, since their role is central to the productive
and reproductive aspects of the economy and to the welfare of families and children. As a
result of decreased government spending on health, food subsidies, education, and the
imposition of export-oriented agriculture, women often take on extra burdens to be able
to sustain their families. More often than not, despite these efforts, women fail and are
left with no other option but to leave their families behind and migrate in search of work.
Hundreds of thousands of women migrate every year from the Global South to work as
servants, service workers, and sex workers in Canada, Europe, Japan, the Middle East,
and the United States (Chang 2004). Filipino women are not an exception. At the end of
the 1980s, 70% of Filipinos were reported to be living in absolute poverty, the majority
women and children, both in the rural and the urban areas. The growing numbers of
single women-headed households were among the poorest in the early 1990s, when the
Philippines was the only Asian nation that continued to register a decline in average
living standards.
With the low government priority given to social services, shrinking national
budgets and bureaucratic 'streamlining' have had a direct impact on women in the
Philippines. Cutbacks in the public sector labor force in the 1980s adversely affected the
'social wage' and quality of services. In January 1988,300,000 local government
employees in Quezon City were laid off, and two million employees at the national level
risked losing their jobs as a result of retrenchment. Since the national and local
bureaucracies have been the single biggest employers of women, they were the majority
among those losing their jobs. An increasing school population ran parallel to a decrease
in the number of teachers and growing school and college fees. The majority of teachers
in the Philippines are also women. They usually have low wages and poor working
conditions. Since the 1980s, many female teachers have made the choice to go overseas
as domestic workers for higher wages. Several of my interviewees both in Barcelona and
San Francisco had indeed completed a college degree in education and had worked as
36
teachers before they migrated overseas. In this context, as Fulleros and Lee have argued,
the decision to go overseas has been a strategy triggered by the negative impact of
govennnent policies.
SAPs have also had an impact on subsistence agriculture. Small fanners have not
been able to compete with international prices and rural wage laborers have lost their
jobs. Women do over 50% of all fann work in the Philippines. The liberalization policies
the Philippine government has adopted have had a dramatic effect in decreasing the
competitiveness of women's products in relation to the lower cost of imported goods (See
Fulleros and Lee 1989). This has resulted in a decline of family income, which hanns the
access to health needs, water, electricity, clothing, food, transport, school fees and other
connnodities and services.
The impact of economic crises on the countryside has fuelled migration to the cities,
but internal migrants' needs for affordable housing in cities like Manila or Cebu have not
been met. This has resulted in slums, an urban squatter population, and minimal sanitary
conditions. In addition, a weak manufacturing sector and high unemployment have
limited women's subsistence possibilities in the urban areas to the infonnal economy,
prostitution, and international migration, among others18 (Fulleros and Lee 1989:35).
Women and children in the Philippines also have had the highest incidence of
poverty-related illnesses. For example, in the late 1980s, almost 80% of children under
six were suffering some level of malnutrition. Nutritional anemia affected 48.7% of
pregnant women, 37.2% of non-lactating mothers and non-pregnant women aged
between 13 and 59 (See Fulleros Santos and Lee 1989). The debt problem and
privatization have worsened the already deteriorating health situation because of growing
prices for medicines and services stemming. Health has remained a low priority in the
national budget, constituting 4.4% in 1983 and 3.72 in 1987 (Ibid.30).19 This has resulted
18 In 1960, the informal economy was estimated to be contributing 26.7% of the GNP, rising up to 42.21 %
in 1973, and 48.18 in 1988 (Fulleros and Lee 1989).
19 The health expenditure of the Philippines in terms of percentage ofGDP per capital in 2002 was 3%. As
indicators ofa larger context where Philippine health expenditure can be understood the following are the
% GDP per capital spent by few developed countries in 2002: Spain 7.3%; Denmark 8.8%; Sweden 9.1 % .
See 2002 World Bank data on: http://ddp-
37
in overloaded and understaffed public hospitals and health clinics. In addition, nurses'
poor working conditions and low wages, similarly to teachers', have forced them to find
employment overseas. The same has been the case with doctors, who have often migrated
to the United States or other countries facing a shortage of health professionals. This has
further worsened the conditions of the Philippine health sector and has constituted an
increasing brain-drain. This scenario suggests a variety of push factors that explain why
Filipino people, and particularly women, have needed to work overseas in order to
support their families. Economic policy and the particularly severe impact of macro-
economics on women, together with an increasing international demand for labor in
feminized positions such as domestic work, help to explain why in the past two decades
labor migration in the Philippines has been increasingly feminized.
3. Labor Export in the Philippines
Objective economic conditions, political turmoil, and macroeconomic policies in
the Philippines give us a framework to understand the exit of millions of people in order
to find work overseas. Nevertheless, what makes the Philippine case unique is that labor
migration has been encouraged and orchestrated by the government since the 1970s. In
this section I discuss what the direct role of the Philippine government has been in this
process.
3.1. Labor Export as a Temporary Development Strategy
During the late 1960s, both the United States and Canada started to liberalize their
immigration policies, particularly in family and professional categories (ft Nijeholt 1994).
In the context of slow job creation, many Filipino professionals started migrating to these
countries. The Philippine government understood their exit and consequent "brain-drain"
as an important safety valve for middle-class discontent and did not discourage it. By
1969 7% of all Filipino college graduates were taking up permanent residency overseas
(Wurfel1988:67). Simultaneously, due to the 1970s oil boom, many Middle Eastern
xt.worldbank.orglext/ddpreportslViewSharedReport?REPORT_ID=9147&REQUEST_TYPE=VIEWADV
ANCED&WSP=N&HF=N/dgcomp.asp (Accessed 2/2/2008).
38
countries started opening up their labor markets and increasing their demand for foreign
workers to conduct their infrastructure and construction projects.
It was at this juncture that the Marcos administration began labor export to boost
the Philippine economy (Rodriguez 2005). This strategy was institutionalized with the
formulation of the 1974 Philippine Labor Code, in which the government started to
pursue a policy of encouraging overseas employment (Raj-Hashim 1994). The Labor
Code particularly "recognized the role of overseas employment in absorbing excess
domestic humanpower (Article 17, Chapter I)" and guided the active participation of the
government in the enterprise (Asis 1992:69). The goal was, by taking advantage of
changing global employment opportunities, to reduce unemployment levels and to
address the balance of payment problems through mandatory remittances (Carino 1992;
O'Neil 2004). 20 This was symptomatic of the central role labor migration was taking in
the economy of the country. Presidential Decree 442 provided for the creation of the
Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB) and the National Seamen Board
(NSB), which became responsible for market development, recruitment and placement,
and securing protection for Filipino overseas workers (Tigno et al. 2000). At that point,
the government was handling labor migration, and the private sector was not allowed
access to the business. This changed in 1978 when, due to the increasing demand for
Filipino workers overseas21 and privatization trends, the government relegated most of
the recruitment and placement ofFilipino workers to private agencies (Raj-Hashim
1994).
20 As the economic situation of the country worsened, the government increasingly emphasized the need for
the workers' to remit foreign exchange earnings through official financial institutions. In fact, it was
recognized that noncompliance by overseas workers to remit through official channels had negatively
affected the country's balance of payment and development programs. Given this, EO No.857 stated that
failure to comply with this requirement would lead to nonrenewal ofpassports, nonrenewal of employment
contracts, suspension from the list of eligible workers for overseas employment and even repatriation from
the job for those who repeatedly violated this requirement (Asis 1992). As a response, eleven organizations
in Hong Kong came together and protested the Executive Order. They were followed in 1985 by
organizations in Canada, Saudi Arabia, and other countries. Due to this pressure coming from migrant
workers, on May 15t 1985 President Marcos announced that those punitive provisions would be repealed but
not the Executive Order. The punitive measures, thus, were replaced by a system of incentives in 1989.
21 In 1975, the government processed 36,035 contracts. By 1978 the figures rose to 88,241, more than
doubling the 1975 level.
39
In 1982, with the approval of Executive Order 792, the OEDB and NSB were replaced by
a single state agency, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
POEA was mandated to undertake a systematic program for promoting and monitoring
the overseas employment of Filipinos and to oversee cases involving contract workers.
Additionally, this agency erected as the main regulatory body of the migration process, in
charge of setting standards Filipino migrants were expected to follow in order to legally
migrate. These included, among others, maximum placement fees, standard labor
contracts, and minimum wages.
3.2. From Labor Exporter to Protector State
Between 1975 and 1982, the total number of workers processed for foreign
employment increased by 1,900%, growing from 12,501 to 250,115. The contract
migrant workers leaving the Philippines in this initial period were mostly young men
going to the Middle East as construction workers. During the late 1980s and the 1990s
male migrants were joined and eventually outnumbered by women (Battistella 1999;
Heyzer and Wee 1994; Lycklama 1994). Women composed 74% and 72% of Filipino
migrant workers deployed in 2004 and 2005 respectively (see Table 1.1.). In 2006
household workers constituted the largest migrating group (see Table 1.2). Since 1998, as
Table 1.3 shows, women have been a great majority among migrants working in the
service sector, which is explained by the relevance of domestic work as a labor
destination for many Filipino women. This has been a response to local women's entry in
the labor force in Asian, Middle Eastern, and Western countries, which has created a
"reproductive or care void," and the resulting changes in the immigration policies of
these countries (Kanlungan 2005). It has been migrant domestic workers, often Filipinas,
who have taken their place as mothers, caregivers, and workers in the home.
40
TABLE 2.1. Deployment of Newly Hired OFWs by Sex
Source: POEA 2006
TABLE 2.2. Newly Deployed Overseas Filipino Workers. Top 10 Occupational
Groups 2006
Male Female Total % of Total
"'Ho'use'f1'oi<Tand'ReTated'Worke'rs-'''--'""'-'''''1'S90""'S9S6r'-gT45T'-'29.7o/~"'_"",
,",".-r.<"",,,,,,,,~,-""= ..,..' T.\'7='_""_"'_"'~''''''''''''_''''''''~·ww.. ww.".= .,....=- ·.w.....".""."'""'",_""'_=.·.·oc.·,==,= "'._
,£~Gt().'1.,§l!1.9~~~~~~:t~or~l?~,.~ , •• ,. . . ..~~ ,~05.1~L_ ~?~~Q~3234 ~~~.g%
Construction Workers 40178 2862 43040 14.0%
~~MedTca,>NRelatedNAWorkers _Nu_~~~v_. __>~__·U__ "--u--v-----'--.-.-?-----v-----.-N.-u-~~-ww'-'-'2650=~·"----v--·15-·68--1·?-W-'=~ 17731,~,w5.8o/~u,--
-.vN'Hotelc3'ncrRNes'tauranI Relate~a--Wo'rkers'A-----,----' --"'W~-~==h-=N=,'-'-62W-wN~m~·'§Lr83~---"·-~'?h-h_156 93-~-~'-5---~----1---o}~~"~~'"
w=mN,-,-m.~v=NNm'~'~=N=~~~-===_·~_-m"-"_~'~~ .-~~ __~_~ ~ ~~ ~NN~- __~~ __.'=-~=N_-.~-_- ._~=h?_-"-'_=.==_y_,=,,~·._'u.N __'_·_Y"N ~_v ~ A- ~w_='_ww'h"~"W~' __~ , -A-W_"~'="'w
~.g.§!!:.~.9i.~~E~a n9,.g~E~!§!~l?E~ ~.., " ~~~, 1~§ZQ" ..".~.~~ 121:ZYo ..
.. 1?1l,iI9i~.9g,§lrl?!§l~l?E.~,§!!1.~~~§l!l?~~~E~~~~._ ~~.Q.~~.1g~~~_ .. ~.~~.~~,.~:Q.!~
Dress.makers, Tai 1()~~!.§l..r:!~.I3.~I~!ed ~.C2L~.e rs....., '"..~ ~Z~ '.. m •••Z~5.f?~83~ ?:§!~ ..~.,
()verseasPerforming Artists .. .... 709 ... 6722 . 74312.~%
·..T6fAL·5EPi..6yMENf~NewHlreS~···~····-·····,·········12·3688~·"1"84454·'3081·42···· 106]%-'
Source: POEA 2006
TABLE 2.3. Deployment of Newly Hired OFWs in the Service Sector by Sex
Female Male Female % Total
m:,"""_A"~'~"~,'>o'~,~~,,''''',''c'<;:',,',''~~,,',',':';,,'',"'->;,'~;.':';;;=====_:="!W-=li,';wd/_'=""~;;"»_,,~",,',''',','~~,'''!:~:'~:"-~':w';h='»--=~~
1998 73048 7627 90,54% 80675
··1~.~.~:=Z?,?g:~·~?I46 .. ·'·'~~I~6o/~ .. ::~1I~~
~QQ.Q..... 8~Z~~ 7412..__.!~,I!Zo~o...,.~J~Q~
2001.. ..~.~~_§.~.~~.QQ._.~Q!~Q~~..~?~§~ ...
.~Qg.?._.'" 88Q8?~~?~.~_m"~9ql~.~% .,~Z~Z.1.
?g.Q3._",,~ 7629~~ZZ?§...~Q!!!0%_~~Q?~
209~_.~._~.Q.~,§~1126 ~._ ~QtQ~~-.1'128§~.
2005 123241 10666 92,03% 133907
-2"o·oef··--128186 16135--·····if8~82%14432·1·
__''''.._~B_'W=_-'- .", 'iW"m_'__"~,.",>'<,~,
Source: POEA 2006
41
As overseas employment sped up and became increasingly feminized, and due to
the lack ofprovisions in the Labor Code regarding workers' welfare and protection, 1987
saw the creation of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). OWWA
became the main state agency in charge of providing protection to migrant workers. The
creation of OWWA took place in the context of increasing media and social movement
organizations' exposure and denounce ofthe grave abuses Filipino migrant workers,
particularly domestic and entertainment workers, suffered. OWWA was erected as the
main agency in charge of protecting workers overseas, through the provision of welfare
services, both at home and abroad. In addition, POEA, as the state regulatory agency of
labor migration, aimed to establish certain minimum conditions in standard labor
contracts. These standards targeted Filipino recruitment agencies, foreign employers, and
even foreign governments, and were meant to provide protection to Filipino migrants
through regulation of their labor overseas. These have included, among other conditions,
two-year contracts, $200 monthly salary, 1 rest day per week, free transportation to host
country and back to the Philippines, and free suitable and adequate food and 10dging22
(POEA 2006c). Also in 1987, as I discuss in Chapter III, after conducting an
investigation on the labor conditions ofFilipino domestic workers in Asian and the
Middle East and finding out about the severe abuses that they suffered, President Aquino
imposed a temporary world-wide ban on the deployment of Filipino domestic workers.
A growing discussion about the social costs that female migration had at home (i.e.
children being raised without mothers) took place in this context. In spite of increasing
problems, both at home and overseas, President Aquino, as well as all subsequent
administrations, embraced labor migration as a way to keep a battered economy afloat
and recognized the economic contributions of migrant workers by naming them "modem-
day heroes." Simultaneously, social problems associated with massive migration,
particularly its feminization, such as broken families in the Philippines or abuses that
22 Other conditions required by the contract have been free medical and dental services; minimum of 15
days paid vacation leave per year of contract; free round-trip plane ticket in case of contract renewal;
personal life; accient and medical insurance; in case of death, repatriation of remains by employer;
assistance in remittance earnings; grounds for termination by the employer; grounds for termination by the
worker; termination due to illness; settlement of disputes machinery; change of contract only with
Philippine embassies approval; and the application of labor laws ofhost countries (POEA 2006).
42
female workers suffered overseas, helped to create a new policy orientation toward
workers' welfare and protection (see Tigno et al. 2000). In 1995 Flor Contemplacion, a
42 year old Filipino domestic worker in Singapore, was convicted by a Singaporean court
of killing another Filipina domestic worker and her employer's three year old son (see
Gonzalez III 1996; Kanlungan 2006b; 2006c; Nuqui and Josue 2000; Philippine Migrants
Rights Watch 2003). There were massive protests in several countries supporting
Contemplacion's innocence and asking the Philippine government to intervene on her
behalf. Despite international public pressure and President Ramos' plead for her life, Flor
Contemplacion was hanged on March 16th 1995. (see Gonzalez III 1996; 1998; Kaibigan
1996; Nuqui and Josue 2000; Oishi 2005; Rodriguez 2002; 2005; Tigno 2004; Tigno,
Rye, and Macabiog 2000). Facing an upcoming national election, and given the political
crisis and social pressure generated by Contemplacion's story, president Ramos urged
Congress to complete a law that would address the challenges, dangers, vulnerabilities,
and abuses faced by migrant workers.
This was the context in which Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and
Overseas Filipinos Act (hereafter referred to as RA 8042) was born. Since its passage in
1995, RA 8042 has constituted the most comprehensive protective mechanism for
Filipinos abroad, and more specifically for women. While the Philippines had been a
pioneer in the institutionalization of labor migration for over a decade, RA 8042 formally
incorporated workers' protection as a core component of government regulation. The
creation of this legal framework made the Philippines the first Asian sending country to
have a piece of legislation that explicitly provides migrant workers with protection, such
as welfare offices in the Embassies and the creation of repatriation funds. As I discuss in
Chapter III, nevertheless, the implementation ofRA 8042 has been highly problematic,
and abuses have continued to take place. POEA's passage of the Household Service
Workers Reform Package in 2007 was meant to increase the protections RA 8042
provided. It aims to do so through the professionalization ofFilipino domestic workers,
or their constitution as Supermaids. This Package, which I analyze in Chapter IV, has
established unprecedented standards for Filipino migrant domestic workers.
43
At present, the country is the primary exporter of human resources in the "Third"
World (see Beltran and De Dios 1992), and agencies such as POEA and OWWA have
become models for other Asian labor-sending countries. The labor migration program in
the Philippines is considered one of the most organized in Asia, providing programs and
services to migrants at all stages of the migration process- i.e. pre-departure, on-site,
return, and reintegration- (see Asis 2005b) both within and beyond Philippine borders. As
of December of 2004, an estimated 8.1 million Filipinos- nearly 10 percent of the
country's 85 million people- were working and/or residing overseas (Asis 2006).23 2006
witnessed the deployment of over 1 million Filipino workers to more than 190 countries,
with a resulting $14 billion in remittances being sent back to the Philippines24 (POEA
2007). In addition, according to a 2004 survey of the Social Weather Stations, 52% of
Filipinos had relatives abroad, with 22% having relatives in the United States alone.25
The outflow of Filipino women all over the world, particularly in the domestic
service sector, constitutes one of the largest and widest flows of contemporary female
migration (Tyner 2000). Filipinas have become the paramount domestic service workers
of globalization (Parrefias 2001). The informal nature of their work and the privacy of
their workplace often pose serious challenges for the design of regulative and protective
measures. Migrant domestic workers experience problems with their wages and
workload. They also often see their physical and emotional health and integrity
threatened, as well as their personal dignity. These problems define them as a particularly
vulnerable group among Filipino migrant workers. It is because of these difficulties and
the continuous increase of female domestic workers exiting the Philippines, that an
attentive analysis of the Philippine regulative and protective efforts becomes essential. I
undertake such analysis in chapters III and IV.
23 According to non-governmental organizations in the Philippines, there are approximately 6.5 million
Filipino workers overseas. 2 million are in the US and 600,000 in Europe. In addition, 1.8 million are in an
irregular situation, and there are a total of2.5 Philippine nationals permanently residing somewhere else.
24 This amount only includes remittances sent through formal banking channels.
25http://www.sws.org.ph/prl40904.htm. Accessed 11/1 0107
44
3.3. Toward a Broker State: Protection versus Promotion
Given the crucial role migrants' remittances have to the national economy, I
suggest there is a tension between the protective intentions of the government and its
labor promotion efforts. Labor protection and regulation often raise labor costs and,
within the scenario of neoliberal ideology and practices, they make labor less
competitive. In this, context, the Philippine government has developed strategies aimed to
market Filipino workers in particular ways with the goal to ensure them a portion of the
international labor market and favor protection. By doing this the Philippine government
has become a broker state. While I introduce the tension between protection and
promotion here, I conduct a more in-depth analysis of how these two dynamics currently
play out in the Philippines in Chapters III and IV.
Protective efforts have run parallel to a well defined marketing strategy the
marketing branch at POEA has undertaken. While OWWA and RA 8042 make the
Philippines unique in the protection they provide to migrant workers, aggressive
marketing campaigns have also been a feature of Philippine management of labor
migration. Many countries in the South have realized the benefits of remittances and
have, therefore, joined the "migration business." This has created competition for Filipino
workers and, in reaction, the Philippines has increasingly emphasized certain features of
Filipino labor that may make it more attractive to foreign employers. Given its
commitment to ensure migrant workers' protection, increasing costs stemming from
regulation have been compensated by marketing Filipino migrants as elite workers and,
therefore, deserving of higher wages.
The marketing branch at POEA has several tasks, which include market research
and market promotion. Once POEA finds out that a particular market is a potential source
of employment for Filipino workers, they coordinate with their embassies and strategize
on how to promote the employment and capability of Filipino workers among host
employers. Both Philippine government officials and recruitment agents meet with
foreign employers to market Filipino workers. Hoping to capture its share of the global
labor market, the Philippine government presents migrant domestic workers in particular
ways which, I argue, work toward the creation of a Filipino Brand. Filipino migrant
45
workers are portrayed as having the right attitude to work, and possessing innate
ingenuity, innovative spirit, skill, and dexterity (Rodriguez 2005).26 This is consistent
with the way a consular officer at the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur described
Filipino domestic workers:
The Philippine Overseas Labour Office (POLO) has the aim to explore new
opportunities for Filipinos abroad. We believe that the main competitive
advantages of Filipino workers are their communication skills, which is why
employers usually prefer Filipinos, their good attitude and flexibility, their high
productivity... and the fact that they are readily available at a competitive cost.27
The Filipino State promotes an update of the colonial stereotype of Filipinos as
compliant, warm, and docile in order to find them jobs in the global labor market.28 In
addition to their gendered and racialized docility and dexterity, their knowledge of
English is said to make them more productive, skilled, and easier to train. Foreign
employers usually value Filipino domestic workers' English proficiency, which
differentiates them from their counterparts from other countries, as a symbol of status and
a way in which the worker can go beyond traditional household work and become their
children's tutor (Anderson 2000; Parrefias 2001). There is indeed a generalized
preference for Filipino domestic workers among employers worldwide, who have
recognized Filipinas as fa creme de fa creme of this sector.
Marketing has gradually been gaining more relevance in the case of domestic
workers' migration. Due to increasing competition for the domestic labor niche from
other Asian sending countries such as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the Philippine
government has made efforts for years to identify Filipino domestic workers as elite
maids, or what has been commonly known as the Mercedes Benz of the domestic work
26 In this sense, Rodriguez (2005) describes how Filipina nurses and domestic workers are represented as
warm and caring.
27 This interview was conducted by investigator Blanca Garces in Kuala Lumpur in October 2006 and she
very generously shared some of the results of her research in Malaysia with me. I quote the interview here
with her permission.
28 This does not address a history of imperialist violence. Ironically, Filipinos speak English because ofUS
imperialist presence in their country.
46
sector. The following is an illustration of how discourses of the Philippine government
construct Filipino women, both at horne and overseas:
[T]he comparative advantage of the Filipino is of course that they are skilled
workers, highly educated, since about 40% of the workers that migrate have
completed higher education. And aside from these traits, our work ethic as Filipinos
and part of our cultural trait as being caring people, it works very much toward our
advantage. So our caring and compassionate attitude I think is a very preferred trait
of employers across the globe. And of course other cultural traits, our dedication for
work, our loyalty, so if you treat us Filipinos very well, and you give us good terms
and conditions, then they tend to be very loyal companies .. , and they are very
dependable and committed to their job ... And these are things that we emphasize in
our missions [with governments and employers] and we include them in the
brochures we make about Filipino workers.29
I suggest, building upon other authors' work, that this portrayal of Filipino workers
the Marketing Department conducts has run parallel to the protective efforts of the
government: given Filipino domestic workers' globally privileged position within their
sector, the government is in a position to demand better wages and conditions for them.
While the role of the government is to provide services to its citizens, the Philippine
government does this by presenting Filipino domestic workers as a marketable
commodity with especial value, and has therefore become a migrant labor broker state
(Rodriguez 2005). Filipino domestic workers are worth more - in terms of money,
protection, etc.- because they posses the characteristics (education, English proficiency,
hard-work, easy-going personalities, etc.) that make them into the ideal maids. The
Filipino Brand has been under construction for decades now. A welfare officer in Manila
explained how:
[W]e are good at marketing the people, at selling the people, at selling ourselves!
The first time that I saw that it was in the 1980s, good attitude, 100% literate,
English... It was an advertisement put up by the Philippine government on why you
should get Philippine workers ... But it only shows how worthless the government
is, because, you can't provide for your citizens? You market them!3o
29 Interview 18, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
30 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
47
Recently, this portrayal has been both maintained and updated in the 2007
Household Service Workers Reform Package and the failed Supermaid Program. Both
aimed to professionalize Filipino migrant domestic workers and portray them as elite
servants. Particularly the notion of the Supermaid reinforces the marketing and
commodification of Filipino women who, since they possess more skills than their
counterparts from other countries, deserve higher salaries and better work conditions.
While better conditions have often been the result of marketing, this strategy falls into an
essentialization of Filipino women through their racialization and feminization. In
addition, as I discuss in Chapter IV, marketing strategies ultimately fail to protect female
workers since they fail to recognize the micro- and macro-power relations which are at
the root of their abuse and exploitation.
In sum, Philippine institutionalization of labor migration has been multifaceted and
has been evolving since its inception. As I discuss in Chapters III and IV, while
government protection emerged as a response to social concern over migrant workers',
particularly women's, welfare, actual protection has faced serious challenges and has
often been seen as a constraint in the context of increasing competition for a share in the
international labor market, since protection and labor regulation often involve higher
costs. In its attempt to remain competitive while simultaneously providing quality and
safe jobs for Filipinos, the Philippine government has increasingly marketed them,
becoming therefore a broker state. What remains to be seen is the extent to which
promotion efforts are compatible with workers' protection. I address this in Chapter IV.
4. Labor Export within the Larger Development of the Philippines
Despite the problems migration creates, it continues to be seen as an alternative
provider ofjobs and income. In addition, despite it was initially posed as a temporary
development strategy, during the past decades it has become increasingly
institutionalized. Over three decades after Ferdinand Marcos started labor export to
remedy economic crisis in the Philippines, as of 2007 there are no indications that things
have substantially changed. This has raised serious questions regarding the inability of
the government to address local social and economic problems, as well as doubts around
48
the long term sustainability of migration. Throughout the remainder of this chapter I
discuss the role migration has in current development efforts, and how the government
and migrant workers organizations perceive this.
4.1. Management versus Promotion: Why Don't They Call a Spade a Spade-;1
[W]e are silent about that. We do not have a policy, direct policy on [... ] migration,
but the Philippine government is very subtle on our migration policies. We don't
want to say that we encourage, we don't even want to promote, but we are doing
things, like POEA is doing, processing contracts, hiring through agencies, looking
for jobs openings overseas ... so without saying we are promoting we are
encouraging Filipino to go abroad, but in terms of policy we do not have that. It is
really a policy of migration, right? But in terms of in black, in letter, we don't have
a real policy of migration. Because we would like to be silent about it.32
Probably the most controversial statement ofRA 8042 since its inception has been
"the State does not promote overseas employment as a means to sustain economic
growth and achieve national development" (Department of Labor and Employment
1997). As labor migration has grown and become increasingly institutionalized during
the past three decades, non-profit and social movement organizations have questioned
both its role as a development strategy and its temporary nature. While they
acknowledge remittances have somewhat alleviated the economic situation of the
country, the bottom line is, according to many, that labor migration does not address the
roots of economic crisis and therefore does not promote long term development. Despite
this, the government has increasingly relied on labor migration to generate employment
and foreign currency.
The concept "promotion" has become key in public political discussion in the
country, and no administration since the deposition of Marcos has dared to make the
promotion of migration an official policy. The official discourse of the Philippine
government has usually been that, rather than promoting migration they just manage it
(Santo Tomas 1996). Regardless of how migration began, they say, it has become a
phenomenon independent of government. Even if migration institutions were abolished
31 I borrow this phrase from one of my interviewees in the Philippines.
32 Interview 2, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
49
in the Philippines people would continue to leave the country. Given this, the
government has the responsibility to manage migration by regulating the out-flows and
providing protections to migrant workers. As one top POEA official put it:
That's what POEA is doing, it's what government is doing, we are not promoting
overseas employment, we are presenting [it] as an option for those who would like
to seek employment elsewhere ... We want to keep them home, why not, but people
k . d 33eep movmg aroun .
According to POEA, those who leave the country are acting upon their own individual or
household choice rather than following government directions or incentives. Although
migrants make an important contribution to the economy, the government would rather
people stay in the country and take localjobs.34
Migrant workers' organizations have encountered this argument with skepticism.
The statement that government does not encourage migration, according to many
migrant organizations, is flawed for three interrelated reasons: First, as noted above,
besides its regulatory functions, POEA has a marketing branch in charge of promoting
Filipino workers overseas and finding them jobs. Second, POEA itself is a recruiting
agency. Third, the fact that Filipinos migrate out of individual and/or household choices
is questionable, since both individuals and families find themselves inserted in a larger
political-economic context. As a matter of fact, The Magapacal Arroyo Administration
set the target of sending one million workers overseas every year. This target was met in
2006. The previous discourse of migration as a temporary measure has been reframed
into a discourse of migration as reality in the era of globalization (see Asis 2005b). The
government promotes and deploys Filipino labor and searches new labor markets.
Following the view of all migrant workers organizations representatives that I
interviewed and, along with Robyn Rodriguez's (1999; 2005) excellent analysis of the
Philippine State in the context of migration, I suggest throughout the next three
subsections that, despite official discourses, the government is an active promoter,
manager, and producer of migration flows.
33 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
34 Interview 16. Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007.
50
4.1.1. POEA's Marketing Branch
Resilient, Adaptable, English-proficient, Loyal. These are just among the reasons
why Filipinos are preferred by the world's best fleets.3 5
The marketing branch of the POEA has three main functions: market research,
market promotion activities, and employment standards formulation. Market research
mainly consists of gathering information on both current and prospective labor markets
for Filipino workers. This information is usually gathered by the Philippine Overseas
Labor Offices, which are part of Philippine Embassies and Consulates. Labor attaches
are, therefore, in charge of providing POEA with data on employment prospects in
particular countries, the terms of employment of foreign workers, immigration and labor
policies, and anything related to the work of foreign migrant workers in receiving
countries. Once the marketing division receives this information they process it and use
it as basis for program development and policy formulation. They also disseminate it to
the placement and recruitment agencies that deploy most Filipino workers. This process
is crucial to opening up new markets for Filipino workers, as well as to expanding
existing ones. The information is also made available to the public, mostly in order to
prevent future workers from being victimized by illegal recruiters. Figures 2.1 and 2.2
show monitors at POEA reminding future migrants to protect themselves from illegal
recruiters.
35 Excerpt from one of the Marketing Branch brochures marketing Filipino seamen.
Figure 2.1
Monitor at POEA warning that there are no available
job orders to Spain. It is meant to prevent deployment
to Spain by illegal recruiters. Picture taken by Sandra
Ezquerra, Manila, 6118/07
Figure 2.2
Monitor at POEA literally saying: "Be aware and be
cautious of illegal recruiters." Picture taken by Sandra
Ezquerra, Manila, 6118/07
51
52
Public dissemination is done in coordination with the Information and Education
Division, which manages POEA's website. The information is also displayed in several
monitors in the POEA building and therefore available to the hundreds of people who
visit the administration every day. Another part of POEA's research work is to prepare
background materials and discussion points for Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)
and Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) officials in preparation for bilateral
or multilateral agreements, as well as international conferences and conventions.
Market promotion work mainly consists of organizing overseas missions. As
discussed earlier, market missions consist of meetings between Philippine government
officials and both employers and officials in the destination country to assist the private
sector to enter a new market and secure jobs for Philippine workers. The following quote
comes from a brochure designed to promote the hiring of Filipino teachers and is hardly
different from any brochure distributed to sell any kind of product:
One of the primary providers of human resources to the world, the Philippines
boasts of a workforce equipped with extensive education and training, and a natural
ability to adapt to different work culture. Conscientious, highly skilled, andjlexible,
Filipino professionals have become the popular choice in today's dynamic, mobile
environment" (POEA 2006a) [emphasis added].
These promotion efforts are part of what POEA calls macro marketing, which
consists of promoting the recruitment industry, the workers, and government programs.
As one manager in the marketing division explained:
We promote the capability of our workers, we tell [foreign employers] about the
availability and supply of Filipino workers and the particular skill that they need,
and we also promote our recruitment agencies and our own migration management
system. In other words, the Philippines migration system: our delivery, our
recruitment system, [and] how we are able to deploy workers.36
The third task of the marketing office is employment standards formulation and it
has two main objectives. On the one hand, it works to create minimum training standards
for public and private training agencies. Workers need to fulfill these requirements in
36 Interview 18, Philippines, Government employee, May 2007
53
order to be deployed to certain countries and sectors. Although these standards used to
apply to all kinds of workers, in the past several years they have focused on what are
considered vulnerable labor categories, such as domestic and entertainment workers. The
trainings are developed and distributed among the private agencies in order to guarantee
the protection of the worker. On the other hand, the marketing branch sets standards that
receiving countries themselves require, such as kind of education, work experience, or
language proficiency. The employment standards formulation work is meant to serve
both workers, by providing them with protection through the acquisition of skills, and
host employers, by making sure agencies are training and deploying the workers the
receiving market is looking for. Finally, POEA also transmits information about
immigration and employment policies followed in the host country to make sure the
private sector follows them. For example, if the host country prohibits charging
recruitment fees to the worker, POEA implements a similar policy for Philippine private
agencies deploying workers to that particular country.
Migrant workers' organizations have seen the existence and tasks of the marketing
division as symptoms of the increasing institutionalization of labor migration in the
Philippines and as part of the government agenda to maintain emigration as an integral
and growing component of economic policy.3? They have also argued that it shows that
government priorities are lopsided in favor of market development, while the welfare and
protection of Filipino migrant workers remains secondary (Asis 1992). In fact, my
interviewees at POEA showed that while some of the tasks of the marketing branch are
oriented toward guaranteeing better protections for migrant workers, opening up new
markets and the promotion of Filipino labor are its central functions. One interviewee
from a coalition composed of several migrant workers' organizations explained that
during some of the regular meetings her coalition held with government representatives
to ensure migrant workers' protection, the latter presented their marketing plans and
37 Interview 3, Philippines, migrant workers organization, April 2007
54
targets instead.38 According to one interviewee from a different migrant workers'
organization, the POEA and its marketing division
[A]re going all over the world looking for markets for Filipinos. Job orders go
through their office, they license private agencies, they collect $100 as a processing
fee '" They have reports about countries where there are open markets. This is the
reason why they go to different countries to negotiate. They just negotiated a treaty
with Spain!39
Interviewees from migrant workers' organizations consistently stated during my
fieldwork in the Philippines that the government argument that it is only in charge of
managing migration is hypocritical. The existence of the marketing branch and its efforts
to constantly find new markets for Filipino labor shed light on the proactive role the
government has in promoting and perpetuating the migration phenomenon. These
interviewees denounced the fact that government agencies charge various fees in order to
provide different services. Thus, while remittances explain to a great extent the
perpetuation of migration, they are not the only factor. The government also collects
large amounts ofmoney through diverse kinds of fees, and there is a huge private
business flourishing around migration. Table 2.4 is a summary of expenses incurred by
migrants before even leaving the country. This information stems from data gathered
throughout my fieldwork in the Philippines, Spain, and the United States:
38 Interview 7, Philippines, migrant workers organization, May 2007
39 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
55
TABLE 2.4. Pre-Departure Expenses
Medical Examination: Pl,500-P3,000 ($30-$60)
Birth Certificate: P150 ($3)
Passport: P500 ($10)
National Bureau of Intelligence Clearance: P70 ($1,40)
OWWA membership: Pl,250 ($25)
PhilHealth: P900 ($18)
POEA Fee: P5,000 ($100)
Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar: PI00 ($2)
Flight Ticket: P50,000 ($1,000)
TOTAL: P59,470-60,970 ($1,189.40-1,219.40)40
These expenses create revenue for both the private sector and the government. The
various businesses that migration has created are considerable. In fact, migration has
created a nonstoppable industry acting on its own and claiming to be boosting the
country's economy. The sector has organized itself into an interest and lobbying group,
constantly attempting to influence policy making in regards to migration (See Asis
2005b).4! Remittances in 2005 and 2006 amounted to a total of$10.7 billion and $14
billion respectively. OWWA's combined assets as of June 2004 were reported to be P8
billion ($155.28 million). However, as I further discuss in Chapters III and IV, as
migration has become a profitable industry, it has also become an unpopular political
issue, so the government presents itself as merely managing it.In sum, migrant workers'
organizations do not accept that the government is merely managing migration and
denounce that it is actively promoting it through marketing and diplomatic efforts. They
explain government promotion of the phenomenon by the importance of remittances and
the large sums of money the Philippine government accrues in the form of fees. As the
above quoted interview stated, "even the government recognizes that [migration] is one
40 This list of expenses does not include the placement fee charged by the agencies. Although this fee is
legally set in the equivalent of one month salary, in many cases ends up being 4 or 5 times that.
41 As I discuss in Chapter III, politicians have also been accused of owning private recruitment agencies
and therefore presenting a conflict of interests.
56
of the most lucrative industries. How do they even dare saying that they are not
. . ?,,42promotmg It.
4.1.2. POEA: The Largest Recruitment Agency
Very recently [the government] advertised for vacancies in South Korea. There
was a need for 7,000 factory workers and it was paEA who was posting it on the
papers and doing the hiring.43
Migrant workers' organizations have argued that government promotion of
migration is also reflected in the fact that paEA often acts as an active recruiter of
migrant labor. While paEA marketing activities have proven very useful in promoting
the business of private recruitment agencies, the latter are not the only ones deploying
Filipino workers overseas. Indeed, paEA directly does a significant portion of yearly
recruitment and deployment through its Government Placement Branch (GBP). Known
as government-to-government hiring, this mechanism is used to provide foreign
diplomatic or labor officials with Filipino workers. Doing it itself rather than leaving it to
the private sector, the Philippine government spares the foreign government the effort of
allocating reliable and appropriate agencies. The GPB also recruits Filipino workers for
specific private employers in foreign countries, such as airline companies in Taiwan or
selected construction companies in Korea. This transfer is seen as a way of guaranteeing
the quality of the workers for "special" clients, as well as guaranteeing the protection of
the former.
Robyn Rodriguez has emphasized that the fact that the Government Placement
Branch has clients who are governments themselves,
Suggests that with the rise of privatization, states are increasingly 'outsourcing' for
securing workers from other countries as opposed to their own citizens and
nationals. Neoliberal privatization is creating demands for labor that states like the
42 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
43 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
57
Philippine state increasingly fill by facilitating the migration of its nationals to other
countries (Rodriguez 2005: 112).44
The existence of the GPB raises two interesting issues when making sense of the
role of the Philippine government in the context migration. First, it creates a situation in
which the government is not necessarily always working for the interests of the private
sector but rather at times competing with them. Private recruitment agents complained
during my fieldwork that they felt that during some marketing missions the government
had acted as a competitor instead of facilitating their introduction to new markets. POEA
currently deploys around 50,000 workers a year which, compared to the total number of
Filipino workers who left the country in 2006, is quite a low figure. If we compare
POEA numbers with those of any given private agency, however, it becomes the biggest
recruitment agency in the country.45 According to one private recruiter, this constitutes a
dual and hypocritical approach, which raises the second issue I want to discuss. Despite
that RA 8042 says government will not promote migration, both private agencies and
migrant organizations have shed light on the contradiction posed by the fact that POEA
ultimately is both a participant in the business and its regulator. By acting as a recruiter,
the government is abandoning the neutral role that it is supposed to have in the labor
export whole process:
It seems to me that POEA is trying to play both roles. They are being regulators
but they are also acting as a recruitment and marketing agency. How is it possible
to regulate if you have such a central role in the process, right?46
This poses an interesting dilemma. While POEA is the agency in charge of making
sure that private agencies follow the law, who is going to make sure POEA actually
does? In fact, POEA sometimes makes its own deployment of domestic workers exempt
44 While I did not find evidence of this during my research, Robyn Rodriguez discusses how the
Government Placement Branch also becomes a key agent in regulating problematic markets. For example,
when private agencies are charging exorbitant fees in particular markets, the Government Placement
Branch takes over that market in order to avoid its loss due the Filipino's inability to afford the fees
(Rodriguez 2005:113).
45 This is consistent with the argument I made in the previous section that migration is profitable for the
Philippine government beyond the value of remittances.
46 Interview 22, Philippines, Recruitment Agent, June 2007
58
from recently signed protective regulations that POEA itself designed. In addition,
POEA has access to media and resources that private agencies, particularly the small
ones, do not. This is seen by the latter not only as potentially corrupt but also as a way of
unfair competition with the private sector.
While private agencies are not necessarily opposed to the existence of POEA and
its goals, they would rather they focus on research and marketing and leave recruitment
to the private sector. For migrant organizations, somewhat differently, the existence of
POEA is symptomatic, once again, of its vested interests in the promotion and
continuation of the migration business. In other words, if POEA itself is marketing and
deploying workers, how can it argue that it is not promoting migration? The role of
POEA goes far beyond mere regulation. POEA, and with it the Philippine government, is
indeed one of the main stake holders of the migration business. Besides regulating
migration it is also making profit out of it. 47
4.1.3. The Naturalization of Migration: They Don't Have to Encourage Migration.
All They Have to Do Is to Keep People Starvinl8
[We] are a poor family. [I left] to help my husband. I want to help my husband and
send my children to school, and I didn't finish school, so I cannot work in the
Philippines, so I decided to come. I don't want my children to have the same
experience as mine ... My husband is a carpenter only. I have no trabaho. 49 We are
in the farm ... we are farmers. My husband is a carpenter. A carpenter doesn't
receive a salary that can support the family.5o
I had to help take care of my aunt. She was ill and she is soltera,51 so she needed
someone to take care of her. I also had to support my family. We are 11 siblings and
my father had a heart attack. Since then he can't work as hard. I was only making
150 dollars as a nurse. It wasn't enough. 52
47 Interview 20, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, June 2007
48 Quote from an interview.
49 Tagalog word for "work."
50 Interview 13, Barcelona, Purisima, February 2007
51 Tagalog word for "single."
52 Interview 14, Barcelona, Auxilio, February 2007
59
As noted earlier, POEA and the government in general present themselves as
regulating a process that sterns from individual and household choices regarding survival
strategies and career options. In this subsection I argue that while individual and
household decisions are important to understand migration, government emphasis on
individual choices serves the ideological function of masking the structural factors
behind migration in the Philippines.
The government presents the inertia of the migration process as corning from
migrants themselves, who make rational choices to pursue better opportunities in
wealthier countries. This discourse is articulated in the larger global context, where
borders are increasingly disappearing and human mobility across the world is growing.
As one POEA official told me:
People continue to move around the world, the world has become a smaller
place to live in; we have no more boundaries now. Before we had all these
walls dividing East and West, now the boundaries have disappeared and
people keep on moving because they want to look for better opportunities, a
better life. 53
Purisima and Auxilio's motivations for migrating to Spain, cited above, illustrate
how, for many people, the world has not become a smaller but a bigger place. They only
see their struggles to enter Spain and the pain of family separation as worth while
because their migration constituted their family's only choice in a context of low wages
and limited employment opportunities in the Philippines. By leaving, they became their
families' only hope for a better future.
There is no doubt that pull factors are at work in the process (e.g. changing
migration policies, demand for Filipino laborers all over the world, existence of contract
labor programs, etc.). The focus on individual choices and strategies, however, masks
poverty, unemployment, underemployment, and low wages as key push factors.
Moreover, it leaves labor migration out of the discussion of the current and future
economic situation and, most importantly, dissimulates the role of the government in
53 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
60
promoting migration. According to a government employee who was overtly critical of
government migration policy,
It ... was never a choice. Going abroad is not a choice. You either get starved here
or you go there. There was not a choice in the first place.... The idea that the
government provides people with choices is an illusion. It's a choice between
getting beaten and being killed. Is that a choice?54
Along similar lines, another government employee blatantly stated:
One basic trait ofOFWs is that they are risk takers, they are like gamblers, but
instead of having chips they are betting on their lives. Either you die of starvation in
the Philippines or die of something else abroad. Either way you'll die.55
What the interviewees are getting at is real choices are very limited in the
Philippines. This is important to keep in mind when theorizing the role of the Philippine
state in migration and development. By presenting migration as an outcome of individual
choice, the state also presents itself as a mere facilitator of its citizens' individual
initiatives. Government avoidance dilutes and diverts blame and responsibility for its
failures: If the decision is an individual one there is no need to talk about how the current
economic system is not working for the majority of Filipinos. In addition, there is no
need either to discuss the role of the state in promoting the neoliberal economic
paradigm. Therefore, government promotion of migration takes place in two different
ways. First, government directly promotes migration through marketing research and
missions and POEA recruitment. Second, it indirectly promotes it given its weak nature
and its failure to provide for the social and economic needs of its citizens:
[I]t's a political decision to open, you know. The Philippines is a very poor country,
so it's definitely poverty that is pushing people to work abroad. Overseas
employment was once thought as a stopgap measure, not as a full blown economic
policy, but right now... that was during the 70s, and now we really market, that's
why we have marketing arms for friendly markets, and if you look at our pre-
employment orientation seminars, it's like a marketing strategy for overseas work.
So, the government needs to send people out. ... the remittances keep the economy
afloat, $14 billion last year .... They don't have to encourage migration. All they
54 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
55 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
61
have to do is keep people starving ... you can't get a decent job, you can't get paid.
The National Economic Development Authority says that a family of four needs
roughly P700 a day in order to live decently. Check out the minimum wage in
Metro Manila. It's like P350 a day, so every time you wake up you are incurring a
debt ofP350 ." How long are you going to last? That's enough push for you to
keep employment abroad.56
The interviewee's reflection on individual and family debt ironically captures how
national debt stemming from macroeconomic policies trickles down to people's actual
experiences. The debt of the country is mirrored in the average Filipino's debt. In order
to stop the treadmill of debt that poverty and unemployment impose in her own life, she
leaves the country to work overseas.
In addition to its focus on individual choices, the government legitimizes migration
through its naturalization. In a global context where borders are increasingly fluid, the
movement of people is at the order ofthe day. Therefore, Filipinos are only following
global tendencies by traveling to other countries to work and live:
It's not only Filipinos who are migrating... We want to keep them home, why not,
but even Americans, they come to the Philippines to work here, they work as
basketball coaches, as chefs in big hotels, right? They work as consultants, in
restaurants, they are also migrating. So ... people keep moving around, they say
about this push factor. .. Some are more adventurous ... I know somebody who
wanted to go abroad because she wanted to marry a foreigner. 57
In her effort to deflect attention from the promotion role of the Philippine
government, the interviewee fails to consider the historical and economic context of
Filipino migration, particularly that of low wage and skill workers. On the one hand, she
fails to acknowledge the prevalent unemployment, underemployment, and low wages in
the Philippines, as well as government initiatives promoting it, which are the main
motors behind massive labor out-migration. On the other hand, her comparison of
Filipino migration with that of Westerners working in Asia as basketball players and
prestige chefs sadly neglects the geopolitical and economic inequalities between
countries at the global level, which is one of the main factors between the exodus of
56 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
57 Interview I, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
62
hundreds of thousands of Filipino women to almost 200 countries in the world. While
globalization has generalized the mobility oflabor, capital, and commodities, these flows
are never horizontal, but rather always shaped by the geopolitical position of countries of
origin. Power relations and inequalities shape the flows. The Philippine government
naturalizes the migration phenomenon in the sense that it presents it as a given in the
context of globalization. This naturalization does not consider how border restrictions
usually apply to men and women from the Global South, while many Westerners travel
freely to developing countries in search of adventure and learning experiences. 58 Neither
does it take into account the history of migration in the Philippine context. The
Philippines has historically provided the United States with cheap labor for menial and
low wage jobs. Today, the export-oriented economic structure born during colonial times
has been perpetuated and, increasingly more so than sugar or coconuts, Filipino workers
become the main and most profitable export commodity of the country.
5. Migration and Development
Our president keeps on saying that, yes, we would like to develop our economy
further, so there will corne a time when Filipinos will not have to go abroad to
look for overseas employment.59
Two issues are implicit in this government official's statement: First, the
Philippines is not developed enough and, therefore, it should keep striving for economic
development. Once development is achieved, Filipinos will not need to migrate for work
anymore. Development is identified in this context as the elimination of unemployment
and the creation of economic opportunities for all Filipinos. Second, besides making a
connection between development and employment opportunities, the interviewee also
implies that current labor migration has a development function. In other words, people
migrate both because the country is not developed enough- to search for work
58 Or to do fieldwork for their thesis. As an anecdote, I will share that during my time in the Philippines I
did not realize that my visa was expired so I walked around Manila and traveled throughout the country
technically being "undocumented" or "illegal." When I went to immigration services to renew my visa all I
got from the officials was an "affectionate nagging," but I did not have any problems to renew my visa
and/or leave the country when I finished my work.
59 Interview I, Philippines, Government official, April 2007
63
opportunities elsewhere- and in order to develop it- i.e. through remittances. Building on
these two implications, I pose the following question: What role has migration played in
Philippine economic development?
5.1. What Role Has Migration Played in Philippine Economic Development?
The two main ways I could identify in my research in which the Philippine
government has seen migration as a development tool have been the transfer of
technology resulting from it and the economic importance of migrants' remittances.
Labor migration was initially seen as a potential contributor to the development of
Philippine economy through the transfer of technology and knowledge. This was
particularly relevant with regard to skilled workers. Upon their return home, they would
apply the use of technology learned in more developed countries. It is worth noting,
though, that out of the ten categories of migrant workers' occupational groups, there are
only two which qualify as skilled workers: medical workers and engineers.60 While I am
not able to specify the different jobs under these two categories, according to POEA
statistics, only 9,4% of the newly hired Filipinos who migrated in 2006 belonged to these
groups meaning only 28,000 workers of the total 308,142 deployed were skilled (POEA
2007c:27). In addition, skilled workers tend to stay overseas for longer or even migrate
permanently. A constant flow of nurses and doctors moving permanently to the United
States and Europe illustrates this. This means that not many of them return home to apply
the knowledge they acquired overseas. The most generalized way to leave the country on
a temporary basis is taking low skill service jobs. A former OWWA employee and
current labor leader emphasized that the productive transfer of knowledge and technology
is more a myth than a reality, since the majority of workers leaving the country are
domestic workers. Sarcastically, he stated:
60 The rest are: household and related workers; factory and related workers; construction workers; hotel and
restaurant related workers; hotel and restaurant workers; caregivers and caretakers; building caretakers and
related workers; dressmakers, tailors, and related workers; overseas performing artists (POEA 2007: 27).
64
It would make sense with high tech workers or engineers, but how is it going to
benefit the Philippine economy that our women learn how to use vacuums or other
appliances?61
While skilled workers seem to be a minority among Filipino migrants, I also found
evidence that even when skilled workers have acquired valuable knowledge overseas, this
has gone unused due to government and local business lack of support. During an
interview with an engineer formerly deployed to Saudi Arabia, he complained that when
he returned to the Philippines hoping to find investors for new industrial recycling
techniques, he could not find the required capital to develop the method in the
Philippines, so his knowledge acquired overseas was not applied.62
Besides technology transfer, remittances have been since Marcos' time consistently
perceived as a development motor. Politicians and economists have largely discussed the
use of remittances as a key factor to promote development. While remittances can favor
economic development, the degree to which they do so depends on the way in which they
are used. According to an employee at the Commission of Filipinos Overseas (CFO),
between 8 and 12 billion U.S. dollars are remitted to the Philippines each year through
formal banking channels and around the same amount through informal mechanisms.63
The same interviewee explained that although it can be argued that remittances keep the
Philippine economy afloat, it is important to keep in mind that migrant workers remit
their wages to their families and not to the government or to investments.64 Another
government employee corroborated this. He talked about Filipino skilled workers living
in the United States and returning to the Philippines for vacation:
That is the waste of the remittances ... you see the Philippines rich after all the
remittances? They do not invest in business. They spend them on cars and beach
houses. The wealth dies because it does not generate wealth.65
61 Fieldnotes, Philippines, May 2007
62 Interview 23, Philippines, Private Agent/former migrant, June 2007
63 The latter cannot be accounted for by the Central Bank, so this is an estimate.
64 Interview 14, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
65 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007 [emphasis added].
65
While the average migrant worker may not have a beach house, the issue of
remittance allocation came up repeatedly during my fieldwork. Another government
employee explained:
We do have a substantial number ofOFWs who even if they [get] old, they still
work through the cycle of feast and famine. When they come back it's like having a
feast. They spend everyday, drink everyday, party, buy things ... their money runs
out. .. they sell the things that they bought, then they are left with a particular item,
right? When you need the money for placement you sell that particular thing, now
he has the money for the placement fee and he leaves again. When he comes back,
the same cycle, spend, buy... then sell, sell, sell, until once piece is left, you sell it,
I d . 66P acement, an you go agam...
While the interviewee's testimony is a caricature of migrant workers' lack of
economic calculation, I also found lack of investment as main characteristics among my
interviewees in Spain, the United States, and the Philippines itself. Besides some
purchases of real estate for their eventual retirement in the Philippines, none of my
interviewees reported to use remittances for investments in their home country. When
asked about the ways in which the money they sent to the Philippines was spent, they
consistently replied on children's education, everyday expenses, and the construction of
a house for their families. This pattern means that the remitted money is being spent or
saved rather than invested and sheds light on a flaw in the view of migration as a direct
and long term development strategy.67 While remittances have a positive effect on the
migrant's household raising their living standards, they do not necessarily benefit the
country as a whole. New houses or the purchase of medicines benefit a particular family.
However, they do not generate jobs nor do they increase living standards of the nation.
While the generalized use of remittances to pay children and other relatives' education
66 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007. This mentality was identified by a Filipino
consular officer in San Francisco as bahalana, which roughly translates as "I don't really care what
happens tomorrow as long as I am happy now. I don't want to worry." Regardless of the prevalence of
different life styles in the Philippines- compared to the United Status or European countries- characterizing
Filipinos as following the bahalana logic automatically defines them as opposite to the rational,
entrepreneurial individual exalted by capitalist ideologies.
67 There has been extensive academic discussion on the role of migrants' remittances in their home
economies. While some authors argue that it is key to channel the money toward productive investments,
others have contested that consumption per se is good for the economy, since the indirectly stimulates
production and money circulation.
66
contributes to high educational levels among Filipinos, the fact the there are no
professional jobs available for them in the Philippines eventually makes them search
work overseas:
[T]he challenge for the migration and development issue is not being talked about.
Workers' remittances should be channeled into productive initiatives by our
workers that could translate into more jobs here, so in the long run we really don't
become dependent on overseas employment. Then our workers will have options,
better options here, because we have tried to use the benefits, to maximize the
benefits of migration. In the meantime the jobs are not so nice here, our workers are
not happy with the options available to them. So, we would like to use the
remittances for, you know, better purpose, that would create jobs here, the
livelihood here, so that in the long term they will just choose to stay in the
country.,,68
Migrants' remittances, then, do not seem to be creating substantial economic
improvement in the country. In addition, their centrality in the discussion of Philippine
migration and development portrays migrant workers as the main responsible for the
economic development of the country. If the economy does not improve it is because
Filipino migrant workers do not know how to behave like rational, calculating, economic
beings. This resonates with colonial discourses that infantilize Filipino people
characterizing them as incapable of managing their lives and their own country. By
highlighting individual and even household behavior as crucial for development the state
remains in the shadows. Yet, the central role that remittances have sheds light on two
parallel processes. On the one hand, in a context where social services have been
increasingly privatized, it is migrant workers who pay, through their remittances, for the
services that their families need, such as medical attention and education. On the other
hand, the fact that the Philippine state both encourages migrant workers to invest and
complains for their failure to do so, masks the fact that migrant workers are increasingly
expected to replace public investment in a context where neoliberal policies promote the
erosion of the public and social dimension of the state (See Glick Schiller 2008). These
two factors mean that Filipino migrant workers are doubly expected to pick up the slack
of the state- privatization of public services and insufficient and retrenchment in public
68 Interview 18, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
67
investment- and are blamed when they fail, or refuse, to do so. According to a
representative of a migrant workers organization, through gradual institutionalization and
normalization of migration, "the cornerstone of the Philippine economy has become
getting people OUt.,,69 Labor migration as a development strategy, however, ultimately
places the responsibility on people and removes it from the government and the
economic structure that the government helps to shape.
5.2. The Philippine Development Path
Recent government efforts to boost the economy and create local employment are
based on the premise of the need to attract foreign investment. This is facilitated by a
continuous deregulation of the economy and the labor market, among other measures,
and is consistent with the economic logic that previous administrations have followed.
Economic and social conditions have not substantially changed since the enactment of
these policies. Besides attracting foreign capital, the government has seen migration as
crucial to remedy high unemployment rates and fix the balance of payments through
remittances.
Neoliberal thought assumes that, since at some point in history European countries
used to be like developing countries are now, if only the right economic and political
measures are taken, the latter will eventually develop to be the same as the former. This
logic sees world history as a uniform and linear process, in which liberalization,
privatization, and deregulation become key to staying on the right historical path. The
adoption of the neoliberal paradigm in the Philippines since the 1970s and the
generalization oflabor migration, however, have deepened the country's dependency on
foreign capital and labor markets born during colonial times, and social and economic
conditions have not improved.
Debt service, economic crises, and the state have intersected to create a very
complex social reality affecting millions of Filipinas and Filipinos: labor migration.
Although it has become a permanent development strategy, its function to reduce
unemployment, transfer skills back to the Philippines, and strengthen the foreign reserves
69 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers' Organization, June 2007
68
of the country have not been realized. According to many economists, policy analysts,
and social movement organizations, migration is never going to solve the economic
hardships of the nation since these respond to historical and structural factors, such as
colonialism, dependent economic relations, and unequal trade agreements. Similarly, for
interviewees from various social movement organizations labor migration is a practical
and short-term solution that has not contributed in any substantial way to enhance the
economic independence of the Philippines from core countries and has not substantially
triggered local investment. Unemployment has not been reduced because those who
leave are usually already employed; instead of transferring skills from abroad, labor
migration has indeed accelerated and aggravated the brain-drain that started in the 1960s;
remittances are, for the most part, not reinvested, and go instead toward paying families'
basic consumption needs. Remittances have also replaced the government in many of its
functions, since they pay for services that should be public and free. The earnings that
migrants remit constitute the country's largest source of foreign exchange but do not
seem to be creating wealth70 (Battistella and Paganoni 1992; Chang 2004; O'Neil 2004).
Foreign debt and Structural Adjustment policies continue to limit severely government
spending. This results in inadequate funding for income generating programs in the
Philippines and perpetuates low wages and lack of employment opportunities. Hence
younger Filipinos are also forced by circumstances to seek employment overseas
(Fulleros Santos and Lee 1989), and the situation has turned into a vicious circle.
Moreover, despite it has provided hundreds of thousands of Filipinos with jobs abroad,
migration has not come without costs. As I discuss in the next chapter, victimization of
workers overseas- particularly women,- Filipino citizens' increasingly generalized view
of their country as a nation of overseas servants, and emotional costs to millions of
families are some.
70 According to Mamja Asis (1992: 81), one fourth of the country's foreign exchange came from the
remittances of overseas contract workers in 1992.
69
CHAPTER III
RA 8042 AND STATE LEGITIMACY: LABOR EXPORT AND POLITICAL
DILEMMAS IN THE PHILIPPINES
1. Introduction
One of the goals of this dissertation is to study the state as an actor in the era of
globalized capitalism. In Chapter II I have discussed how different Philippine
administrations in the past few decades have consistently applied IMF-imposed economic
recipes and how this is a continuation of the subordinate position of the country since
colonial times. The scenario in which policy making takes place in the Philippines,
however, is more complex than that. In the particular context of labor migration, the
government is constantly maneuvering around different political choices. As discussed
earlier, migration has become a profitable industry but also an unpopular political issue.
While migration has acquired crucial economic importance both in the Philippines and
receiving countries, the Philippine government still needs to preserve its political and
social legitimacy.
State sovereignty is often fragmented by its contradictory relations with different
economic and social groups (Sassen 1993). State response to this tension is often to build
national legitimacy and assert state hegemony through the fabrication of social consent.
Throughout the past four decades labor migration has become increasingly important for
the Philippine economy. It has taken center stage by opening millions ofjobs overseas
and through the resulting remittances. In addition, it has triggered the creation of an
industry that greatly benefits from its existence. Yet, labor migration has also forefronted
migrant workers' welfare and protection as crucial political issues, and it has often shed
light on the social contradictions stemming from current economic policy. The
feminization of migration in the Philippines brought an increasing exposure of the abuses
70
migrant workers faced and resulted in massive outrage at the inability of the government
to protect Filipinos overseas. In this context, the preservation of state legitimacy has been
an ongoing and important task for the Philippine government. In order to understand the
pursuit for hegemony in this context, and following Skocpol's (1985) methodology, I
explore in the next two chapters why, when, and how two of the most important
Philippine migration laws have been fashioned. These laws are Republic Act 8045 of
1995 and the 2007 Household Service Workers Reform Package.
Before I do this, however, I review how different authors have theorized state
action and present the creation and preservation of hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, as
a crucial element to understand it. I contextualize hegemony, in the case of the
Philippines, within state responses to civil society, its geopolitical position, and political
will. These three factors guide my analysis of Republic Act 8042, better known as the
Filipino Migrant Workers Carta Magna. I present this Act as a cornerstone of Philippine
labor migration regulation and examine some of the challenges that difficult its
implementation. I suggest that, given the enormous difficulties to implement and enforce
it, its main function has been to provide government legitimacy in its regulation of
migration.
2. Toward a Theorization of the State
In order to contextualize the enactment of migration policies in the Philippines I
undertake a brief overview of Marxist theorization of the state. Historically, debates
about the state have been framed around its relationship with the market. Neo-liberalism
endorses the contributions of classical liberal political economy, which states the market
is the best means for the abolition of class inequality and privilege. Excessive state
intervention would likely suffocate the equalizing process of competitive exchange and
would create monopolies, protectionism, and inefficiency (see Friedman 2000; Smith
[1776] 1961).
Marxist political economy has rejected the claim that markets guarantee equality.
On the contrary, capitalism dispossesses people of property with the result of deeper class
divisions. The role of the state in this process is neither neutral nor a source of
71
emancipation (Dobb 1946; Marx in Tucker 1978). In the Communist Manifesto, Marx
and Engels (1983 [1888]) identified the modem state as the guardian of the interests of
the bourgeoisie. Seen as part of the superstructure, the state is in charge of maintaining
social structure intact and, therefore, it perpetuates the relations ofproduction (see
Hamilton 1982). However, as the working class gained political leverage throughout the
19th and 20th centuries, Marxist theorization of political power became increasingly
complex (see van den Berg and Janoski 2005). By the Third International Marxist
orthodoxy sided with Lenin's position, which identified liberal democracy as the best
shell for capitalism (see Lenin 1981 [1917]).
The rise of social democracy and Western welfare states throughout the second half
of the 20th century have posed a dilemma for orthodox Marxism: How could these
concessions to the working class be made by a state supposedly exclusively serving the
interests of the capitalists? The response was that welfare state reforms were the low
price the dominant classes were paying for the maintenance of the capitalist order.
Marxist theorists spent the 70s and the 80s discussing the way in which reform is kept
within the limits of ultimate capitalist class interests (Evans et al. 1985; Miliband 1969;
Skocpol 1985; van den Berg and Janoski 2005). Domhoff (1979) stated that, given the
over-representation of the corporate elite in political institutions, even apparently
progressive legislation is ultimately aimed to preserve the interest of the corporate class
(Poulantzas 1973; van den Berg and Janoski 2005). Along similar lines, Claus Offe
(1976) argued that the function of the state is to counteract the self-destructive tendencies
of the capital accumulation process,?) often through pro working-class policies, and to
thus favor the long-term interests of the capitalist class (see Polanyi 1957). He
particularly emphasized how state social reforms can only displace- as opposed to
71 This reflects Polanyi's idea on the relationship between the State and the market. He wrote The Great
Transformation in 1944. His position regarding the development of world-markets was that the liberal idea
of the "self-regulating" market society is both a utopia and a fallacy, and that capitalism needs state
intervention from the beginning to avoid destroying society. More specifically, he argued: "Economic
history reveals that the emergence of national markets was in no way the result of the gradual and
spontaneous emancipation ofthe economic sphere from governmental control. On the contrary, the market
has been the outcome of a conscious and often violent intervention on the part ofgovernment which
imposed the market organization on society for non economic ends" (Polanyi 1944: 258).
72
resolve- the contradictions of capitalism. James O'Connor (1973) adds that as the state
accumulation function makes it support private capital, the state is forced to cover up its
complicity with capital, and therefore maintain social legitimacy, by ever more generous
social programs.
2.1. The Relevance of Hegemony
The design of protective policies in Philippine labor migration has set worldwide
precedents. I suggest in this chapter, though, building on Gramci's theorization of state
action, that the goal of protective policies in the Philippines was never to resolve the
contradictions and problems that labor migration has posed, and they have indeed mostly
had an ideological role.
While most Marxist theorists of the first half of the 20th century prioritized the
study of the economic structure in capitalist societies, Antonio Gramsci was among the
first that developed a theorization of the superstructure or ideological dimension of the
capitalist state. Faithful to Marx's scholarship, Gramsci stated that the role of the
superstructure is to perpetuate the class structure, and to prevent the development of class
consciousness by imposing on the ruled the rulers' "conception of the world" (see Carnoy
1984). This is achieved through the conversion of the philosophy of the ruling class into
"common sense" (See Sacristan 1992).
One of the main questions Gramsci posed was, in its goal to protect the interests of
capital, and in a context where open military confrontation between the state and society
is not the norm, how does the political elite manage to maintain power? Gramsci
addressed this issue through his most notorious contribution to Marxist scholarship: the
concept of hegemony. According to him, hegemony comprises "the entire complex of
practical and theoretical activities with which the ruling class not only justifies and
maintains its dominance, but manages to win the active consent of those over whom it
rules" (1971 :244).
Offe and O'Connor's conceptualizations of the state resemble Antonio Gramsci's
notion of hegemony (Gramsci 1985). Hegemony means, according to Gramsci, the
ideological subordination of the working class by the bourgeoisie, which allows the latter
73
to rule through consent (Anderson 2006 [1977] :49) or an equilibrium of compromises
(Ibid. 38). Social reforms are often necessary in order to prevent a substantive
restructuring of the status quo as well as to maintain political legitimacy. They become
non-essential concessions meant to maintain the essential. Ideological discourses of a
"social state," rather than the actual contents of social policies, are the main factors
behind the maintenance of consent.
For the purposes of my research, I consider as part of state hegemony construction
process any state strategy aimed at reducing marginalized groups' discontent without
actually addressing the roots of their marginalization.72 Throughout this and the next
chapter I discuss policy reforms that the Philippine government has undertaken in
connection with female migration. Labor migration gave birth to three main social actors,
the government itself, the private sector, and migrant workers' organizations, whose
interests do not always coincide. First, the government benefits from migrants'
remittances and various mandatory migration fees. Second, the private sector has grown
exponentially since the 1970s, and hundreds of agencies compete with each other to
recruit as many workers as possible to go overseas. Third, migrant workers organizations
have been denouncing the inherently exploitative nature oflabor migration and the
hardships the workers and their families suffer.
The design of protective policies and welfare programs in the Philippines has set
world wide precedents. I suggest, building upon Offe's and Gramsci's notions, however,
that the policies have displaced rather than resolved the contradictions that labor
migration has posed. Further, given the recent past of political repression under the
Marcos regime, as well as the existence of armed revolutionary struggle of the New
People's Army, there has been a shift since the 1970s, where post-Marcos administrations
have enacted social reforms through consent rather than coercion.73
72 Aimed therefore at stripping them from their revolutionary potential through both discourse and practice.
73 Coercion continues to be used in the Philippines. During my three months in the country it was frequent
to read in the newspapers about assassinations of progressive political activists opposed to the government.
The Philippines also ranked first world-wide in human rights violations last year. However, coercion is
becoming decreasingly legitimate.
74
Overall, the Philippine government has introduced reforms to the labor migration
program without altering the economic role it has had since its implementation.
Protective policies respond to the need to maintain political hegemony and, therefore,
grant the continuation of the labor migration program. They have not addressed, as I
discuss in this Chapter and the following one, the real roots behind the abuse migrant
women suffer. This neglect has often resulted in a tension, as we will see, between policy
formulation- discourse- and implementation- practice.
2.2. The State in the Global Context
Labor migration constitutes an updated version of export-oriented development.
The international labor market currently presents a big demand for cheap foreign
workers. By organizing and promoting the exit of millions of workers, the Philippine
government remains consistent in its application of policies that benefit foreign
governments and capital. These policies do not promote the creation of local wealth and
do not alter economic stagnation in the Philippines. Similar to economic policies,
government management of migration in the Philippines is shaped by the position of the
country in the international division of labor and its relationship to core states and capital
(See Skocpol 1985).
A key focus of Dependency and World-Systems theorists has been external
relations of societies, particularly of those described as "peripheral" or "dependent."
They argue that "while the states of the more powerful capitalist or core countries are in a
position to support capital accumulation by their dominant class in various parts of the
world, the states ofthe periphery are or have been constrained due to economic and
sometimes political domination by capital and states of the core" (Hamilton 1982:18).
The relationship between countries at the center and those in the periphery has always
been and continues to be a power relationship.74 During the 1960s and 1970s,
Dependency Theory established that developed capitalist countries have limited the
development of dependent countries. World Systems Theory focuses on the state, while
74 The following are some of the forms that these power relationships take: Export-oriented trade structures,
trade dependency on a given core country, reliance on external capital and technology for economic
development, interest payments, loan amortization, etc.
75
simultaneously emphasizing external or international relations to the detriment of internal
relations (See Wallerstein 1979; 1991; 2000). Wallerstein argues that "states with a
concentration of core-like activities within their boundaries tend to be stronger, while
those areas which remained confined to peripheral activities have been weak states"
(1990:139). The development of the former has required the underdevelopment of the
latter (See Amin 1974; Gunder Frank 1969). This also takes place in the context of
Philippine regulation of migration since the international subordinate position of the state
often renders it incapable of improving migrants' work conditions.
From this perspective, internal classes and forces within the dependent country,
including the state, have little leverage to shape the economic development ofthe country
development (Hamilton 1982:16). In the periphery, foreign economic domination
conditions the state and therefore makes difficult the establishment of the local class
hegemony. Particularly when foreign ownership of the means of production has been
common, as it is the case of the Philippines, the local bourgeoisie must exploit "Third
World" peasants and proletarians to send surplus abroad, thereby having to rely on the
state to reproduce dependent capitalism (Carnoy 1984). In the context of migration, this
takes the shape of hundreds of private agencies sending Filipino workers all over the
world. While the role of the state has been to protect these businesses, it has also had to
attend migration workers' organizations' demands for labor regulation and protection. As
data collected during my fieldwork shows, the interests of foreign governments and
capital often supersede those of Philippine private agencies. Paradoxically, while the
protective regulations it has introduced often go against the short term of the agencies,
they do guarantee the permanence of the labor export program in the long run.
The regulation of migration, thus, is not free of contradictions. Within the particular
geopolitical location of the Philippines, the relationship between the state, capital, and
civil society is an interactive one and presents a constant tension between safeguarding
and challenging the status quo. (Calavita 1992; Yuval-Davis and Anthias 1989). While I
see external factors as important to my analysis, I also consider, in agreement with Nora
Hamilton, the centrality of the internal situation of the Philippines, such as the strength of
social movements and civil society and the leverage of private recruitment agencies for
76
shaping the degree of state autonomy. As Hamilton explains, "changes within peripheral
formations result from internal conflicts as well as from changes in the needs of core
capitals and states, and the interaction of external forces with internal structures produces
the position of the peripheral formation within the world division of labor as well as the
mode of integration of foreign capital in its internal structure (1982:20).
Policy reforms in the Philippines concerning migrant domestic workers are
explained by the need of the state to preserve hegemony. They also constitute
concessions to ameliorate exploitation in a context of politically relevant social
discontent. This dialectal relationship takes place in a wider context: the position of the
country in the world political-economy. This position often translates into scarce
resources to provide protection and limited leverage to negotiate with richer and more
powerful receiving countries. All these factors have interacted to shape the configuration
of labor export as a developmental strategy and the efforts of the government to protect
Filipino workers, particularly women, overseas. In the next section I discuss the initial
protective efforts of the Philippine government in response to the feminization of
migration.
3. The Feminization of Migration: Protection Dilemmas
President Ferdinand Marcos institutionalized labor migration as a way to address
high unemployment and an unfavorable balance ofpayments in the country. His
emphasis was on the role this industry would have on the economy and the ways in which
the state could maximize economic benefits. Issues such as public discussion of the social
and welfare effects of migration emerged only with subsequent administrations.
They began during Corazon Aquino's administration in 1986. As mentioned
previously, whereas migration during the 1970s and the early 1980s to the Middle East
and other Asian countries had been mostly composed of men working in construction and
infrastructure projects, the latc 1980s and the 1990s witnessed a higher demand for
service, health, white-collar, entertainment, and domestic workers in Asia and Western
countries. This meant an increasingly feminized Philippine emigration which, in turn,
eventually brought an increase in cases of abuse and exploitation among female migrants,
77
particularly domestic workers. In 1987, as a response to growing media exposure to such
cases and public discontent and pressure from migrant and workers organizations,
President Aquino ordered the Department of Labor and Employment to conduct a fact
finding mission to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Middle East. As a result of
the abuses found, one year later, following a temporary moratorium on the deployment of
Filipino entertainers to Japan, the Aquino administration placed a temporary worldwide
ban on the deployment of domestic workers. The president of PASEI, the largest
recruitment agencies association in the Philippines, described the context in which the
ban was implemented:
Too many complaints... Too many maids stranded in the Embassy, nobody took
care of them. The media was saying: 'look, another dead body arriving here, look,
there are so many people saying that they don't have money and they are now
stranded in the Embassy.' People got angry.75
The ban was aimed to protect Filipina migrants from abuse and exploitation in the
foreign countries where they worked. Aquino's rationale was also to force the
governments of destination countries "to negotiate with the Philippines about improving
the situation of Filipina migrant women" (Oishi 2005:65). This had mixed effects. For
one, several countries immediately requested exemptions and made offers to improve the
assistance and protection of Filipino domestic workers. During this time, a special
government envoy re-negotiated the terms of employment and working conditions of
Filipino domestic workers with some of these receiving countries. Within six months of
the ban, 16 governments, including the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore,
and major European countries, signed various agreements and memorandums with the
Philippine government, in which they specified working conditions and protective
measures for migrant women (Ibid. 65). For example, in Malaysia, monthly wages went
up by $40 after the re-negotiations (Heyzer et al. 1994), which resulted in a new
minimum wage of $200 (540 RM) a month for Filipino domestic workers, while the
wages for Indonesian women remained at RM 300 per month (Heyzer and Wee 1994;
Raj -Hashim 1994).
75 Interview 22, the Philippines, Recruitment Agent, June 2007
78
Most of the countries willing to enter conversations with the Philippine
government, however, had already been providing relatively generous provisions,
whereas the countries that presented the worst conditions76 were not willing to negotiate.
In fact, some governments even retaliated by slowing down or threatening to ban visas
for all Filipino nationals seeking employment. This affected so many professional and
skilled workers that the Aquino administration was forced to gradually lift the ban.
According to an interviewee from the Department of Labor and Employment, "they were
stopping issuing visas for Filipinos if we do not open the [domestic workers] market
again.,,77
In addition to the impact on the issuing of professional visas, Aquino's ban also had
negative economic consequences. According to the president of PASEI, some Middle
Eastern countries stopped exporting oil to the Philippines, while others stopped buying
Philippine products:
There was an oil problem built, because we could not get enough oil, plus
gasoline prices went up... So a group went to the Middle East to renegotiate,
Minister of Labor, POEA officials ... and we had to retrade our maids for oil ...
[the Philippine government] finally said: 'nothing is going to happen, let's just lift
the ban. 78
As I discuss below, this was the first time in the almost four-decade long
institutionalization of Philippine labor migration that the limited political and economic
leverage of the Philippine state in the international arena affected the ability of the
government to regulate overseas migration and protect its citizens overseas. Both
dependence on Middle Eastern countries for trade and reliance on professional Filipinos'
remittances contributed to the lifting ofthe ban. This demonstrates how a peripheral
position in the world economic and political system parallels a marginal position in the
international division of labor. I find particularly striking the interviewee's statement that
Filipinos "had to retrade our maids for oil." It vividly captures a scenario where
76 Mostly Middle Eastern and Asian countries.
77 Interview 20, the Philippines, Government Official, June 2007
78 Interview 22, the Philippines, Recruitment Agent, June'2007 [emphasis added]
79
economic imperatives, labor issues, and women's protection conflicted with each other. It
also identifies both oil and women's welfare as commodities with exchange values.
The ban also met protest and opposition of migrant women themselves (See
Constable 1997; Oishi 2005), since they saw it as an attack against Filipino women's
economic opportunities In addition, many NGOS saw it as bad policy, since because of it
many more women would leave the country illegally, which would in tum expose them
to further abuse. (Heyzer et al. 1994; Ocampo 1988).
The ban also reflected one of the many ways in which state regulation of migration
in the Philippines is gendered. Nana Oishi has argued that regulation of women's
migration has followed a different logic than that of men. While there have existed
several bans on female migration, the same has not happened with migrant men. While
the regulation of male migration usually reflects economic criteria, the regulation of
women's migration is more complex. The ban reflected the willingness of the state to act
as protector of women. These are the daughters and wives of the nation and are often
equated with its honor and pride.
Despite such problems, President Aquino embraced labor migration as a way to
keep a battered economy afloat and recognized the invaluable contributions of migrant
workers by naming them "modem-day heroes." Overseas employment continued to be
viewed as worthy of national government attention due to its employment and foreign
exchange generating functions. Yet, in contrast to Marcos' time, social problems
associated with massive migration, particularly with its feminization, contributed to the
creation of a new policy orientation toward workers' welfare and protection (See Tigno et
al. 2000). Bans, however, became unpopular political measures, since they constrained
people's movements without necessarily providing them with protections. Subsequent
administrations gradually limited their use and geared their policy efforts toward a
regulatory approach which, rather than preventing workers from leaving, aimed to
provide them with protections while overseas.79 The urgency ofthese efforts became
obvious when the Contemplacion case saw the light in 1995.
79 Following the much-publicized death of Maricris Sioson in 1991, President Corazon Aquino ordered a
80
4. Flor Contemplacion and RA 8042: Toward a Systematization of Migrant
Workers' Protection
In this section I introduce the context in which Republic Act 8042 was created. In a
context of legitimacy crisis for the Philippine government, this law acted to reaffirm the
state protective dimension and therefore, solidify its credibility in the management of
migration. This is relevant since some of the main criticisms the government has received
have been regarding its inability to protect Filipino overseas workers. Building upon the
dialectical relationship Gramsci established between structure and superstructure, I
suggest a likewise dialectical relationship between labor migration as an economic
development policy and the legitimizing role of the Philippine state protection discourse.
Regardless whether the Philippine state manages to protect Filipino workers overseas or
not, what matters is that it presents itself as doing so. This provides the ideological
legitimization of migration and its economic function.
In 1995 a Singaporean court convicted Flor Contemplacion, a 42 year old Filipino
domestic worker in Singapore, of killing another Filipina domestic worker, Delia Maga,
and the three year old son of her employer, Nicholas Huang, four years earlier (See
Gonzalez III 1996; Kanlungan 2006b; 2006c; Nuqui and Josue 2000; Philippine Migrants
Rights Watch 2003). Thousands of Filipinos in their home country and all over the world
were outraged by what seemed an unfair trial conducted with insufficient and misleading
evidence. Massive protests erupted in several countries supporting Contemplacion's
innocence and asking the Philippine government to intervene on her behalf.
Malacafiang's reaction was perceived as excessively slow and timid, and initially more
worried about maintaining a friendly relationship with Singapore than with saving
Contemplacion's life. 80 As the case evolved, diplomatic relations between the Philippines
and Singapore became strained and a political crisis occurred in the Philippines, leading
total ban against the deployment ofperforming artists to Japan and other foreign destinations. The ban was,
however, rescinded after leaders of the overseas employment industry promised to extend full support for a
program aimed at removing kinks in the system of deployment. In its place, the government, through the
Secretary of Labor and Employment, subsequently issued Department Order No. 28, creating the
Entertainment Industry Advisory Council (EIAC), which was tasked with issuing guidelines on the
training, testing certification and deployment of performing artists abroad.
80 Presidential Residency equivalent to the White House.
81
to the dismissal of several cabinet members and ranking public officials (Tigno 2004).
Despite international public pressure and President Ramos' plead for her life, Flor
Contemplacion was hanged on March 16th 1995 (See also Gonzalez III 1998; Oishi 2005;
Rodriguez 2005).
According to many authors and policy analysts, the execution of Flor
Contemplacion and its aftermath shed light on many critical dimensions to the policies
relating to Philippine labor migration (See Gonzalez III 1996; 1998; Kaibigan 1996;
Nuqui and Josue 2000; Oishi 2005; Rodriguez 2002; 2005; Tigno 2004; Tigno, Rye, and
Macabiog 2000). A substantial portion of the Philippine public did not think their
government was doing enough to protect migrant workers. Migrant workers, non profit
organizations, as well as civil society in the Philippines and overseas came together to
express their discontent at the lack of protection of female domestic workers working and
living abroad. 81 According to many migrant workers organizations', the Contemplacion
case shed light on the failure of the Philippine government, despite the economic benefits
of migration, to implement a legal framework that would ensure the protection and
welfare of migrant workers. Further, given the importance of remittances to the national
economy, the institutionalization of migration since the Marcos era, and various
government fees exacted on migrant workers, the state was denounced for exporting
women and being directly responsible for their exploitation and abuse overseas.
Facing an upcoming national election, and given the political crisis and social
pressure that Contemplacion's story generated, President Ramos urged Congress to
complete a law that would address the challenges, dangers, and abuses that migrant
workers faced. This was the context in which Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers
and Overseas Filipinos Act (hereafter referred to as RA 8042) was born. According to
then-Senator Leticia Ramos Shahani, the enactment ofRA 8042 aimed to optimize "the
benefits of overseas employment providing mechanisms for full protection to migrant
81 The importance and visibility of migration in the Philippines makes it necessary to apply a broad
definition of civil society. It includes organized protesting groups but also the Philippine public as a whole.
Therefore, my definition ofcivil society presents two different levels. On the one hand it includes
organized groups coming together to denounce the Philippine government. On the other hand society's
generalized sense ofnational pride, which was often hurt by the abuse inflicted on their female nationals
overseas.
82
workers even while still in the Philippines, but more importantly, when abroad and
susceptible to abuse and exploitation." She made special mention of female migration
when she clarified: "I speak most especially for the Filipino women whose growing
number in the vulnerable sectors such as entertainment and domestic service is a cause
for concern" (Department of Labor and Employment 1997). With the creation of RA
8042 the Ramos administration officially admitted that labor migration was no longer a
temporary solution to economic strain but rather a phenomenon that needed to be
managed and further regulated (Oishi 2005). Bans had not proven effective protective
measures, since they endangered diplomatic relationships and had the potential to trigger
irregular migration. Regulation was seen as alternative to control and, with RA8042, the
government was trying to regulate the terms under which migrants would migrate rather
than preventing them from working overseas.
RA 8042 has since constituted the most comprehensive protective mechanism of
migrant workers abroad anywhere. It established welfare and resource centers overseas,
broadened the definition of illegal recruitment, and created various emergency funds for
repatriation. While the Philippines had been a pioneer in the institutionalization of labor
migration for over a decade, RA 8042 formally incorporated workers protection as a core
component of government regulation and therefore turned the Philippines into a pioneer
in terms of protection as well. Despite RA 8042 presents comprehensive language
regarding the protection of Filipino migrant workers and represents the first concrete step
the Philippine government has taken in order to achieve this goal, it also presents
important gaps, which often render it difficult to implement and enforce. Insufficient
allocation of resources, the geopolitical position of the Philippines, and lack of political
will often render the fulfillment of many of the objectives of the Act impossible.
This does not necessarily pose a contradiction, since I suggest that the main intent
behind the creation of RA 8042 was the preservation of labor export and the
legitimization of the Philippine state as the protector of women rather than their exploiter.
In other words, presenting the government as women's protector was more important
than actually protecting them. The main function of RA 8042 was the maintenance of
hegemony and ultimately the preservation of the labor export program. This law is an
83
illustration that hegemony "moves on a terrain that is constantly shifting in order to
accommodate the changing nature of historical circumstances and the demands and
reflexive actions of human beings (Giroux 1981, cited in Carnoy 1984:70). While
hegemony is an ethical-political relationship, it is also economic, since it is based on the
role the political elite has in the economy. Building upon the dialectical relationship
Gramsci established between structure and superstructure, I suggest a likewise dialectical
relationship between labor migration as an economic development policy and the
legitimizing role of the Philippine state protection discourse. RA 8042 and other
protective efforts undertaken by the Philippine state resemble Gramci's notion of
"passive revolution." According to Carnoy (1984:76), passive revolution is a technique
that the ruling class attempts to adopt when its hegemony is weakened in any way. The
"passive" aspect consists of decapitating the revolutionary potential of political
adversaries. The forms that this takes, among others, can be acceptance of certain
demands from below and changes in the system that can be accommodated within the
existing social order. RA 8042, thus, gives formal protection to Filipino migrants. This,
however, does not necessarily translate into actual protection or a substantial alteration of
workers' conditions overseas.
5. Toward a Critical Reading of RA 8042
Since RA 8042 has been the main law regulating Philippine labor migration, an
analysis of its content is crucial to providing an accurate understanding of the legal
context in which out-migration of Filipino domestic workers currently takes place. In
order to discuss the relevance and impact of this law for Filipino migrants, as well as its
influence in the recently signed Household Service Workers Reform Package, I detail in
this section some of its main provisions and subsequently discuss its implications for
labor, particularly female migrant labor. More specifically, I discuss the relevance of
multiple legal bodies to guarantee Filipino domestic workers' rights, the ability of the
Philippine government to protect them during their time overseas, and the problems
posed by illegal recruitment.
84
5.1. Pre-deployment Guarantees: Laws in Receiving Countries, Bilateral
Agreements, and Multilateral Treaties
Filipino migrant workers, and particularly migrant domestic workers, face
numerous problems during their employment overseas. Through my fieldwork, I
documented loneliness, depression, cultural adjustment, anxiety about the family left
behind, contract substitution (including wages, job description, and other terms of
employment), abuse, maltreatment, sexual harassment, and the perils and traumas present
in situations of war (See also Asis 1992). While the Philippine government is limited in
its ability to address some of these issues, Sections 4 and 5 ofRA 8042 commit to
guaranteeing certain social and labor standards once the worker is in the receiving
country. More specifically, they establish certain standards that receiving countries must
meet in order to receive Filipino migrant workers. I find these particularly relevant since
they, albeit broadly, define the framework of regulation and protection the Philippine
government requires to send its workers to particular countries. Let us further examine
what these guarantees are and how they have been enacted.
In order to be considered as receiving countries, states must guarantee at least one
of the following conditions. They must have 1) labor and social laws protecting the rights
of migrant workers or 2) sign multilateral conventions, resolutions, declarations or 3)
bilateral agreements with the Philippine government, relating also to their protection. If
they do not fulfill any of these requirements they must be taking concrete measures
toward the completion of this goal (Department of Labor and Employment 1997:3-4).
While one of the central tasks of sending states is to provide protections to their migrant
workers, my analysis of some of these protections raises the question of whether sending
states can fulfill their protective role within the boundaries of receiving countries (See
Guarnizo 2006). In other words, to what extent can the Philippine government provide
protection beyond its own boundaries? In the next three subsections I examine how labor
and immigration laws of receiving countries, bilateral agreements, and multilateral
treaties work to grant rights to Filipino migrant workers.
--------------_.__._._----
85
5.1.1. Receiving Countries' Immigration and Labor Laws
[T]hat's really a problem, whether we can implement our own rules, our own
policies in a country where they have their own legislation and laws that they need
to follow also.82
When the Philippine government has asked receiving countries to provide higher
labor protection to Filipino workers, these haven often argued that their laws cover
Filipino workers equally to their own nationals and, therefore, they do not need special
attention. Many receiving countries, however, do not recognize domestic work as real
labor and, therefore, do not provide labor protections to domestic workers. Labor
protections vary across countries and regions. For example, although the United States
formally provides equal protection for national and foreign workers, its regulation of
domestic labor is usually weaker than the rest of labor activities. In other countries, the
total exclusion of domestic work from employment law leaves them unprotected in the
workplace and more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
While Republic Act 8042 demands countries that employ Filipino migrants to work
toward the creation of satisfactory protection mechanisms, Filipino women are constantly
migrating to countries where they do not have rights as workers. There they suffer
overwork, underpayment, movement restrictions, and abusive treatment, among other
abuses. The Philippine government has been incapable of altering this situation and/or
stopping deployment to these countries. These situations constitute serious challenges to
the government obligation- according to RA 8042- to uphold the dignity of Filipino
migrant workers and to afford them full protection (Department of Labor and
Employment 1997:1). They shed light on the gap between RA 8042 and the reality
Filipino women face. The fact that some of the countries where abuse is most rampant
(e.g. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Singapore) suggests that migration to
countries with no comprehensive regulation and protection of migrant domestic labor has
continued and even increased since the enactment ofRA 8042 in 1995. Interviewees from
the government explained that receiving countries refused to alter their regulations since
82 Interview I, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
86
they were not seen as popular political measures. Interviewees from migrant workers'
organizations complained, instead, that the Philippine government was primarily
interested in signing trade agreements with receiving countries and was therefore, not
willing to pressure host governments hard to provide Filipino workers with more
protections. The fact remains that Filipino women are regularly migrating to unsafe and
dangerous countries. Given that the Philippine government has not proven successful in
amending receiving countries' laws and/or in stopping migration to destinations where
the welfare of domestic workers is endangered, what other avenues are there available for
the state to protect migrant workers?
5.1.2. Bilateral Agreements
Another condition RA 8042 set up for receiving countries has been signing bilateral
agreements to protect Filipino migrant workers. The creation of these agreements,
similarly to the amendment of local labor laws, has proven a challenging task for the
Philippine government. Following the explanations of interviewees from the Philippine
government and migrant workers' organizations, I suggest in this section that the
difficulties to sign these agreements stem both from the weak geopolitical position of the
Philippines and a lack of political will on the part of the Philippine government.
According to one official at the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE),
while it is not easy to forge an agreement with receiving countries, the Philippine
government sees these agreements as key to providing protection for migrant workers.
The required, though, the collaboration of receiving countries:
[A] successful overseas employment program can only be achieved if both the
sending and receiving countries can implement the programs, the policies that will
protect the interests, the welfare of overseas workers. And now, our number one
consideration in opening markets is always the welfare of Filipinos.83
This statement expresses the priority of the government to protect workers' welfare
through agreements with receiving countries. The protection needs to be achieved
through transnational regulation, where both sending and receiving countries work
83 Interview 20, Philippines, Government Official, June 2007
87
together to set standards and protections for migrant workers. Nevertheless, receiving
countries are often reluctant to sign bilateral agreements with the Philippine government
for various reasons.
First, receiving countries often state that their laws cover Filipino migrants equally
to their own nationals. Therefore, the former do not need special attention. The previous
sections challenge this statement. As demonstrated, migrant workers, particularly
domestic workers, usually do not enjoy the same labor rights as local workers or workers
in other labor sectors (See Kanlungan 2006a; 2006b; 2006c; 2006d).
Second, receiving countries have argued that the terms of employment should be
negotiated between the migrant worker and private agencies and employers, and
governments should not get involved in this process (See Gonzalez III 1996). An under-
regulation of the private household as a workplace goes hand in hand with a laissezjaire
view of migrant labor, which, in the case of domestic work, goes doubly umegulated.
According to one government employee:
[W]e do not have bilateral agreements in some countries where we send our people,
especially domestic workers. And this is primarily because of the refusal of the
country to enter a bilateral agreement. They will just tell us ' OK, if you want to
send your nationals to work go ahead, if you don't want to, it's up to you, but we
are not going to sign any bilateral agreement. Let the contract be the one that will
bind your nationals with our employers, with our locals.84
The under-regulation of migrant domestic work has important gender and political-
economic implications for the regulation of migrant labor, particularly female domestic
work. On the one hand, gender ideologies see domestic labor, and therefore reproduction,
as not being real work, but rather a private matter relegated to the household sphere. This
means the household is not seen as a workplace either (See Ezquerra 2007a). On the
other hand, the failure or unwillingness to regulate domestic labor is part of a larger
picture of political-economic inclination toward deregulation and increasing adoption of
neoliberal imperatives. Employment relationships are increasingly seen as a matter
84 Interview 2, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
88
between the employer and the workers, regulated by the supply and demand laws that
characterize the free market.
A third argument in response to the efforts of the Philippine government to forge
bilateral agreements with receiving countries has been that if they enter such agreements
with the Philippines they will need to do so with many other sending countries. Former
Minister of Labor Patricia Sto Tomas addressed this issue in 1996:
We have labor agreements only with two countries, Qatar and Jordan. The
agreements were signed only because the ministers who were partners to the
agreements were personal friends. Otherwise, to the disadvantage of the labourer,
bilateral labor agreement requires two signatories- the sending and receiving
countries. When we brought this up with our Middle East counterparts almost
fifteen years ago, they said it could not be done because there were almost a
hundred other nationalities within their borders. They said they cannot sign an
agreement with us without doing the same with the others (Santo Tomas 1996:
225).
By the time of my fieldwork, the two agreements that she cites were already
expired, and the challenges that Ms. Santo Tomas explains remain current today.
According to Nana Oishi, in the context of the regulation oflabor migration, developing
countries are not in strong political positions, since the international labor market is
basically a buyers' market. Multiple sending countries must compete with each other in
order to find work for their workers as remittances are becoming central to their
economies (See Raj-Hashim 1994). This creates a race to the bottom, in which sending
countries find it difficult to come together to ensure minimum standards across the board.
Many receiving countries, particularly in the Middle East but also elsewhere, set country
quotas in their immigration policies, allocating a certain percentage of work visas to each
nationality. Sending countries always need to worry about an immigration quota cut if
they become too demanding. Conversely, a more docile attitude may lead to larger
immigration quotas (Oishi 2005).
The Philippines currently does not have any labor protection bilateral agreement
with any receiving country. I have summarized in Appendix D all the labor treaties that
the government had singed up to 2007. There are three things worth emphasizing from
this document. First, none of the agreements constitute a bilateral agreement and they are
89
instead Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) or Memorandums of Agreement
(MAUs). Similarly, to what Sto Tomas stated, MOUs and MAUs are usually declarations
of good intentions rather than enforceable documents. They do not contain any legal
obligation under international law. Second, most of the Memorandums involving
workers' protection are currently expired or actually signed with other sending countries
such as Indonesia. In fact, besides MOAs with Canada, Spain, Taiwan, and the United
Arab Emirates, most agreements the Philippines has signed have been with other sending
countries. While it is important to promote cooperation with other sending countries to
grant migrant workers' protection, the collaboration of receiving countries remains key.
This brings me to the third issue. The few memorandums signed with receiving countries
mostly aim to open new labor markets, regulate recruitment, training, and information
exchange, and do not usually have language on protection. The Philippine government
has therefore not succeeded in signing any bilateral agreement on labor protection with
receiving countries. The response it usually gets has been the assurance coming from
receiving countries that Filipino migrant workers will be treated fairly (See Gonzalez III
1996). This has not been translated, however, into a guarantee of protection. This lack of
collaboration has made the protection of Filipino domestic workers difficult since, as
Oishi argues, "the key to protecting them is largely located in destination states"
(2005: 179). It is there where women encounter most of the difficulties.
Like Aquino's ban discussed above, the difficulties in entering agreements with
receiving countries reflect unequal political and economic power between sending and
receiving states. The weak geopolitical position of the Philippines translates into a weak
position in the international division of labor. In fact, immigration policies have often
turned into political tools for economic partnership. Up to 1997, in the context of trade
agreements with the Philippines and Indonesia, Malaysia restricted the entry of foreign
domestic workers to nationals from these two countries. Similarly, Japan offered higher
quotas of Filipino caregivers and nurses in exchange for tariff reductions in various
economic sectors (Oishi 2005:49). In both cases immigration favors were made
dependent upon trade liberalization and economic deregulation on the part of sending
countries. Migrant workers organizations complain that,
90
[T]here are not bilateral agreements with receiving countries, except from trade
agreements, meaning that, for example, Saudi Arabia will invest in the Philippines
if the government says, 'OK, you can invest in the Philippines provided that you
accept our people. It's more on trade, and it's concretized by former Secretary of
Labor, Patricia Sto Tomas, who signed an agreement with her Saudi counterpart to
reduce the wage of Filipino domestic workers from $200 to $15085 to keep Saudi
employers and government happy. 86
In addition, according to a Kanlungan report, "no suit has ever been instituted by
the Philippine government before any Saudi court or any international tribunal for a cause
of action for a Filipino migrant worker against a Saudi employer" (Kanlungan 2006b:48).
While it is important to recognize the limited economic and limited leverage of the
Philippines, it is difficult to distinguish between external constrains and lack of political
will. The director of Kanlungan claimed the Philippine government does indeed have
some room to enact changes:
I think that it's really the government, it's in despair, but instead of really
using its leverage, they are giving into the conditions of the receiving countries to
make sure that labor export will continue... We have the leverage, we have the
people, we have the skills, but the government won't do more because they need to
earn dollars ... the Philippines is not pushing hard to get into bilateral agreements.
That would really be protective for our workers. We would like to draft a model
bilateral agreement and try to lobby it with the government .,. We have very few
bilateral agreements, and when we have them they are about opening up markets
and not protective measures for migrant workers, so the government is not really
pushing, these are not their priorities. Their priority is to send workers abroad so the
Philippines will receive remittances in dollars.8?
85 Although this agreement between Santo Tomas and Saudi Arabia was raised in few interviews with
migrant workers organizations, I have not been able to document it either with my interviews with
government officials or in the media. In fact, this was the case with several "sensitive issues" that came up
during my fieldwork in the Philippines. The only time in which a government official candidly expressed
views on immigration they asked me to turn the recorder off. In general, when it came down to
controversial government decisions, I usually found it impossible to address the issues with government
officials or to contrast it with the media. Since it became a pattern during my research I interpreted it as a
lack ofgovernment transparency and even media censorship in a context where migration is such a
politically relevant issue in the Philippines.
86 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
87 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
91
Besides pointing to the weak position of the Philippines in the international
economy, the scarcity of bilateral agreements is therefore also a result ofa complex
equilibrium of political priorities where, while protection appears as an integral part of
Philippine official emigration policy, migrants' remittances and a good relationship with
receiving countries are key to keep the Philippine economy afloat. In other words, the
Philippine government's reliance on imports, foreign investment, and foreign aid may
affect its ability and/or will to bargain for better conditions for its workers, regardless of
what RA 8042 says.
5.1.3. Multilateral Arrangements
A third requirement included in RA 8042 for the deployment of Filipino migrant
workers is the ratification on the part of receiving countries of multilateral arrangements
that provide protections for migrant workers. In this section I discuss some of the main
treaties currently addressing migrants' protection and the difficulties in their
implementation. As discussed in the previous subsection, an insufficient leverage on the
part of sending states, including the Philippines, makes the ratification, as well as the
implementation, of these treaties quite difficult.
The role of the state in the era of global capitalism has been intensively debated
during the past three decades. While neo-classical theory has announced its death under
the triumph of transnational capital, other authors have suggested that, far from having
become obsolete, the state has seen its sovereignty transformed before the increasingly
important role of supranational bodies such as the United Nations and the International
Labor Organization (ILO) (See Hardt and Negri 2000). Along these lines, Saskia Sassen
has argued:
Certain components of state authority to protect rights are being displaced onto
universal human rights codes... While the state was and remains in many ways the
guarantor of the social, political, and civil rights of a nation's people, from the
1970s on we see a significant transformation in this area. Human rights codes have
become a somewhat autonomous source of authority that can delegitimize a state's
particular actions ifit violates such codes (1993:27).
92
Sassen argues international codes and agreements can provide protections for
migrant workers in receiving countries where, as I have discussed, national laws do not
include migrants or discriminate against them. I suggest, however, that Sassen is overtly
optimistic, since the protection these arrangements provide to migrant women is very
limited.
While global governance of migration is still in a rudimentary state, some
international legal instruments have been adopted to protect the rights of migrant workers
abroad. For example, the ILO has the Migrant for Employment Convention (1949), the
Migrant Workers' Convention (1975), The Migration for Employment Recommendation
(1945), and The Migration for Employment Recommendation (1975). More recently, the
United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention on the Protection
of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, usually called the UN Migrant
Workers Convention (1990) (Oishi 2005: 180). This convention provides a general
framework for migrant protection. Some of its provisions include: freedom to leave any
state and to enter and remain in their state of origin; right to life; protection against
torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; protection against forced
labor; right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; protection against arbitrary
interference on privacy, correspondence, and communication; right to property; no
arbitrary deprivation of property; right to liberty and security, including protection
against violence, physical injury, threat and intimidation; freedom from harm; right to
adequate information; right to preserve cultural identity and roots.
The lTJ\T Migrant Workers Convention has been seen as the main multilateral
protective mechanism for migrant workers (Abrera-Mangahas 1994). Many of its
provisions, however, are constantly violated. It has also been criticized for lacking
sensitivity to gender-specific issues. Even though migration situations are different for
men and women, it applies equally to female and male migrants (Philippine Migrants
Rights Watch 2003).88 It does not recognize the specificity of the kind of work migrant
women undertake, issues such as the wage gap between men and women, or the
88 Another criticism has been that it does not grant the right to family reunification but rather only
recommends states to take appropriate measures to facilitate it.
93
worldwide occupational segregation by gender. UN Conventions usually follow the
"equal treatment" approach, which means the equality of treatment between indigenous
and migrant workers. This approach does not recognize that domestic workers are
generally not included in protective labor legislation at the national level. Further, the
Convention does not deal specifically with sexual abuses such as rape and other forms of
violence and harassment (See Lycklama 1994). Therefore, unless international
instruments provide specific protection for them, female migrant domestic workers will
remain as unprotected as the local domestic workers under the UJ'J Migrant Workers
Conventions.89
The Philippine government and international organizations such as the ILO have
widely publicized the existence of these agreements. Given the weakness of labor laws in
many receiving countries, these international treaties could provide the protection
migrants need. During my fieldwork, however, migrant workers expressed a great deal of
reluctance to the efficacy of international treaties. During the last week of my stay in the
Philippines I was invited to attend the first Asian Migrant Domestic Workers Assembly
held in Manila. Migrant domestic workers and non-governmental organizations from all
over Asia gathered to discuss their situation and debate future directions for action. The
ILO sponsored the conference, and one of its representatives, a Dutch woman based in
Jakarta, attended it. During the first day, after a long morning of speeches, organizers
suggested an ice-breaker that would consist of taking few minutes during which migrant
women would write down human and labor rights that they considered relevant to their
experiences as migrant domestic workers. The goal was to share them with the rest of the
group and to discuss the extent to which international agreements and conventions
covered these basic rights. Multiple issues were raised, such as the right to decent wages,
the right to a safe work environment, the right to enough food, the right to rest, etc.
Toward the end of the activity, an Indonesian woman working in Singapore mentioned
the right to love. She nervously laughed while reading her piece of paper and the
89 Despite these shortcomings, it is important to emphasize that the UN Migrant Workers Convention
embodies the first universal codification of the rights of migrant workers and their families. The Philippine
government has abided, endorsed, and ratified it, as well as other conventions and recommendations, and
has also pursued their incorporation into Bilateral Labor Agreements.
94
audience also responded with giggles and smiles. I was surprised by the fact that this idea
carne up and listened attentively while the woman talked about the emotional and
physical isolation migrant domestic workers have to face. She was claiming her right to
physical intimacy without coercion and her right to a humane treatment on the part of her
employers. She was addressing some of the non-material aspects of women's migration,
which in fact have important effects on their well-being and mental health. Migrant
women in the audience nodded in approval.
When the activity ended the organizers announced that the next speaker was the
woman from the ILO. She started her presentation by showing her disappointment and
discontent for what she saw a waste of everyone's time. She explained that we could
laugh if we wanted at jokes such as the "right to love," but, as ifmost women in the room
did not know it, people were actually suffering due to serious issues such as abuse and
lack of payment. Then she went on telling the women about the existence of multiple
multilateral arrangements they could use to stand up for their rights. Nobody in the
audience replied.
Her intervention struck me for three reasons. First, I found it extremely arrogant
and it made me think about the irony of having a highly educated, professional White
woman from a European country telling Asian migrant domestic workers what rights and
violations were important to them and which ones were not. Second, I also thought she
was approaching their experiences from a strictly labor perspective and did not take into
consideration other gendered and racial dynamics taking place at the workplace that can
be extremely important when working and living overseas. This reflects a benevolent
imperialist attitude that erases historical subjects' ability to produce knowledge about
their own experiences (See Mohanty 1988).90 It also shows a hyper-masculine approach
to labor that ignores emotional or not purely economic aspects in migrant women's lives.
Third, although it is true that a multiplicity of multilateral legal bodies exist to address the
conditions of migrant workers, based on my own fieldwork and readings, I felt her
90 Although I cannot reflect extensively on this issue here, I do not think that her attitude was unrelated to
the fact that it was her organization who was paying for a substantial part of the conference expenses. It is
not only her class, educational, race, and geographic background that is of relevance here but also the
nature of her organization and its relationship to the migrant women in that particular context.
95
defense of these treaties was too optimistic and did now acknowledge the limitations of
these arrangements.
During the break after her speech I hung out with few Filipino women working in
Singapore. They were offended and insulted by the woman's remarks. According to
them, "government people" usually talk about migrants' condition without having
experienced it first hand. These women had no confidence in international conventions,
and felt that it was up to them to protect each other and themselves.
The limitations of these conventions, I suggest, mainly respond to two interrelated
factors: insufficient ratification on the part of receiving countries and lack of
enforcement. While the UN Migrant Workers Convention was created in 1990 and
became one of the most comprehensive legal bodies guaranteeing protections to migrant
workers, it did not come into force until July 2003 due to an insufficient number of
ratifications (Oishi 2005:180). The unwillingness of receiving countries to recognize and
sign it, according to Guarnizo (2006), has rendered it "dead letter." Since it only obtained
20 ratifications- all of them from sending states- it only covers a small fraction of current
international migrants (see Appendix E).91 This was repeatedly raised during my
interviews with government employees and non-governmental organizations in the
Philippines, who expressed their frustration at the general lack of interest and political
will on the part of the receiving countries.
91 The countries that have ratified the UN Convention are the following: Albania, Argentina, Azerbaijan,
Belize, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, EI
Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mali,
Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Syrian Arab
Republic, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay. It is possible to find all information
regarding this Convention at the United Nation's website:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/mmwctoc.htm.Itis worth emphasizing the absence of any receiving
country in its ratification. In terms of the International Labor Organization's Migration for Employment
Convention, the ratifying countries have been the following: Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Bahamas,
Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cuba, Cyprus,
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Israel, Italy, Jamaica,
Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia Sabah, Mauritania, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Tajikistan,
Tanzania Zanzibar, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia. Although this
convention includes several receiving countries, most of the major receiving countries of Filipino migrants
are absent, such as the United States or most Middle Eastern and East Asian countries. More information
about this convention may be found at the International Labor Organization's website: http://www.ilo.org/
96
According to Nana Oishi, receiving governments do not get political pressure from
their domestic electorate to ratify migration conventions and therefore these do not
become an integral part their political agendas. Since ratification does not bring political
benefits to receiving states, these are not willing to sign the treaties. In addition, receiving
countries show great reluctance to adjust their legislation following international
requirements. Once a state has ratified any convention, it must often revise its domestic
laws and report on implementation, which, due to the large numbers of migrant workers
within their boundaries, would require a vast amount of resources. The ratification of
conventions would also raise the expectations of sending states, which would criticize
receiving states at international meetings if they failed to respect and implement the
regulations.
Another challenge to the effectiveness of international conventions has been the
lack of enforcement mechanisms. Currently, no international body can directly intervene
in cases of violations of migrants' rights. A ratifying receiving state is the only actor that
could punish local employers or recruiters in case of a violation. There are no
consequences, however, ifno action is taken. The worst possible penalty on the state for
its negligence would only be the accusation of sending states at international meetings
(Ibid.18I). In addition, UN resolutions, such as the Resolution on Violence against
Women Migrant Workers adopted in 2000, do not constitute legal instruments. Rather,
they are political statements lacking any kind of enforcement mechanisms. Therefore,
similarly to MOLTs and MALTs, multilateral legal mechanisms to protect migrant workers
currently only have limited effectiveness. Receiving states reject outside intervention
regarding this issue, and insist that migration is a sovereignty issue. This situation
resembles the complaints developing countries raise at the meetings of the World Trade
Organization. In the past several years they have criticized the unwillingness of rich
countries to eliminate their trade barriers while they impose this elimination on countries
in the South. This position challenges the argument that states are no relevant in the era
of globalization, since Western countries maintain considerable autonomy in relevant
national political-economic policies. Free trade allows rich countries to access resources
in the South. Nevertheless, they protect their own industries erecting particular trade
97
barriers (See Bello et al. 2004). Similarly, while receiving countries are interested in
accessing workers from labor sending nations, they are not willing to let go of their
sovereignty for the sake of migrant workers' rights. The elimination of borders- be it to
capital, to people, or to international governance- is therefore selective.
5.1.4. Challenges to Transnational Regulation
In a nutshell, real cooperation among sending and receiving states remains to be
forged. While RA 8042 projects the need for certain standards for the protection of
Filipino migrant workers, once these workers leave Philippine soil their welfare is mostly
beyond the control of their government. The limited leverage of the Philippines and the
unwillingness of receiving countries to let go of national sovereignty are revealed in this
process. Migrant workers' organizations also complain that, worried about maintaining
good relationships with the receiving countries, the Philippine government is not trying
hard enough to obtain better conditions for migrant workers. The pre-eminence of
receiving countries' interests in the international labor regime needs moderation in order
to achieve a reform of immigration and labor regimes and the creation and effective
bilateral and multilateral agreements. As long as the international labor market remains a
buyers' market, the Philippine government and other sending countries will remain
limited in their ability to regulate their citizens' fate. This runs parallel to other power
inequalities among countries, such as trade and aid relations, which I have reviewed in
previous chapters. As a matter of fact, after sugar and coconut oil, labor has become one
ofthe main export products in contemporary Philippines. The remittances workers send
home have mitigated the critical situation of the national economy and its labor market.
They have also been an important source of foreign currency. According to a UN Report
in 2005, migrant workers sent $240 billion to their families, $167 of which went to
developing countries. The amount was bigger than all combined international aid to these
countries (See lavellana 2006). In the Philippines, the amount of migrant remittances,
which hit 13 billion dollars in 2006, is more than 10 times greater than the net Official
Development Assistance (Oishi 2005). Remittances were 8% of the Gross National
Product in 2001 and 10% in 2005 (Espina 2006).
98
The fact that migration has such a central role in the Philippine economy often
limits the bargaining power of the government or, in other words, its ability to affect the
conditions, regional and international, under which migration takes place. However, no
actor is ever powerless, and the Philippine government is no exception. While
international relations and the Philippine economy are key factors in explaining the shape
labor migration takes, policy choices and strategies also affect the migration
phenomenon. These are, in tum, a reflection of political priorities.
5.2. Government Services
In this section, I examine the articles in RA8042 that describe proactive measures
the government should take to ensure migrant workers' protection.
Sections 14 to 22 of RA 8042 describe government services available to migrant
workers: travel advisory/Information dissemination; repatriation of workers and the
provision of an emergency repatriation fund; mandatory repatriation of underage migrant
workers; establishment of a replacement and monitoring center; establishment of a shared
government information system for migration; migrant workers loan guarantee fund;
rights and enforcement mechanism under international and regional human rights systems
(See Department of Labor and Employment 1997; Nuqui and Josue 2000). Several
agencies provide these services. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is in charge of
providing on-site protection and legal assistance to overseas Filipinos. The role of the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is both to supervise the activities of
POEA and OWWA and make sure labor and social laws in the receiving countries are
applied to Filipino migrants. POEA regulates overseas employment and is in charge of
the licensing and registration system of recruitment agencies. Finally, 0 WWA officers
provide Filipino migrant workers and their relatives the support they need in the
enforcement of employers and agencies contract obligations (See Philippine Migrants
Rights Watch 2003:21).
Throughout subsections 5.2.1., 5.2.2., and 5.2.3 I discuss some ofthe shapes
protection overseas takes. First, given OWWA's role in workers' welfare and protection,
99
I provide a description of some of its main tasks. Second, I discuss some of the problems
OWWA encounters to fulfill these tasks and the strategies it follows to circumvent these.
5.2.1. The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration
Government reports have repeatedly shown that female domestic workers are a
great majority among Filipino migrant workers facing abuse. The fact that the women are
often on work visas and do not enjoy permanent residency or citizenship in the country
where they live and work often makes it difficult for them to have enough leverage to
protect themselves or stand up for their rights (Anderson 2000; Parella Rubio 2003; Pe-
Pua 2003; Ribas-Mateos 1999; Romero 1999). Racial and ethnic discrimination are often
behind the abuse these workers suffer. In addition, the persistent view of domestic work
as private and as non-work has excluded it from the labor laws of most host countries,
often leaving domestic workers unprotected (Asis 2005a; Ezquerra 2006; 2007b;
Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Mestre 2001; Parrefias 2005b; Romero 2003; Sole 2005;
Domestic Workers United 2004).
OWWA is currently the agency in charge of guaranteeing "the protection of the
rights of overseas workers and the promotion of their interests and general well-being"
(OWWA 2003). The Philippines has been the first country to create a welfare agency
among labor-sending states. Its welfare officers are part of the Embassy team abroad, and
their main task is to assist workers arriving at the Embassy in need of help, as well as
supporting them in finding a solution for their employment and immigration problems. In
short, welfare officers respond to and monitor problems, complaints, and queries of
overseas workers. The duration of their assignments overseas ranges from 2 to 5 years.
After they finish their job overseas they return to the Philippines for 1 or 2 years and are
then posted elsewhere. Due to these rotations I was able to interview several welfare
officers in Manila, who were working there in between overseas assignments.
In early January 2007, citing data from OWWA, the Undersecretary of Labor and
Employment declared that 80% of the welfare cases that OWWA handles involved
female migrants working as domestics overseas (Uy 2007a). Table 3.1 summarizes the
main problems Filipino migrant workers encountered between 1999 and 2004. It reflects
Public Assistance
100
some of the situations that seem to be more common among Filipino domestic workers
than among migrant workers in other economic sectors. Six out of seven of the categories
are more frequent among female than among migrants and coincide with the kind of
situations my interviewees in the Philippines reported to be recurrent among migrant
domestic workers.
TABLE 3.1. Welfare Cases92
_.,~~" •••••·~••• ,._u.m. •·••·.·.·mmw.u.u~,•••••••~ .<••• o._ ••••__ .vu.m. '<' ,.... _ m, •••••••••••••••·m. "",,,,,.. '~ •••' m __ m m __~UU'·_'_~UUUU'••••••••• , ••••••••• u __.~ ...... m
Overseas Workers Welfare Administration
, ~~__mmhm~••.·.=mn_.~·.·'.-h-.-.-m__ _, v ~__• ~_T•••.·.u"u"••u_m.N."~=_'_'._'h~'~,~~','~~·."w,"~.·m.._~N ...."~,~~-.-P.-.-..".·AW...·".·.·.,_·.,·.·.··,,··.···.·,,_·__·_·,.·_·_·~ -uu•
•• . '.""m~ ".~m."._ ._'!ielfar~~_as~.~~rJ.2.B~ECl.tr!Cl!i()n_~~s..i~tClr:!~"~_1.~99-~9~._~. .~.~.._~....~~_
Over 50%
.....................J~~~...~QQ.Q.?001~~QQ~.. ~QQ~ 2004* TOTAL fernClle in 05
Source: OWWA 2004
* Data gathered in June 2004
** 2005 data shows that these over 50% ofthe case in the category corresponded to female
migrants.
Although this table is helpful in orienting us on some of the most frequent issues
coming up during domestic workers' stay overseas, the findings stemming from my
interviews with OWWA employees indicate these data are an undercount of the problems
Filipino migrants overseas encounter. In fact, I was informed during an informal
conversation with an OWWA employee that in 2006 in Kuwait alone there were 390
cases of sexual harassment and abuse. My informants identified "unofficial" ways of
dealing with problems, such as the use of quit-claims to settle labor disputes,93 different
measurement techniques within the agency, and a tendency to underreport on the part of
the workers, as some of the factors behind OWWA's underestimation. Nana Oishi
92 The reason why the 2004 figures are lower is that the statistics only go through June of that year.
Therefore 2004 is not complete in the table.
93 ] discuss quit-claims in subsequent sections of this chapter.
101
(2005:86) has established that, since it is common for state agencies to measure
performance through numbers, they often inflate or deflate them in order to increase
leverage or obtain higher resources within administrations. Confirming this, one of my
interviewees, a former welfare officer, explained that one of the main targets in the
foreign posts where he had worked was to settle cases as soon as possible so that in the
performance appraisal it would appear that the case was resolved, even if it had not.94
I designed the following list of abusive situations Filipino domestic workers
encounter based on 12 legal cases of distressed Filipino domestic workers and from
interviews I conducted with distressed returned Filipino domestic workers at two migrant
workers' organizations. I believe that the added detail of this list adds to the statistical
information OWWA data provide and helps us understand that Filipino domestic workers
do indeed face extreme and dangerous situations during their work overseas:
• food deprivation
• not allowed to talk to others/forbidden to use cell phone
• locked in room during nigh time,
• physical abuse,
• unjustly accused of theft;
• long working hours;
• overwork;
• sexual abuse;
• underpayment of salaries;
• physical abuse;
• attempted rape;
• rape;
• sexual harassment;
• not allowed to take a bath;
• not allowed to communicate with family;
• forced to work right after hospitalization;
• verbal abuse;
• locked inside the house;
• forced to eat spoiled food and leftovers.
Needless to say, all of these situations have negative impacts on the physical,
mental, and emotional well-being of domestic workers. In combination with OWWA
94 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2006
102
statistics, they shed light on the limitations of the Philippine government in protecting
domestic workers.
The Philippine government takes pride in being the only labor-sending country in
the world that provides protection services overseas through OWWA. The presence of
welfare officers in Philippine Embassies to assist Filipino migrants in distress is unique
among sending countries. Welfare officers collaborate with the Ambassador and Labor
Attaches under the "country team" approach to share information and therefore be more
efficient in protection. For example, prior to a worker's arrival, the Ambassador is
supposed to approve labor contracts and verify the identity and location of employers in
the country of destination. The goal is to prevent fraudulent or non-existent employers to
hire Filipino domestic workers by fraudulent or non-existent employers and to blacklist
abusive employers. This runs parallel to the protective functions of welfare officers at the
Embassy:
Anything under the sun that the worker needs help in is a concern of OWWA['s
welfare officers]. [T]racking a worker's whereabouts, problems with employers,
problems with the host authority, the indication of illegal overstaying, and at times,
family-related.95
This being said, the protection of Filipino domestic workers overseas is not an easy
task. The difficulties women face provide a contrast between what RA 8042 states
regarding protection and the reality in which women find themselves. In the following
sections I examine some of the reasons behind these limitations. These include, again, the
geopolitical positions of the Philippines as well as limited resources and corruption.
There is also insufficient political will to alter these factors.
5.2.2. Insufficient Allocation of Resources
I have observed that in the Philippines there are government employees who are
really doing their job. They cannot do everything because their hands are tied
because even though they want to provide the financial or legal resources there,
they can't... 96
95 Interview 11, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
96 Interview 8, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
103
Above I discussed the importance of Philippine geopolitical lack of leverage in
achieving greater macro protection. Another factor behind lack of government protection,
which I discuss in this subsection, are insufficient government resources. According to
Nana Oishi (2005), public policy implementation in developing countries is often
difficult due to existing budgets constraints (l 03). In the Philippines, as most of my
interviews highlighted, budgets constraints had an impact on the ability of the
government to provide protection to migrant workers.
Every time a Filipino migrant worker leaves on a new contract they have to pay a
mandatory $25 OWWA membership fee before their application is processed. The fees
fund the services this agency provides, which are supposedly for "member contributors"
only. Undocumented migrants do not pay this fee, and they are not considered
beneficiaries of OWWA's funds and services. The Philippine Migrants Rights' Watch
(PMRW) started a campaign in 2004 denouncing this fee. According to Letter of
Instruction No. 537, signed by President Marcos in 1977, "in no way shall the fees be
charged or collected from the worker." The fee was initially going to be charged to
employers, but it is instead routinely charged on the worker.97 It is important to clarify
that OWWA is actually a self-financing agency funded by the $25 membership fee every
documented migrant is mandated to pay every time they leave on a new contract, usually
every two years. This means migrant protection is not part of the national budget.98
Despite the large amounts of money OWWA collects each year through
membership fees, interviewees in that agency and in migrant workers' organizations
complained that the protection OWWA offers is insufficient. This is largely due,
according to its own employees, to insufficient human and financial capability allocated
for overseas workers' protection. OWWA currently has 30 welfare officers in 23
countries all over the world, which, with corresponding administrative staff, comes to
100 0 WWA employees overseas. Welfare officers tend to be in countries with high
97 PMRW's campaign also demanded that all migrants be made beneficiaries of OWWA's services instead
ofonly documented Garcia, Liza S. 2004. "OWWA Membership Fee. PMRW Questions Legality of
Collecting US$25 from OFWs." The Migrant Watch. Quarterly Newsletter a/the Philippine Migrants
Rights Watch, pp. I.
98 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrante International, May 2007, Philippines
104
concentrations of Filipino workers. In Europe welfare officers work in Madrid, Milan,
Athens, and London. In Asia they are present in Hong Kong, Brunei, Kuala Lumpur,
Tokyo, Taiwan, and Korea. They have five posts in Saudi Arabia, since it has the highest
concentration of Filipino workers. OWWA is also present in Dubai, the United Arab
Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman, among other countries.99 Since in 2006
alone the Philippines deployed over a million workers to almost 200 countries, the
resources in form of personnel allocated for their welfare is clearly insufficient. A welfare
officer formerly placed in the Middle East and currently working in Manila explained:
[W]e have like a ratio of 1 welfare officer to 100,000 plus workers, although not all
of them have problems. But even those who have problems on a statistically
acceptable number... you are going to lack services for overseas Filipinos. loo
Government employees, returned migrant workers, and representatives from
migrant workers' organizations repeatedly reported that the Philippine government
currently does not allocate enough resources for workers' protection. This results in
teams of overworked welfare officers unable to provide good quality services and
overcrowded Embassies with Filipino migrant workers in distress. A government
employee recently returned from a foreign post in the Middle East, explained that most of
the runaways arriving at the Embassies are domestic workers escaping from different
kinds of grave abuse. The Embassy personnel often struggle to keep up with the number
of these problematic situations.
[T]he cases handled in Kuwait is four thousand '" the year is only three hundred
sixty-five [days]. Because my runaways are ... like twenty per day. Imagine ... I
haven't enjoyed a single rest day in Kuwait. And I start my day before eight o'clock,
I end my day at eleven o'clock in the evening. And I have to drink after that. Why?
To clear my mind. It was a hell of a time. 101
99 Interview 11, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
100 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2004
101 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
105
Maria, a distressed domestic worker returned from Lebanon, corroborated this:
[A]nd I get in [the] Philippine embassy. And they have a lot of household workers
stuck here. They have also what you call this, babies Filipino women had ... I think
when I was there [in the] Philippine embassy, more than two hundred household
[workers were] there inside. And when we take a bath, in one bathroom, they have
six persons take a shower and because they have only two comfort room[s].
Because they have loaded more person[s] inside the Philippine embassy when we
take a shower ... you don't have clothes, dress, panty, bra, nothing. And they have a
sick person inside the bathroom. When I was first time take a shower here, I don't
shower because I'm shy. But the others told me, if you [are] shy here, you cannot
102
shower.
These two quotes illustrate that, far from facing a small number of cases of migrant
workers in distress, Philippine Embassies in some areas of the world, especially the
Middle East, often find themselves incapable of properly and efficiently handling the
problems arising among Filipino migrant workers. Both the government employee and
the Filipina domestic worker quoted above indicate the Embassies are overcrowded and
their staff often overworked. One top official acknowledged this:
I guess ... there are things that in working for the protection of our workers, have
really worked against us '" In countries for instance that have certain norms of how
you conduct yourself, the OWWA people is taught to be innovative. Innovative or
creative ... We are lacking in resources not only in terms of manpower but also in
terms of resources, financial for that mater. We cannot afford all the expenses that it
will entail for us to be able to protect our workers. 103
Given that government employees and officials, migrant workers organizations, and
migrants themselves observe an insufficiency of resources allocated to service migrants
overseas and that, as discussed earlier, the Philippine government, due to its geopolitical
and diplomatic limitations, has not had much success in affecting receiving countries'
and international legal bodies, what strategies do welfare officers resort to in order to
protect workers?
102 Interview 9, Philippines, Maria, May 2007
103 Interview I I, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
106
5.2.3. Informal Problem Solving
The existence of formal barriers to workers' protection, such as insufficient
resources and lack of political leverage, has forced the Philippine government to resort to
informal problem mechanisms to attempt to provide protection. While the role of the
Embassy staff, particularly welfare officers, is to assist Filipino nationals overseas, it has
often proven unable or unwilling to do so. This is partially a result of the need to maintain
the precarious balance between two different tasks: fulfilling their protective roles and
contributing to the maintenance of good relationships with the country in which they are
placed. This tension takes place, as discussed above, in a context of limited resources.
Welfare officers, according to my interviewees, have resolved this dilemma following
two mechanisms: the use of quitclaims and cultivating good relationships with local
authorities. As I discuss below, while the use of these informal problem solving
mechanisms allows both sending and receiving authorities, as well as employers, to
manage this tension and to save face, it does not empower Filipino workers to stand up
for their rights.
5.2.3.1. The Use of Quitclaims
I was in one room that they locked me. Then I called the Philippine Embassy. I said
"hello, sir, can you get me here in my house? I need your help. Please, help me." I
gave the address of my employer. "Can you get me in this house? Please go. I'll
wait here. The employee of the Philippine Embassy said "Shut up, that's enough,
shut up!104
One of the recurrently used informal mechanisms used to deal with labor conflicts
overseas, vastly documented in my research, are quitclaims. These are standardized
documents in which, in the context of a labor dispute, the worker exempts her employer
and recruitment agency from any liability in exchange for her repatriation to the
Philippines. Particularly in Middle Eastern Countries, where the worker needs her
employer to sign her exit visa in order to leave the country, quitclaims have been a
mechanism that Philippine Embassies' officials have adopted to settle labor disputes and
104 Interview 10, Philippines, Migrant Worker, May 2007
107
facilitate the worker's return to the Philippines. While this mechanism allows for a
"peaceful" resolution of the conflict, it fails to provide an empowering and supportive
framework ofprotection. Since it prevents the worker from filing a case against
recruitment agencies in the Philippines, it indirectly promotes illegal migration as well.
Philippine Embassies all over the world, particularly in the Middle East and Asia,
must deal with dozens of runaway Filipino domestic workers every day who have
escaped from their employers. Sexual abuse and harassment, non-payment of wages, as
well as other situations, force these women to flee. In many of these countries, when
migrants decide to leave their employers, they automatically become undocumented, and
often criminals, in the receiving country. Due to weak legal bodies and socio-economic
constraints, it is often very difficult for them to fight legally their employer, and they see
their Embassy as their only hope to redress their situation and/or to return to the
Philippines. According to my interviews with OWWA employees and officials, once a
worker makes it to the Embassy she shares her situation with the welfare officer or other
administrative staff. The Embassy will usually call the employer and invite him or her to
sit in a "friendly" meeting, during which the Embassy acts as a mediator. Depending on
the nature and extent of the violation, the main goal of these meetings is to reach an
agreement that allows the worker to return to her workplace. Former welfare officers told
me that the main priority is to settle cases to free up space in the Embassy, avoid legal
expenses, and meet yearly targets in terms of objectives and efficiency rates set for every
Embassy team. lOS
Despite these pressures, the worker often does not want to go back to her
employers' house and would either like to work for a different employer or be returned to
the Philippines. In Kuwait, between 2005 and 2006, out of 4,527 cases settled, 1,588
workers were repatriated while 2,939 were reemployed. 106 In the context of a contract
violation, the employer, according to POEA regulations, is technically responsible for the
plane ticket.
105 Interviews 3, 4,5, 15, Philippines
106 Informal conversation with former welfare officer.
108
Philippine emigration law provides what is known as joint solidarity. In other
words, if there has been a violation of a contract, such as underpayment of wages, once
the worker returns to the Philippines she is entitled to sue the Philippine agency that
recruited and placed her in the destination country. The Philippine agency may actually
be held responsible for the violation that the agency or the employer in the receiving
country committed. This is a way in which the Philippine state tries to address foreign
employers' lack of accountability and receiving countries irresponsiveness. 107
The use of quitclaims is meant to free employers as well as agencies from any
responsibility. These are forms, often standardized, Philippine Embassies give domestic
workers to sign in order to "speed up" their return home if need be. The signed form also
indicates the worker waives her right to pursue legally her case once back on Philippine
soil or, in other words, she quits her right to access joint-solidarity.
Figure 3.1 is a standard quitclaim from the Philippine Embassy in Saudi Arabia. It
is worth emphasizing two main things about this document. On the one hand, the mere
fact that a standard form exists points to the likeliness that quitclaims are commonly
used. As my informants explained, quitclaims also exist, at least, in the Embassies in
Lebanon and Kuwait. On the other hand, besides providing the identity of both the
worker and the employer, the document included below fulfills three functions: 1) It
presents the worker's exit from her workplace as a result of her own choice rather than
from abuse; 2) It falsely states that the worker has been awarded all the monetary benefits
to which she is entitled; and 3) It strips the worker from her right to pursue a contract
violation in both the destination and the origin countries, since the document displays her
"agreement" not to do so.
107 Ironically, this does not include different forms ofphysical abuse, including sexual abuse, but rather
"merely labor" issues.
p.,.. f'"\'
.-:. ... ".'
109
Figure 3.1
•FINAL SI.rrLO-1ENr
I, __. :__ . _~C__~ __ L .. _
/I l'i1ipillu 1Il,1;,,''') a,-kll\lI'<IcIlgr th"l I tlolI'l
wllIll tu gtl UII \\"1rkillg \..... ilh TIl:' Employf.'1 I
~I'onsor: .
/lntllh"l flicddc;j',-;; i"J i;;",,';- it; 1I-':;C~OIlI'~y
(i'hilipl'iIlCS), J 'i.,,, adlll\l\Jletlgr Ihal 1111 hlHly
l!)Icd IIlC In 'I";' Ii oIII II.! W\l,k Ilcc,,;"c" "II
Ill) ,Ialm;r" nl.,lIVallce~ ;,,"1 nil lUy linane;,,1
\..... c1aPil': lil'lilllly t:lIll~:'.lycr JI. nvc 1I:11;1.dllI1i lill'
i1 ':1-,,1;' llflli·h( Illy ('lllph,}"( I I J~CJ1,'III!l'lIt agCllt'\'
;', ;nye"'nl ill Vi"I',d~ n.J \,1',", IIdi ',,,hi,, ", IV""
',s. in ·1 Ill' J'hdil'P"Il.'·;
......~.--_._.- .. .:.... "-- -. ---
Standard Quitclaim from Philippine Embassy in Saudi.
Provided by Migrante International!08
"i
f" ; Iii
~! ~lll
" I
,II ,,~--,
I
Ana, a 27-year old Filipino woman from Southern Luzon, signed a quitclaim at the
Philippine Embassy in Lebanon prior to her return to the Philippines. Despite the abuses
she suffered during her time in Lebanon, the Philippine Embassy staff forced her to use a
quitclaim. Her story illustrates the use of this document in a Philippine Embassy as well
as the Embassy staff' priority to settle the case promptly without considering Ana's needs
or rights. By imposing a quitclaim on her, the Philippine Embassy failed to pursue illegal
recruitment practices and grave violations of the labor contract.
108 The Standard quitclaim says the following: "I, a Filipino national acknowledge
that I don't want to go on working with my Employer/Sponsor: . And that I
decided to go home in my Country (Philippines). I also acknowledge that no body/arced me to quit/rom
my work, I received all my salaries, allowances and all myfinancial claims/rom my Employer. I have no
right to file a case against my employer/recruitment agency at any court [ .. .] a/Saudi Arabia as well as in
the Philippines" [emphasis added]. While I did not include the totality of the quitclaim here, the document
was dated in April 19, 2002 and sealed and approved by the Philippine Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
110
Ana left for Lebanon as a domestic worker in 2005. At that time, while agencies
were only allowed to charge the equivalent of one monthly salary as a placement free,
Ana was charged three times that. In addition, she had to pay P20,000 ($400) to process
her migration documents, which included medical reports, passport, transportation to the
airport, police clearance, pregnancy test, etc. In order to pay for the illegal placement fee,
she had to work for free during her first three months in Lebanon. Ana's employer
repeatedly verbally and physically abused her and locked her in a room for several days
with no food and very little water. When she managed to escape she went to the office of
the Lebanese agency and asked them to help her find another employer. But the agent
sexually abused and beat her up while he forced her to watch pornography with him.
Eventually he returned her to her abusive employer. Ana escaped again and went to the
Philippine Embassy. There the Labor Attache told her that she should go back to her
employer and agent and apologize:
The labor attache did not help me. She told me, you go back to the agency. We
don't have a lot of money to take you to the Philippines. But I said to her, 'I don't
want to go back to the agency. Look at what happened to me.' I took offmy
blouse, there were so many bruises on my back. And then she said, 'this is from the
cold, this does not mean anything. 109
When Ana refused to go back to the agency the Labor Attache said the Embassy
would not give her food or shelter. She also refused to give Ana medical attention. After
four days, Ana's employer went to the Embassy and asked them to send Ana back to the
Philippines. According to Ana, since her body was full of bruises, the employer was
afraid of being arrested and agreed to clear her exit visa. Before allowing her to leave
Lebanon, however, the Labor Attache forced her sign a quitclaim in which she changed
her version of what had happened:
She told me to write that I was going back to the Philippines because of personal
problems. I said, no, I don't want to change my way. 'So, if you don't change you
stay here alone'. So I have no choice, if I want to leave Lebanon I have to change
my statement. My statement was, I am returning to the Philippines because of
109 Interview 17, Philippines, Migrant Worker, May 2007
111
personal problems. I just thought, I will do it now and once I go back to the
Philippines I will fight for my rights. 110
During my examination of Kanlugan's legal files I discovered the cases of at least
six other women formerly placed in Lebanon that had reported the same kind of treatment
from the same Labor Attache. Some of them involved severe sexual abuse and the use of
quit-claims. Government employees and interviewees from migrant organizations
mentioned that this particular Labor attache has really good political connections, which
have protected her from legal cases domestic workers have filed against her. Up to today,
no disciplinary action has been taken against her. When Ana went back to the Philippines
she filed a case under POEA against her employer for lack of payment and abuse. POEA
dropped her case arguing that Ana had signed a form waiving her rights. After that, she
filed the same case in the National Board of Labor Relations and a new one against the
labor attache for gross misconduct and neglect of duty. One ofKanlungan's paralegals is
in charge of this case. The outcome remains to be seen.
Considering that quitclaims strip Filipino workers from several rights, why would
the Philippine government need to use them? According to a government employee
formerly placed overseas, quit-claims speed up the labor confliction resolution process
and act to pressure the worker not to pursue a case:
In Kuwait [the domestic worker] cannot go out of the country without the visa
having been cancelled by the employer. [S]ometimes the [employers will] say,
'we'll be very happy to cancel the visa so you won't have any more right to claim.'
You see, ... You cannot overcrowd people [in the Embassy]. Yeah, because you
will have health problems. Sanitation problems.... [A]lthough it will make [the
workers] lose their rights, we will do anything to close the case, so that in the
performance appraisal, it will appear that the case is resolved. My suspicion is also
that some of these people at the Embassy are working for the recruitment agencies.
They are favoring the recruitment agencies because you would see some officials
when they come home, they get treated to lunch, to drinks, and to women by the
recruitment agencies. It's the whole recruitment agency manpower ... Now, an
industry is not supposed to be a service institution. It's stayed there for profit,
?lllsee.
110 Interview 17, Philippines, Migrant Worker, May 2007
111 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
112
While I consider the successes and failures of government employees as directly
responsible for workers' conditions, it is important to view their work in the larger
context of the Philippine labor migration bureaucracy. Government employees' actions
often respond to the expectations institutions set rather than to their own individual
motives (See Young 2004). As the interviewee mentioned, within the labor migration
system there is a great emphasis on statistics and efficiency. Different agencies compete
with each other for limited resources on the basis of set targets. Regardless of individual
behavior, and given OWWA limited resources, efficiency becomes a relevant goal in the
context of a bureaucratization of migration and the services offered overseas. Quitclaims
provide this efficiency.
The use of quitclaim illustrates the inability of the Philippine government to
overcome the constraints the Embassies' limited leverage impose on worker protection
and the limited resources provided for assisting workers overseas. There is a perception
among government employees that shelters at the Embassies cannot handle housing
migrant workers in distress for an extended period of time. In addition, quitclaims shed
light on existing corruption and promote illegal recruitment through the limitation of anti-
illegal migration procedures. As one government employee explained during our
interview, with the quitclaim, the complaint is removed, and with no complaint, the
agency is not accused of illegal practices. In short, while quitclaims may allow for a rapid
repatriation, they prevent both the implementation and enforcement of RA 8042. 112
Rather than solving the problem they make it "disappear."
5.2.3.2. Cultivating Good Relationships with Local Authorities
[W]e are the ones there to remedy things. Most of what I said is not official. There
are a lot of things that we are doing in our posts which are not really part of the
ordinary, we do things on the slide. We offer them beer in exchange for favors ...
Or if ranking officers, military officers want to visit the Philippines, we take care of
that. We en-ter-tain them. We give them what they like. They like women, we give
them women, they like boys, we give them boys ... It's unwritten. Things that we
112 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
113
do normally, but we are not supposed to admit. It's an SOP, Standard Operating
Procedures, but not written, because you have to act fast ... 113
Another way in which Filipino welfare officers aim to circumvent the difficulties in
protecting Filipino domestic workers, particularly in countries with restrictive laws on
migrant women, is by cultivating good relationships with local authorities. This entails
"under-the-table" exchange of favors that, while act to protect women in particular
situations, do not work toward to establishment of a comprehensive protective praxis.
In many Middle Eastern countries, when a migrant domestic worker is raped she is
usually put in detention. This is arguably done to protect her until the rapist is found.
However, detention centers resemble jails. They are deteriorated and migrant women are
often treated as criminals. A good relationship with local authorities becomes useful to
persuade them to provide Filipino women softer treatment or even to rescue them from
detention:
The police hold you up to a facility. It's their way of giving protection while the
rapist runs around free. It's the raped woman who is detained. What we do as
welfare officers, although I hope that this doesn't reach out, is to maintain a very
cordial relationship with the police. So, they inform us, 'we have a rape victim here,
and she is about to detained. We take a bottle of whiskey or something and bring it
to the police station and we say, here is the whiskey, give me my Filipina. 114
These arrangements become crucial in a context where local labor and immigration
laws hardly provide any protections to runaways or victims of rape. When I asked an
interviewee if the "gifts" were seen as a reward for local authorities, he responded:
It is more of a way of cultivating a relationship, so it sort of softens up the guy ...
Sometimes we invite the police officers on a weekend trip to the Philippines. We
call Manila and tell them 'these guys are coming... ' And then it is three days of
alcohol, wild women or whatever their preference is ... If the guy wants fruits, send
him a whole basket of mangoes, send him a bottle, we wait outside until he wants
another bottle. They gamble, they drink, they fool around... 115
1I3 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
114 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
lIS Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
114
When I asked him if Ambassadors, as heads of posts overseas, were aware of this,
the interviewee responded: "I believe so, but he will never accept that this is happening,
even if you point a gun at him... " This kind of procedures stems from the unavailability
of legal mechanisms to support Filipino women and aims to actually protect them.
However, they ultimately have perverse effects. Of special interest is the servile position
in which the Philippine state ends up falling into to soften up local authorities in
receiving countries. The use of prostitution, among other things, to soften up receiving
authorities, is a symptom of the servile position that the Philippine state occupies. Also,
paradoxically, in order to protect Filipino women's bodies overseas, the government uses
Filipino men and women's- and boys and girls' - bodies at home to bargain with
authorities from receiving countries. While this allows both sending and receiving
governments to save face, it acts as a perverse band aid fixing individual situations and
undermines the development of a comprehensive legal framework that actually works
toward a comprehensive and empowering protection of Filipino domestic workers. These
unofficial mechanisms are indeed grave symptoms of the difficulties a country like the
Philippines faces in protecting women overseas and of the double standards involved in
labor export.
5.3. Illegal Recruitment
I took a contract from the Philippine Embassy in Singapore and one from an agency
and they were different. The Ministry of Man Power in Singapore will use the
Singaporean contract ... They don't respect the Philippine contract at all, some
employers will ... and the worker will agree, because she is already there. There is
also, quite often, a 6 to 8 month salary deduction exacted by the agencies. They
give [the worker] sometimes $20, sometimes not even a single centavo, during the
first months '" There is a lot of unhappiness in terms of the domestic workers
because, how can she manage 8 months without salary, without going out? And
then, her family in the Philippines, how are they going to survive if she cannot send
money? That is a common problem in Singapore.116
Although the Philippine government has as one of its main goals to end illegal
migration, illegal recruitment practices are common in the Philippines. Private agencies
116 Interview 25, Philippines, Migrant Worker, June 2007
115
find multiple ways to circumvent government regulations in order to save costs. While
punitive provisions for illegal recruitment have become harsher, there are different ways
in which the government contradicts its stated discourse about ending it and contributes,
in practice, to its perpetuation. The above discussion of the use of quitclaims is just one
example.
POEA is the agency in charge of processing the different documents workers need
in order to migrate legally. It is also the regulatory body of the migration apparatus,
which means that it sets the standards under which Filipinos migrate. These regulatory
efforts are meant to protect both the migrants and the employers in the destination
countries. While RA 8042 requires certain standards of protection, POEA requires other
things, such as training, minimum age, and proper documentation, at the request of
employers and/or receiving governments. POEA has organized several campaigns
against illegal recruitment in the past few years. These campaigns have been a response
to public pressure and have aimed to protect workers from unscrupulous agencies and to
guarantee receiving countries that Filipinos are really temporary workers. I I? It is in the
interest of the Philippine government that Filipinos migrate legally since part of its
prestige in the international labor market lies in the fact that, once Filipinos finish their
contract, they go back home, as opposed to other nationals, who tend to remain in the
country of destination illegally (See Rodriguez 2005).
In the previous two subsections I discussed how the Philippine government often
needs to maneuver around limitations receiving states impose. The issue of illegal
recruitment introduces a new actor the Philippine state needs to deal with in its regulation
of migrant work and protection of migrants: the private sector or recruitment and
placement agencies. Private agencies have increasingly gained pre-eminence in the
Philippine labor migration business since its institutionalization. They are the ones
usually recruiting the workers, obtaining job orders from other countries, processing
117 The anti-illegal recruitment campaign was reinforced by Executive Order No. 325, issued on 9 July
2004, with the creation of the Presidential Anti-Illegal Task Force (PAIRTF). Among PAIRTF's tasks are:
surveillance operations of persons who are supposedly involved in illegal recruitment, investigations and
speedy prosecutions of illegal recruitment cases, and coordination with other agencies involved in the
campaign against illegal recruitment (See Asis 2005b).
116
documents, and even conducting training, assessment, and even medical exams.
According to Asis (2005b), there are presently 1,234 licensed agencies in the Philippines
handling the land-based sector and 342 agencies taking care of the placement of sea-
based workers. The number of unlicensed agencies is not known but it is suspected to be
significant (17).
Sections 6 and 7 of RA 8042 address the issue of illegal recruitment by private
agencies. Some illegal practices mentioned in these sections include illegal exaction of
fees; providing false or falsified information, notices, or documents; recruitment of
workers injobs harmful to public health or morality; contract substitution; and
withholding workers' documents before departure in exchange for money or financial
consideration (See Department of Labor and Employment 1997). Penalties for illegal
recruitment practices range from 6 to 12 years of imprisonment and include fines no less
than P200,000 ($4,000) and no more than P500,000 ($10,000).
While most of the situations RA 8042 characterizes as illegal recruitment came up
during my research, I focus here on illegal exaction of fees and contract substitution for
two reasons: First, they were the most mentioned in my interviews, and second, they
were widely discussed in 2007 in the context of further regulation of migrant domestic
work. I address this issue in Chapter IV. In addition, both illegal fee exaction and contract
substitution raise important issues for the study of institutionalized labor migration in the
Philippines, since they shed light on the existing tension, and often contradictions,
existing between policy and practice.
5.3.1. Recruitment Fees
DOLE Order 34 establishes the maximum recruitment fees recruitment agencies
can exact at the equivalent of one month salary. 118 While there may be plenty of agencies
that respect Order 34,119 according to 1995 Philippine Migrants' Rights Watch report, the
118 Direct hires or POEA hires do not have a placement fee.
119 It was a pleasant surprise to find FMW Human Resources International, a recruitment agency run by
lung Aguilar (a former migrant himself), whose main distinctive policy was not to charge migrants at all.
Mr. Aguilar took pride in charging the employers instead. He was hoping that others would follow his
model in order to ameliorate the excessive exaction involved in labor migration.
117
most recurrent problem Filipino migrants encounter during the pre-deployment period is
the violation, on the part of the recruitment agencies, of the standard placement fee. 120
The report found that placement fees Philippine agencies impose on future migrants
oscillate between 0 and P260,000 ($5,200). My own research supports this, since migrant
workers, NGGS, some government employees, and some recruitment agencies spoke of
illegal exaction of fees as a generalized phenomenon.
Rosa's case illustrates the reality of thousands of migrant workers in the Philippines
who are charged exorbitant fees despite what the law says. Rosa was a twenty-seven year
old nanny working in the San Francisco Bay Area when I met and interviewed her in
February 2006. She had left the Philippines two years before on a temporary contract as a
janitorial worker in a resort in Georgia. She was initially going to be deployed to the
United Kingdom. There was, however, a last minute change and she was offered ajob in
the United States. The final deployment fee she paid was P200,000 ($4,000).121 As I
further show in Chapter VI, the job in Georgia never existed and Rosa became and
undocumented caregiver as soon as she set her feet on U.S. soil.
Another illegal practice connected to exaction of illegal fees is salary deduction.
Rosa paid part of the high recruitment fee upfront and agreed to pay a portion of her
month salary for few months in order to pay the rest. While there are many migrants who
are not required to pay an upfront fee to the agency, they are often charged salary
deductions for an average of 1 to 4 months. Some non-governmental organizations
reported during the interviews that salary deduction sometimes reaches 6 and even more
months. Sometimes it is their whole salary for few months and other times it is a smaller
monthly amount for a longer period of time. Many agencies have used salary deduction
as a way to collect the fee money from the workers without directly violating the law.
This "option," although abusive, is appealing to migrant workers as it "lessens" the
burden of meeting the placement fee. However, it puts migrants in debt, and they are
forced to work even under unfavorable conditions. In this sense, according to Asis
120 Other irregularities the private sector commits include premature collection of fees, non-issuance of
receipts, acts of misrepresentation, and contract-substitution (see Asis 2005b).
121 Interview I, San Francisco, Rosa, February 2006
118
(2005b), salary deductions put migrants in situations akin to debt bondage (43). For
example, Maria and Ana, two domestic workers placed in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon
respectively, were both deducted three months worth of salary. This means they worked
the first three months for nothing. Although both of them were victims of severe physical
and sexual abuse in the workplace, for a while they were reluctant to leave, since they
owed money to their agency due to salary deduction and did not want to go back to the
Philippines empty-handed. They ended up fleeing without having ever received a penny.
Apparently, theirs were not isolated cases:
Actually, in most Middle Eastern countries they are not charging placement fees
immediately, it's more like ajly now andpay later plan. They don't have to pay
anything but it will be deducted from their salaries eventually, that is the reason
why many of our clients do not receive salary until the seventh month, when they
have paid for everything that they had been charged for, even if they didn't know
that they were going to be charged. 122
5.3.2. Contract Substitution
Another generalized illegal recruitment practice has been what is commonly
referred as contract substitution. This consists in replacing the POEA-approved labor
contract once the worker arrives in the destination country. The new contract usually
grants a lower salary and provides lesser rights.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration created a standard contract
all Filipino overseas workers need to have approved. When a foreign employer requires a
Filipino worker, both the employer and the worker need to fill out the contract. The
Philippine Embassy at the receiving country and POEA in Manila need to approve it.
This contract sets minimum conditions such as salary, rest days, working hours, etc. The
Philippines has been the only sending country able to implement a uniform contract
across the board. This illustrates its higher negotiation power compared to other sending
governments.
While the existence of a standard contract is a major achievement in terms of labor
regulation and protection, its contents are limited to "strictly labor issues," such as wages,
122 Interview 3, Philippines, Non-governmental organization, April 2007
119
living conditions, and time off. It does not address issues such as harassment or grievance
procedures, which are particularly relevant in the context of domestic work. This is a
problem considering that labor laws in receiving countries do not usually cover domestic
workers.
The unilateral initiative on the part of the Philippine government to design basic
conditions undoubtedly reflects its concern with workers' welfare. Unilateral action,
however, is quite limited if receiving countries do not share a commitment to enforce the
Philippine contract (See Abrera-Mangahas 1994; Constable 1997), According to Asis'
report and my own findings, the Philippine standard employment contract is likely not to
be respected and even likely to be changed when the worker reaches the destination
country. Instead, workers are presented with new contracts with lower standards, and the
Philippine contract becomes obsolete. For example, Francisca signed a contract in the
Philippines that said she was to work eight hours a day for 665 SR ($178) a month. When
she reached Saudi Arabia, however, she earned 600SR ($160) a month for 12 hours of
work a day. 123 Government employees recognized contract substitution as a generalized
practice and sarcastically summarized it as "you signed this but you end up receiving
only this:,,124
When she reaches the country of destination there is a... she is going to sign
another contract. Now, the real salary will reflect the market. You are forced into it,
because if you don't sign the contract you don't get hired, so you go back to the
Philippines, but you just spend a lot of money to go there. 125
The illegal exaction of fees, thus, makes it unlikely for the worker to oppose
contract substitution since, after having spent large amounts of money to get to the
destination country, her main priority is to start having an income as soon as possible.
Several migrant workers' organizations corroborated the existence of contract
substitution. They stated the typical salary for a Filipino domestic worker in the Middle
East is between $100 and $150 a month or $50-$100 less than what POEA's contract
123 Interview 10, Philippines, Francisca, May 2007
124 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2004
125 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2004
120
estab1ishes. 126 They specifically denounced the lack of monitoring and implementation as
the main factor for contract substitution:
[T]he standard payment is $200 a month, but the majority earns less than $200. We
have several clients who earn only about $100 and they do not even pay them
regularly. Most contract violations are really about salary, and they cannot even
. I . 127Imp ement or momtor.
As I learned during my fieldwork, contract substitution often stems from the
foreign agency and employer's failure to respect the minimum standards the Philippine
government sets. Sometimes, however, both a Philippine and a foreign agency are
involved. Jaime, Pablo and Ronaldo, whom I met during my volunteer work at
Kanlungan, were three men in their 20s and early 30s who decided to go to Saudi to work
as janitors128. After spending P9,000 ($180) each for processing their papers with POEA,
they signed a contract with their recruitment agency for 300 SR ($80) salary plus 200 SR
($54) in food allowance, a total of500 SR ($134). The contract was written in English
only and the employer had not signed it.
After going through the Pre-departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) they found out
the salary they were being offered was below the minimum POEA sets and the contract
should have been written in both English and Arabic. They called the recruitment agency
to withdraw the contract but were told they did not need to worry, since they were going
to sign another contract the day they left for Saudi. On August 17th 2006 they stopped by
the agency on their way to the airport to pick up their visas and flight tickets. Then they
signed a new contract for 750SR ($200) plus food allowance. The contract was in both
English and Arabic and this time the employer had signed it. Instead of giving them a
copy ofthe new contract, the recruitment agent told them it would be delivered to them
upon their arrival to Jeddha. A representative of the agency accompanied them to the
126 Interview 8, Philippines, Non-governmental organization, May 2007
127 Interview 3, Philippines, Non-governmental organization, April 2007
128 While evidence of contract substitution was vast during my fieldwork I discuss the case of these three
male workers because I was able to document more details about the contract substitution that took place in
their case.
121
airport and carried all the documents. After POEA clearing at the airport,129 where the
agency representative showed the newly signed contracts, he gave the workers their
passports and tickets and a sealed envelope they would need to give to the employer in
Jeddha.
Once they got to Saudi Arabia they found out the sealed envelope contained the old
contract, the one for 300SR, and the new contracts had remained in the Philippines. The
recruitment agents had tricked them, and now their Saudi employer had a contract, signed
by them, saying they would only make 300SR, which is below the $200 (or 750SR)
minimum set by the POEA 130 One year later they returned to the Philippines and sued
the Philippine agency hoping to obtain their unpaid wages. I accompanied them to two
hearings at the National Labor Relations Board following the request of the paralegal
representing them According to him, having international (read Western/White)
observers accompanying the workers usually ensures a more fair process. Despite all the
preparation and the waiting, however, the recruitment agents never turned up (and
suffered no penalty). Yet another case that remains to be solved.
Interviewees from non-governmental organizations explained that contract
substitution on the part of private agencies is not the only problem. Sometimes POEA,
the Philippine Embassies, and destination governments approve contracts that do not
contain all the information POEA rules and regulations require. Thus, insufficient control
and monitoring of contracts seems to be common as well. For example, a representative
from a migrant workers' organization who had worked as a domestic worker in Hong
Kong and Singapore for many years, explained that POEA sometimes approves contracts
that do not include enough information about the employer:
[The governments] have the responsibility to ensure the conditions. For example, I
always raise to [POEA] Administrator Baldoz that the contract is really important,
and in it there is no such thing as the name of the employers, always the company,
the foreign agency, in the contract, and in the address, you know, it's always a PO
BOX. So they should put the name of the employer and the exact address of the
employer .. , Weare having a hard time rescuing migrant workers who were raped
129 There is a POEA desk at the airport where migrant workers are checked to make sure they followed all
the required legal procedures.
130 Interview 19, Philippines, Migrant Workers, May 2007
Ttlis l!UlpluYlllelll n\IIh;ul c.H'rull'll tIull
f'nfpr('(! IIlIQ LJ~ mId hNn r('ll;
-,fr;1.NDA/W EMrJ.OYMENTCOllil'RACT
I'OR FJU/'/NO 1I0USDrOUJ WOnKF.11S
"",,~,+.j ... IN SAl1il1 AMBIA
122
because there is no address in the contract. And yet, the POEA approved the
contract. So they should be accountable for this, because they are the ones who
verify, testify that all the information is correct, but they are always ... and not one
legislator has taken up the issue. 131
This is the case with the contract included in figure 3.2 which, rather than
including the employer' address, it just provides a PO Box. Both POEA and the
Philippine Embassy in Saudi Arabia approved this contract:
Figure 3.2. Incomplete Contract
,)~I~J.Wl~ c.-JI ~J'.II~·
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U. Rt"jll·t·lttltnlh'c itl tltl! I'hilippine'~
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Ci\·j/ SUllus .. ,<.lA'! . PAS~llnrl No .
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Provided by Migrante International. Quezon City, June 2007
Sometimes it is the receiving governments and Philippine Embassies the ones
failing to verify information on standards that POEA requires:
[I] t is in the policy that the government needs to make sure, investigate, interview
the employer, even to go to the employer's house to verify if the information
written in the contract is true. For example, in our experience in Hong Kong there
are over 240,000 households with domestic workers, and 121,000 are Filipinas at
the present statistics. The Immigration Department of Hong Kong will not approve
ifthere are not sleeping quarters for the maid, so the [agency] will forge the size of
the room in the contract. Immigration is not really conducting investigation on all
these contracts. But in most cases domestic workers in Hong Kong do not have
131 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers' Rights Organization, May 2007
123
sleeping quarters, despite the regulation. They sleep in the bathroom, in the
balcony, share with children, even with male members of the family. So even if
they say that they are monitoring they are not doing anything. The verification of
the conditions should be done by the [Filipino] Embassy. There is an obligation
that the job orders pass through the Embassy and then they forward the information
here, to POEA, but in many cases the recruitment agencies have already pre-signed
contracts. There were cases in the Middle East where the contract was verified by
the Embassy before the worker had actually applied for the job. So the Embassy is
verifying contracts even without the existence of employers or employees. What
kind of monitoring is that? Maybe they should have the monitoring [done] by
outsiders or cleaning up the Embassy and POEA. Because even government
officials are involved in these things. 132
The solution to this practice lays in a meaningful implementation and enforcement
of labor migration regulations. In other words, the government should make sure
contracts are followed and there need to be consequences in the cases in which they are
not. They should also make sure that contracts with misleading or insufficient
infOlmation are not approved. They often fail to do so.
Illegal exaction of fees and contract forging and substitution cast doubt on the
usefulness of the legal standardization of placement fees as well as the existence of
standard employment contracts as a regulatory measure. In fact, both constitute
significant legal cracks in legal labor migration. In 2003 there were 1,219 illegal
recruitment cases, while the number of illegal recruiters arrested that year was 11, and the
number of establishments closed was of29. The numbers for 2002 had been 956, 18, and
29 respectively. The figures, which do not include many unreported cases, point to an
enforcement gap, particularly in going after the wrongdoers (Asis 2005b:20-21).
According to Immaculada Concepcion, a representative from the CFO, illegal recruitment
has become a lucrative business, ranking in as much as P 10-12 billion every year
($20,000,000 to $24,000,000). Since the mid-1990s only 10% of illegal recruiters have
been prosecuted. In 2005 there were 4,486 cases lodged at the Presidential Anti Task
Force for Illegal Recruitment. However, only 400 suspects were identified and ofthis
number only 20 were arrested. 133 In addition, during my interview with Rosa in San
132 Interview 21, Philippines, Non-governmental organization, May 2007
133 http://www.gov.ph/news/defauIt.asp?i=12239. Accessed 2/25108
124
Francisco, who was herself victim of illegal recruitment, she explained that although the
agency that recruited her had been closed, they soon opened again under a different
134
name.
This situation of under-enforcement is particularly serious given how common
these practices are. During my interviews with government officials, they would usually
refer to illegal recruitment as stemming from "unscrupulous" individuals. This word
choice individualizes the problem blaming it on isolated and deviant persons. Further, it
absolves the state from any responsibility in the process. This individualization is
analogous to the "corruption discourse" I introduced in the previous chapter, in the sense
that by blaming supposedly deviant individuals the problems that structures present are
avoided. Rather than individualizing explanations, I suggest that, both weak state
enforcement efforts, as well as lax state contract verification and approval procedures, are
crucial factors behind the commonality of some illegal practices and have contributed to
the creation and normalization of structural illegality. While the institutional framework
for legal and orderly migration is in place, pre-departure problems are quite frequent, and
the implementation and the enforcement of RA 8042 have been uneven (See Asis 2005b;
Watch 2005; Watch 2003). According to Nana Oishi, in developing countries, where
money allocated for public spending is usually quite modest, the enforcement of policies
can be difficult (2005: 103). This has probably been one of the reasons behind weak
enforcement of anti-illegal recruitment provisions in the Philippines. Recently renewed
efforts of the government to attack illegal recruitment has required a larger budget and
the adoption of measures such as the provision of free legal assistance to complaining
workers and educational programs on illegal recruitment. This is expected to have a
positive effect on implementation and enforcement in the next few years.
Migrant workers organizations, nevertheless, continue to worry about the
involvement of public officials in the private recruitment industry and the resulting
conflict between private and public interests threat the transparency of implementation
and enforcement. Several interviewees raised the concern that government officials,
despite the prohibition RA 8042 imposes, are often involved in the private migration
134 Interview 1, San Francisco, Rosa, February 2006
125
recruitment industry. According to them, this makes enforcement difficult. They shared,
for example, how few times, when inquiring about a case at POEA, they were told it
"was a difficult one," since the agent was close to a ranking General, or to Malacafiang,
or "has good political connections.,,135
During my interview with Francisca, she told me the case she filed against her
recruitment agent had been delayed because the owner was running for Vice Mayor in
Manila and his wife for Congresswoman. 136 The mid-term election took place around the
same time her case had been scheduled for a hearing, so the agents asked her to delay it
since they "were busy." Other publicized controversies have involved former president
Joseph Estrada's friends owning large recruitment agencies or current Senator Mike
Defensor's wife possibly being a stockholder of an agency accused of conducting illegal
recruitment. 137 Most of these cases, especially the ones involving high profile politicians,
have never been proved. However, it is not difficult to imagine how the involvement of
public officials in the recruitment industry presents a conflict between private and public
interests, and this can have important ramifications in the implementation, but
particularly enforcement, of POEA regulations and RA 8042 (Department of Labor and
Employment 1997:36-37).138
Yet, far from merely being an issue of corrupt individuals, the existing tension
between policy and practice also exemplifies the tension between the commitment of the
government to protecting its workers and its interest in sustaining overseas employment.
135 Interviews 4,5, 15, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organizations and Government Employees, April-
May 2007
136 Interview 9, Philippines, Migrant Worker, May 2007
137 Interview 21, Philippines, Migrant Worker Organization, June 2007
138 I have not been able to document most of the cases that I present here. I previously mentioned in a
different section how I repeatedly ran into the difficulty of not being able to document controversial issues
or themes, particularly when these involved politicians. My assumption is that this responds to the double
filter oflimited accountability for political corruption in the Philippines as well as media censorship. While
I introduce these cases as stemming from conversations with non profit organizations and migrant workers,
I am not able to prove their existence through newspaper articles or legal cases. I find it important to
acknowledge this, since I must be responsible with the information that I present in my work. However,
given the methodological and data gathering technical nature ofthis dissertation, people's stories are often
the "only" thing I have. While often difficult to be backed up, people's perceptions are also helpful, I
suggest, to provide a comprehensive scenario where Philippine labor migration takes place.
126
While the government embraces migration as a development strategy, is it willing to
adopt all the needed measures to tum it into a safe process for Filipino women? Despite
official discourses on protection, illegal recruitment continues to be common in the
Philippines. It remains to be seen what measures the Philippine government will adopt to
remedy this: it is not clear whether the government will pursue corruption and violation
ofRA 8042 more aggressively. In addition, it is not clear whether it will allocate more
public resources toward migrants' protections. Recent events involving Filipino domestic
workers in Lebanon, as I discuss in Chapter IV, point that this may not be the case.
5.4. Deregulation
Illegal recruitment practices run parallel to the perception in civil society that there
is a need for increased government regulation of migrant workers' protection. This sheds
light on another tension in labor migration in the Philippines. As private recruitment and
placement agencies have progressively gained presence and control of the migration
business (See Tigno 2004) they have also demanded laxer laws and deregulation of the
business. Agencies have perceived overregulation as a problem for the labor export
business, since it often makes it difficult for them to compete with agencies from other
sending countries.
While RA 8042 came as a response to migrant organizations' demands for major
regulation of the migration process, it also included two provisions ordering its gradual
deregulation. Section 29 ofRA 8042 states that "pursuant to a progressive policy of
deregulation whereby the migration of workers becomes strictly a matter between the
workers and his foreign employer, the Department of Labor and Employment, within one
(l) year ofthe effectiveness of this Act, is hereby mandated to formulate a five-year
comprehensive deregulation plan on recruitment activities [... ]." Section 30 establishes a
five year period for the deregulation ofPOEA's functions (See Department of Labor and
Employment 1997:21).
According to Jorge Tigno (2004), while RA 8042 can be said to offer
comprehensive protection mechanisms for Filipinos working abroad, these protections
must be viewed in the context of the deregulation of the overseas employment sector. The
127
law seeks therefore to eliminate restrictive bureaucratic procedures and to simplify labor
relations to a private issue (2). This means a reversal in the direction taken in 1982 with
the creation of POEA and its establishment of standards, which included welfare
protection. The inclusion of provisions on deregulation meant to many, as I discussed
earlier, that RA 8042 was merely created to pacify discontent growing throughout the
years and exploding into public outcry with the Contemplacion case. The emphasis on
deregulation made the Act almost meaningless. Interviews from migrant workers'
organizations stated it:
So, in order to pacify us, they enacted this law, saying that this will protect migrant
workers. But, sections 29 and 30 are deregulation of Filipino labor, in five years, so
it was 1995, so to be in 2000, the migration will only be an issue between employer
and employee, and the regulatory functions of the POEA will be taken away from
them...so meaning that there are no more, the responsibility of government is
already passed onto the recruitment agencies and the employers, so there is no
protection ... recruitment agencies are always using sections 29 and 30 that the
government should not be involved in, you know, in problems of migrant workers
that, as pertaining to their employment, it should be settled among the recruitment
agencies and the employer ...When I was in Hong Kong I always referred cases to
the Consulate and if they are terminated from their employment, OWWA of the
Embassy or the consulate will always say go to your recruitment agency to ask for
shelter and help, so meaning that the government is really washing their hands if the
migrant worker is having problems, so we had this campaign...we wanted to scrap
RA 8042 and replace it for a genuine OFW Charter, but, you know, it's very hard to
do that. RA 8042 is serving the government and the recruitment agencies, but not
the workers. 139
The simultaneous evolution toward protection and deregulation in labor migration
must be contextualized in the larger framework of Philippine economic policies favoring
deregulation. Similarly to larger political-economic debates, the deregulation versus
regulation debate has taken place within the migration context. While migrant workers'
organizations have consistently looked at the Philippine state as the source oftheir
protection through regulation, private recruitment agencies, and many within the
government, argue labor migration can only proliferate if barriers - such as government-
imposed minimum labor standards - are erased through deregulation. While the first
139 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007 and Interview 21, Philippines,
Migrant Workers Organization, June 2007
128
argument includes protection as stemming from regulation, the second only talks about
proliferation of migration stemming through deregulation. What is not obvious is the cost
deregulation has on protection. The main challenge for the Philippine government in the
next years will be to find whether it is possible to have both protection and proliferation.
This proposition will be explored in the next chapter.
6. Conclusion
Many organizations and politicians have seen RA 8042 as the first tangible step
taken by the Philippine government to enhance the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant
workers, Before 1995 no concrete comprehensive legal framework existed to protect their
rights and welfare (Nuqui and Josue 2000; Tigno, Rye, and Macabiog 2000). Conversely,
other migrant workers organizations have considered RA a "midnight act" and a token
policy, passed to appease civil society outrage. While I have presented the importance of
this policy, I have also emphasized here its ideological role to reinforce government
hegemony in regards the labor export program. The Act has numerous gaps, and its
language has not been able to alter the laws in receiving governments and corrupt and
abusive behavior of recruitment agencies and some government employees and officials.
The stories conveyed here repeatedly shed light on the failure of the Philippine state to
protect its citizens abroad. As I have argued throughout this chapter, the main challenges
have been the geopolitical position of the Philippines, insufficient government resources,
insufficient political will, and corruption.
According to Jorge Tigno (2004), while public outcry over Contemplacion's trial
and eventual execution "can serve as a backdrop for the policy process," it is also
important to keep in mind that not too long after Contemplacion's case the Philippines
held a midterm election (3). Flor Contemplacion's death served as a catalyst for reform in
a context where civil society demanded policy makers' quick action. Along with Tigno, I
see the passage ofRA 8042 as a political response to a situation of crisis, a context where
public opinion was very important to the executive and the legislative, and in the context
of increasing problems arising from labor migration since the mid 1980s. By the mid
1990s labor migration had already become an important electoral issue in the Philippines.
129
Although RA 8042 applies to all Filipino migrant workers, the fact that it stemmed
from the death of a Filipino woman also reveals it as charged with gender ideologies. As
Nana Oshi has argued:
Women's symbolic nature affects the emigration policies of many developing
countries. It is because women are not a value-neutral workforce. They symbolize a
nation's dignity (2005: 100).
The public tends to be more sensitive to women's abuse and exploitation than to
men's. Demands for protection, as well as the government "protection discourse," started
to emerge as Philippine emigration started to feminize. The Contemplacion case
accentuated this and involved much more than the death of a woman who might have
been innocent. The crime against her was perceived as a crime against the nation's
symbolic property and dignity vis-a-vis other countries. Given the limited enforcement
and implementation capacities of the Philippine state, RA 8042 was a symbolic means for
the state to buttress its own image as a protector of women. It was an expression of
symbolic politics, where the state was demonstrating the public that it did not want to
encourage female migration but rather to protect it. This was a crucial strategic change,
because since Marcos the public had increasingly perceived the state as a promoter and
exploiter of overseas migration. RA 8042 intended to change the image of the state from
women's exploiter to their protector. Whether the government would be able or not to
keep its promises was not relevant at that point, since the ideological function of the Act,
at least temporarily, had been achieved. In fact, I have showed above how the
implementation ofRA 8042 has been deficient.
At the same time, the signature ofRA 8042 legitimized the overseas employment
program of the government and was an implicit admission that migration was here to stay
(See Kaibigan 1996). While up to then the government had treated migration as something
temporary to relieve economic strain, the Ramos administration started to perceive it as
something permanent that needed to be managed. RA 8042, however, failed to do two things:
It failed to foresee the political challenges to the enforcement of its provisions (such as limited
resources, reluctance from receiving countries, etc.) and it failed to provide a long-term
economic plan for the Philippines, so that one day it would stop needing to export its people,
130
both men and women. In short, RA 8042 reflects short-term policy making, which does not
address the structural roots behind labor migration and the problems it creates.
131
CHAPTER IV
TOWARD A FEMINIST POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PHILIPPINE
LABOR MIGRATION
1. Introduction
In Chapter III I provided the context in which RA 8042 was created, examined
some of its provisions, and suggested that this law was a tool for hegemony of the
Philippine government. Building upon that discussion, in the current chapter I examine
recent events that shed light on the fact that, over 10 years after of passage of RA 8042,
Filipino migrant women continue to suffer severe abuse and exploitation. This has
created a new crisis of legitimacy for the Philippine state which, in response, has re-
examined its protection efforts. The last reform the Philippine government has attempted
has been the 2007 Household Service Workers Reform Package, which aims to increase
the protection of Filipino migrant domestic workers. This Reform Package also emerged
in a context of decreasing legitimacy of the Philippine government in protecting migrant
women brought on by the 2006 Lebanon War. The Package introduces provisions aimed
at improving working conditions and protection overseas, by enhancing Filipino
migrants' training and skills. I argue the Reform Package mystifies social relations by
making the worker responsible for her own wellbeing, thus ignoring the gender, class,
and racial power dynamics that shape migrant domestic labor. In addition, an analysis of
the motivations behind the package and its initial outcomes sheds light on the complexity
of policy making and its contradictory effects.
My analysis of the motivations behind the passage of the Reform Package indicates
that, while protection is its stated intention, the Philippine government may have actually
designed it in order to retreat from the international domestic work sector in dangerous
countries and reallocate Filipino women in higher skilled economic activities and safer
132
countries. Given the constraints the Philippine government faces to affect the
organization and regulation of international labor migration, the Reform Package may
actually be a creative move on its part to stop the abuse of Filipino migrant women by
redirecting them to other labor sectors without offending the receiving countries. As such,
an analysis of the Reform Package helps us understand 1) local forces in the Philippines
that trigger policy making, 2) the ideologies shaping the design of protective measures for
Filipino domestic workers and, 3) the maneuvers of the Philippine government within the
international arena. While the Reform is expected to bring significant changes to Filipino
labor migration patterns, it is too soon to provide a comprehensive assessment of its
impacts. In addition, given the tendency of Philippine policy to reflect sh011-term goals
and the inability of the government to move away from the neoliberal paradigm, it
remains to be seen if the Reform Package will succeed in protecting Filipino migrant
women in any significant manner.
2. Feminism and the Theorization of the State
Socialist feminists have analyzed how class and gender subordination interact
with each other. Hartmann (1981) presents patriarchy as an exploitative system parallel to
capitalism that cannot be smoothly incorporated into Marxist social theory. According to
her, women's unpaid work in the household not only serves the interests of the capitalist
economy but also those of individual men. Joan Acker (1987) has provided the concept
of distribution to encapsulate the role of the state in mediating class and gender
relationships. She defines relations of distribution as "sequences of linked practices
through which people share the necessities of survival and divide, usually unequally, the
fruits of production" (Acker 2006:61). Distribution to non-wage earners takes place in
capitalist societies through the family, welfare state programs, and other forms of wealth
transfer such as stocks, rent, and subsidies, among others (lbid.62). According to Acker,
some state policies have the effect of perpetuating the division of labor in the household-
as well as women's dependency on men's wages- while others lean more toward the
commodification of women's labor, which often leaves them unprotected in the labor
market. Both kinds of policy may reinforce women's subordination. Other state
133
distributive policies have the effect to reinforce class inequality through, for example,
subsidizing businesses through tax breaks. All state policies, nevertheless, have particular
class and gender effects that interact with each other. This complexity ofthe relations of
distribution sheds light on how the state both contributes to creating conditions of
inequality while simultaneously seeking to ameliorate them.
2.1. State Protection and the Contradictions of Commodification
While Western feminists have found commodification as a desirable project, one of
its effects on women has often been the addition of "public oppression" to the already
existing "private" one, without necessarily making the latter disappear. Some women,
because of their class position, can actually choose whether they want to stay at home or
not. Most women, however, do not have this choice, since they need an income to
support themselves and their dependents. For this second group - which includes a
multiplicity of different experiences - entering the labor force has historically become the
only way for survival. They face an insecure job market and mounting pressure to assume
multiple roles, both as paid and unpaid labor. Although deregulation has opened up the
labor market to women, there has been a trade-off: they are relegated to low-skill, low-
pay jobs, which are often repetitive, a danger to their health, or reinforce gendered and
racial stereotypes, such as domestic work and caregiving. They are trapped in positions
with no upward mobility and are the first to lose their jobs during cutbacks.
While Western middle- class women have advocated for commodification as a way
to denounce the inherent gender bias of the state, the market, and the family, working-
class and women of color state they were long ago commodified, both through their
obligation to work and through state intervention in their private lives.
2.2. The Commodification and Decommodification of Filipino Women
As discussed in Chapter II, due to neoliberal policies, many Filipino women have
been forced during the past few decades to abandon traditional means of subsistence and
migrate either to the cities or overseas. As a result of insufficient survival opportunities in
the Philippines, thousands of them have been part ofa massive incorporation into the
international domestic work sector. Their experiences of commodification have been
134
different from that Western Feminists have discussed for over a decade. Due to state
inability to provide necessary services as well as to a local labor market offering very few
opportunities to Filipino people, families in the Philippines are increasingly relying on
women's migrant labor for survival. In that sense, women often replace both men and the
state as providers. Instead of decommodifying women by offering public services and
rights, the Philippine state relies on these women to fill the gaps (health, education,
livelihood, etc.) that the lack of public investment and social policies, as well as a weak
economy, create.
Their commodification, as a matter of fact, goes beyond the one women in Western
countries suffer. Filipino women are commodified in particular ways, since their
employers in many receiving countries see their lives as equating their labor power. They
are often expected to not have a life outside her job (i.e. long working hours, movement
restriction, etc.). The fact that these women are thousands of miles away from their
families and communities reinforces the perception that their existence in the receiving
countries is solely for labor. Further, the fact that their labor has such a crucial economic
function- in the form of remittances and alleviation of unemployment, as well as the
subsidy of their employers' productive activities- particularly commodifies and places
them in a unique relationship vis-a.-vis the Philippine state. Filipino migrant workers exist
to labor. Their labor benefits their families, their government, the economies of receiving
countries, and their employers. The argument for higher integration of women into the
public realm as a means for emancipation does not fit these women's experiences and
certainly does not encapsulate the extent to which Filipino women are dependent upon
market forces, foreign employers' will, and geopolitical dynamics to provide for their
families, preserve their own wellbeing, and keep the Philippine economy at1oat.
Further, Filipino women's experiences also challenge dichotomous
characterizations in Western theorizing. As discussed in the previous chapter, parallel to
the feminization of Philippine migration and the uncovering of some dramatic effects of
Filipino women's commodification through the labor export program, the Philippine
government has introduced protective discourses and practices as central elements to its
migration policies. I suggest that these protective efforts, independently from its
135
legitimizing functions, have aimed at a policy shift toward decommodification, since they
have aimed at ameliorating the effects of commodification on migrant workers.
Consistent with Joan Acker's characterization of state distributive policies, I suggest that
while the Philippine state has largely contributed to the conditions for commodification,
it has also created programs to address some of their consequences. That is, it has
attempted decommodification as well. However, it has done it by increasing the exchange
value of domestic workers and, therefore, treating them as commodities. The state,
therefore, creates conditions of inequality while simultaneously seeking to partially
amend them.
Its last effort in this direction was the 2007 Household Service Workers Reform
Package, which I analyze throughout the remainder of the chapter. I argue that despite the
emphasis this policy places on protection, it is more sure deemed to fail for two
interrelated reasons: First, similar to RA 8042, the Reform Package was a response to
social discontent in the context of the 2006 Lebanon War. Its goal was to restate
government hegemony. Second, while it introduces few decommodifying provisions in
the sense that aims to protect female workers from an overexposure to market forces, it
does by increasing their exchange value. In this sense, the state does not acknowledge
that in the case of migrant domestic workers class, gender, and race dynamics intersect to
shape their particularly commodification.
3. The Lebanon Crisis: One Thousand "Contemplacion Stories"
We know that even ifthey wouldn't really admit it, they are really listening to what
the migrants are saying. Most of the new policies are a reaction... they have to
listen to US. 140
In this section I address how the war in Lebanon in 2006 showed the vulnerabilities
Filipino domestic workers suffer overseas. This triggered social and political outcry and
eventually led the government to increase efforts to protect migrant domestic workers in
the form of the 2007 Household Service Workers Reform Package. On July 12,2006
violence erupted again in the Middle East when the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas
140 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
136
captured two Israeli soldiers during a cross-border raid. Not long afterwards, seeing this
as an "act of war," Israel retaliated, pounding Lebanon with artillery and air strikes. The
guerrillas then started firing rockets into northern Israel. A new war had started in
Lebanon (OWWA 2006).
At that moment, the Philippine government estimated that there were over 30,000
Filipino migrants, most of them domestic workers, in Lebanon (Contreras 2006). Of
these, 2,000 were in Southern Lebanon, the focus of the armed conflict. Just before
Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon, and after a Filipino domestic worker was
wounded, the Philippine government made evacuation of Filipino workers to Beirut and
other safer places mandatory (Cabacungan and Contreras 2006). Lebanese employers'
response was not uniform in this early stage. Some of them took Filipino women to safer
areas, while others turned them over to the Philippine Embassy. Other employers,
according to Philippine media, refused to let Filipino domestic workers leave because
they had paid high recruitment fees for them (Corros 2006). Other workers were simply
abandoned (Uy 2006d). As the conflict escalated, it became increasingly difficult to
locate Filipino citizens in Lebanon, particularly those living in the conflict area.
Two weeks after the beginning of the bombing, and following the repatriation
efforts of the Philippine government and international organizations, the first batches of
Filipino migrant workers started arriving in Manila (Uy 2006c). Many resisted their
return to the Philippines, since they had not been paid for several months and were not
willing to leave Lebanon empty handed. According to an August 9 article in the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, workers were reluctant to go back to the poverty and
unemployment in their homeland (Dalangin-Fernandez 2006c; Dizon 2006b).
3.1. Filipino Women's Stories from Lebanon
There was one case in Lebanon where she was tied to the bed. She was imprisoned
with the furniture so she had to jump stories just to ... a lot ofthem were like that,
those who came back, a lot of them had broken feet, with injuries... there were a lot
of stories that they didn't have anything to bring home because they weren't given
wages during their stay there. Even iftheir contracts are finished, they still weren't
137
given wages. So, some went home without anything at all. Not even a single peso.
There were a lot of cases of physical abuse. 141
As the first Filipino domestic workers started returning home, the media began
running their stories. Returning women were often in emotional shock, victims ofpost-
traumatic stress disorder (Esguerra 2006a). According to physicians at OWWA, their
stress did not only come from having experienced war, but also from the abuse they had
received in their jobs. Newspaper articles and TV explained many of these women had
hardly been fed and received very little salary despite heavy work. The $200 minimum
wage was being violated regularly. Other women shared how their employers had
detained them (Esguerra 2006b). Some had been injured while jumping from balconies to
escape (Dizon 2006a). Other returnees told they were made to sleep in little rooms with
dogs, eat leftovers, and work until midnight. Newspapers also talked about Lebanese
employers hitting and raping Filipino domestic workers (Corros 2006). These stories
gradually stopped being treated as isolated cases, and reporters joined migrant workers'
organizations in denouncing how domestic workers both in Lebanon and across the globe
endure conditions similar to slavery (Dalangin-Fernandez 2006b).
On August 4th, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that on July 28, Michelle
Tomagan, an undocumented Filipino domestic worker placed in Lebanon, had tied up bed
sheets to escape from her employers' fourth floor balcony. As a result, she fractured her
skull and died on the way to the hospital. A police report dated July 26 informed that
Mary Jane Pangilinan, a Filipino domestic worker, died of a neck and leg fracture as a
result of a "fall" from the fourth floor of her employer's building. These employers had
prevented the women from joining the evacuation efforts. President Gloria Magapacal-
Arroyo expressed "outrage" over these deaths, and ordered the full evacuation of the
30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon (Uy 2006e). As Filipino workers continued to be repatriated,
more of them reported having been injured as they jumped off their employers' apartment
buildings (Uy 2006b).
141 Interview 26, Philippines, migrant workers organization, July 2007
138
As discussed in the previous chapter, several countries, including Lebanon, require
exiting migrant workers to carry an exit visa, which their employer needs to approve.
This ensures that migrant workers will not leave Lebanon without their employers'
consent. As a reaction to this, the Philippine government formally asked its Lebanese
counterpart to help get Filipino workers out of danger. Among the Philippine requests
was that Lebanese citizens employing Filipinas allowed them to leave the country
(Dalangin-Fernandez 2006d) and signed their exit visas. 142
In the Philippines there is a common understanding among government employees
and officials regarding the varying degrees of difficulty involved in different foreign
assignments. While Madrid or Rome, for example, are perceived as being easy
assignments, Embassies in the Middle East are commonly called "hardship posts."
During an interview at the CFO, I was told that the Lebanon Crisis, and its coverage by
the Philippine, was a reminder to the Philippine public of what regularly happened at
those postS.1 43 It brought public attention to the wartime fate of Filipino migrant workers
there, but, more importantly, it acted as a catalyst for exposing the exploitative conditions
Filipino domestic workers suffered in that country, such as the case of a young Filipina,
who appeared on national TV stating that war gave her a chance to escape from her
"master," who had repeatedly raped her. Newspapers and migrant workers' organizations
narrated the tragic Lebanon stories as glimpses of the hard conditions ofthe millions of
women who had left the Philippines to work as domestic workers. Exploitation and
oppression were at the center of the criticisms, and their systematic presence in labor
migration, regardless of war, was denounced. The question migrant workers'
organizations raised was: "What has the government been doing to protect Filipino
domestic workers in Lebanon?,,144
142 Interview 24, Philippines, Government Official, June 2007
143 Interview 12, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
144 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, July 2007.
139
3.2. The Role of the Government in the Crisis
As different government agencies coordinated evacuation and repatriation efforts,
there was also growing controversy over where the funds for these activities should come
from. It was estimated that flying 30,000 migrant workers back to the Philippines would
cost $56,970,000 or P2,963 billion. On August 2, 21 days after the Israelis began their
attack, President Magapacal-Arroyo approved Executive Order 551, which allocated
P500 million from OWWA funds and P500 from non-identified sources for repatriation
from Lebanon. The gap between the estimated costs and the money the President
allocated was P1,963 million, and many migrant workers' organizations saw this as
evidence of insufficient will of the government to save the nation's "modem day heroes"
from the dangers of war (Fameronag 2006).
The Lebanon War also shed light on the fact that approximately two thirds of all
repatriated workers from Lebanon were undocumented (Uy 2006a). By August 10, 57%
of 2,404 repatriated Overseas Filipino Workers surveyed were not registered with
OWWA (Dalangin-Fernandez 2006c), and this agency recognized that two out of three
workers did not have proper working papers when they entered Lebanon (Dalangin-
Fernandez 2006a). This was an alarming figure, since undocumented workers are usually
more vulnerable to abuse. In addition, besides pointing to the fact that 20,000 workers
had managed to bypass government control and regulations, therefore exposing the
failure of the government to implement its own policies, the presence of such high
numbers of undocumented workers in Lebanon posed other problems. OWWA asked
POEA to prepare a master list of all migrant workers in Lebanon, including their
addresses. RA 8042 mandates POEA to keep a database with the information on migrant
workers overseas. After pressure from newspaper editorials, the agency finally sent the
information to OWWA and DFA. This should have helped the Embassy and evacuation
teams locate workers, but the list only included documented workers. Migrant groups and
government officials also complained that most migrant workers' addresses included in
POEA's list were PO Boxes or the addresses of the Lebanese recruitment agencies, which
made it difficult to track the workers down (Balana 2006).
Besides shedding light on some important legal gaps and weakness in government
140
regulation of migration, the Lebanon crisis also brought public attention to government
action which, according to migrant groups, was not as fast and efficient as it should have
been. The main issue behind the tardiness of the government was financial, since it was
not easy to allocate the funds to repatriate or even to decide where the money was going
to come from.
While POEA provisions established Lebanese employers were responsible for
worker repatriation, the government did not feel they were in a position to enforce the
contract. Since OWWA is the welfare agency for migrant workers, both the government
and migrant organizations thought the money should come from its funds. As explained
in the previous chapter, the agency is funded through a $25 fee documented migrant
workers pay each time they start or renew a contract, which is approximately every two
years. When the crisis in Lebanon exploded, total OWWA assets were P8 billion ($160
million). However, OWWA officials said they could not access those funds. After
pressure from migrant organizations and a series of Senate hearings, an internal auditor
said that the total monies available from OWWA funds were only P703 million (around
$14 million). From the total fund ofP8 billion, P3,4 billion had been invested in high-
yielding securities and government bonds at the Development Bank of the Philippines
and another P3,4 billion were in the Land Bank of the Philippines (Cabacungan and
Tubeza 2006).145 This raised issues among migrant workers' organizations around
priorities involved in investment decision-making. The organizations also complained
that, though those funds technically belong to migrant workers, the latter did not have any
input into the decision over the use of the funds. The fact remained that there was no cash
available to pay for the repatriation of mostly domestic workers stranded in Lebanon. 146
Other possible funds for this goal were the PI 00 million repatriation fund RA 8042
entrusted to DFA and the $150,000 operational funds of the Philippine Embassy in
145 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
146 Interview 5, Philippines, migrant workers organization, May 2007
141
Lebanon. However, these were not sufficient, since the repatriation cost for each worker
was calculated at $3,000. 147
As information was obtained that 20,000 of the 30,000 migrant workers in Lebanon
were undocumented, the controversy around repatriation costs rose. OWWA was
reluctant to use the funds for the repatriation of all workers since, according to them, the
money came from the contributions from documented workers, and technically it could
not be used to assist workers who had not gone through legal migration steps (Uy 2006a).
This made migrant workers' organization and the public angry at what seemed a serious
inability on the part of the government to act fast and find solutions in such a critical and
sensitive moment. There was a strong impression that the government was failing to
provide enough assistance to migrant workers (Corros 2006). Between July 22 and
October 16, 6,282 out ofthe over 30,000 workers returned to the Philippines. The
Philippine government only shouldered one third of the repatriation costs. The
International Organization for Migration (lOM) took care of the rest. More specifically,
OWWA sponsored the repatriation of2,067 migrant workers (33%) and the 10M
financed the flights of 4,201 (67%) repatriates (OWWA 2006).148
3.3. Threat to Legitimacy
Timing in media... Sometimes there are bloody events which need to be magnified.
You focus on the issue. Like Lebanon. If it [hadn't been] zoomed in, the lens of the
government into acting on working standards wouldn't be there and we would have
gone into another direction ... In Lebanon, for example, because of the war, there
were a lot of issues that could have appeared. But because the focus was on migrant
147 While I cannot expand here on this issue, the controversy over the OWWA funds went beyond whether
they were in investment accounts. Two years before the Lebanon Crisis, a great amount of OWWA's health
insurance money had been transferred to PhilHealth, another health insurance agency. I was shown
documentation that showed that those funds had been used by the President to fund part of her political
campaign in 2004, in a context where she had lost a lot of credibility. Gloria Magapacal-Arroyo delivered
thousands of free health insurance cards with her picture on them. There were several hearings on these
issues which, obviously were never resolved. Several migrant organizations and unions' members shared
this story with me to show their discontent and sadness by what they perceived as a constant misuse of
resources meant to be for migrant workers' protection and how corruption permeated all aspects of the
migration institutions. This issue also reached the press and, again, raised questions about the
administration's credibility and honesty.
148 Out of the total repatriated migrant workers, 132 (2.16%) were men and 5,977 (97.64%) were women
(OWWA 2006).
142
workers and then civil society also highlighted them, then you help the government
shift its priorities ... You can look at the government as a seven-year-old kid with
ADD. It can't concentrate... What we do is we go to them and show them that they
have mass base. They will get votes, mass support of the people ... That is the role
f "1 . Y '11 h h' . 149o CIVI socIety. ou WI same t em mto actIOn.
As the constraints the government faced to protect domestic workers in Lebanon, as
well as the government negligence and corruption involved in the process, became
obvious, government officials saw the need to work to counter a loss oflegitimacy, which
was similar to the one suffered during Contemplacion's trial. The Lebanon War shed
light on several controversial issues in need of government attention. These included the
grave abuses domestic workers suffered; the constraints Lebanese immigration and labor
laws imposed; the multiple cracks in the regulation and monitoring of migration the
presence of so many undocumented workers indicated; the slow reaction of the
government; concerns over political priorities and corruption the controversy over the
existence and availability of funds raised; and the lack of preparation of the government
to receive and employ the 30,000 returnees at home. These events took place less than
one year before the 2007 Senatorial Election and in a context in which President
Magapacal-Arroyo was rapidly losing credibility due to corruption scandals, increasing
problems with migrant workers, and human rights violations. They made public opinion
question the role of government in the regulation of migration and protection of migrant
women. Using a vivid metaphor, an interviewee stated that when Israel started bombing
its neighbor, "the Pandora's box of abuses to domestic workers in Lebanon opened.,,150
The "Lebanon events" had a huge impact on public perception of migrant domestic
workers. By unmasking the difficulties many overseas Filipino domestic workers faced,
Lebanon became a trigger for change and constituted "one thousand Contemplacion
stories.,,151 I discuss in sections 4,5, and 6 the strategies the government followed to
regain hegemony.
149 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, July 2007
150 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, July 2007
151 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, July 2007
Figure 4.1
Source: OWWA's 2006 Annual Report Cover Page.
143
144
4. First Response: The Supermaid Program
Yeah, super... supermaid ... The first time that we heard it, we thought [it meant]
the maid should be all around. Supermaid means that you can do anything,
everything... and they are expecting you to do all those things ... 152
In early August, when 90% of the 30,000 Filipinos were still expected to return
from Lebanon, President Magapacal-Arroyo announced the government would put a
training program in place to facilitate the re-deployment of the returnees and overseas
employment for Filipino women in general. The President stated that with this training
the country would be able to deploy abroad, not just ordinary domestic workers, but
supermaids (Dalangin-Fernandez 2006b) who, with upgraded skills, would command
higher salaries and better working conditions. Through the use of term supermaid, and
the political campaign surrounding it, domestic workers would not only save the
economy through their hard work and remittances but they would also become
overachieving and professional domestic workers. Professionalization would help
workers avoid abuse and exploitation and, therefore, end the unsafe working conditions
in many countries, including Lebanon. While the President recognized domestic workers
were often victims of abuse, supermaids would not be.
The hidden abuse of domestic workers was seen. If they hadn't had the
chance to escape, we would have never heard their stories. But we want to
commit into a larger perspective that Lebanon is happening in most areas
where we are deploying domestic workers. What happened was that there was
a war in Lebanon and we saw them jumping from the windows... that is very
appalling for me, the treatment of domestic workers as part of property.
That's why these are stories of abuse, they were locked with the furniture, or
tied so that they wouldn't be able to escape, because they were viewed as
non-human. They were viewed as slaves. What the [supermaid] branding is
missing ~is that] you brand them, but even then they are still like indentured
slaves. 15
Migrant workers' organizations expressed their outrage over the concept of
supermaid, since they viewed it as a demeaning term and as a symptom of the insistence
152 Interview 7, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
153 Interview 26, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, July 2007 [emphasis added]
145
of the government in keeping Filipinas as servants. Radio and TV shows and newspapers
discussed at length the connotations of the term supermaid and the implications of this
new program:
It was at the headlines ofthe newspapers the first time that [the President] used that
name. The commentators at the radio said, what did she really mean when she said
supermaid? Does she mean that our women can fly now? Instead ofjumping
through the window [like in Lebanon] they can now be trained to fly so they won't
get hurt? It's actually the irony of it. 154
The spokesperson from a migrant workers' organization stated that, besides not
addressing the root factors behind the hardships involved in migrant domestic work, the
notion of the supermaid aimed to deflect attention from government inability to protect
workers during their employment in Lebanon and to repatriate them efficiently.
It's a deflection. If you look at the supermaid training program, it happened right
after the Lebanon Crisis. They tried to cover up what [was] really happening to
migrant domestic workers, especially the part of government neglect, so they are
trying to ... in order that they will not be exploited, they will not be abused, they
will not be raped, we will train them as supermaids. And supermaid training is just,
you know, a change of name. 155
Many of the women placed in Lebanon, as well as thousands of women migrating
to other countries, were high school and college graduates. The "Pandora's box" of
abuses Lebanon opened triggered growing criticism of the lack of well paid skilled jobs
in the Philippines. The Philippine governnlent was again criticized for continuing to
export tens of thousands of women every year as servants, particularly to places where
working conditions were exploitative and dangerous. The creation ofthe Supermaid
Program was seen as another step toward the institutionalization and perpetuation of the
labor export program:
The supermaids embody the domestic workers who are very skilled, very capable
of doing their work, they are professional, they have language training and cultural
training. That's the essence of the supermaid. But we do not want the term used,
because we do not want Filipino women to be turned into maids, we are not
154 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
155 Interview 21, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, June 2007
146
degrading the maids, but we can do more, in fact, we are very sorry that our
professional women are getting into these jobs because of the lack of employment
in the Philippines. It's actually very insulting that intelligent, good, beautiful
Filipinas, that they really have to accept this job just to feed their children, to get to
have a better future for their family. Why can't we have super teachers, super
engineers, super nurses in the Philippines? Why do we have to be turned into
supermaids abroad? And why do we have to leave our children in the charge of our
husbands, our grandmas, our sisters to go and take care of other kids?156
5. Second Response: Toward Policy Reform
The notion of turning Filipino domestic workers into supermaids did not have
much social support. The term was perceived as a branding effort that, besides turning
Filipino women into "model and elite maids," did not address the structural factors
behind women's migration and their exploitation in their workplace. This discontent and
criticism pushed the government to strategize other protections for migrant women. As
early as August 2006, Mina Gabor, POEA's women's advocate, held a consultation
meeting with different migrant workers' organizations to discuss how domestic workers
could be better protected. According to one attendee, skills improvement was raised as
an important issue. While migrant organizations expected to be called again to continue
the discussion, that was the first and last meeting held with them. 157
Several weeks later, Labor Secretary Arturo Brion announced upcoming reforms in
the regulation of deployment of Filipino domestic workers. The difference between the
supermaid program and the new reforms was mainly its controversial name. The reforms
would maintain the training emphasis of the supermaid program and would add some
provision aimed to enhance protection and improve work conditions. Besides introducing
compulsory trainings, Brion also announced POEA was deliberating a "no placement
fee" policy to replace the "one-month salary" placement fee, and no salary deduction on
site would be allowed for the payment or service of these fees. The new trainings would
run parallel to a substantial salary increase for domestic workers to levels commensurate
with their competency. After two decades of a $200 monthly minimum wage, the
156 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
157 Interview 3, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, April 2007
147
minimum salary for domestic workers overseas was being raised to $400 a month. In
addition, the minimum age required for as a domestic worker was raised from 21 to 25
years old, since the government perceived younger workers as being more vulnerable to
abuse. POEA administrator Rosalinda Baldoz said the new policy was part of a package
of reforms that would "professionalize and empower" the hundreds of thousands of
Filipino domestic helpers leaving each year to work overseas (Aning 2006b). According
to her, the new rules, which would go into effect on December 15 2006, were meant to
secure higher paying jobs for Filipino domestics in order to reduce welfare cases
involving low paid workers. She stressed that greater skills in how to perform household
work and use appliances would make domestic workers less vulnerable to abuse (Dy
2007b).
Recruitment agencies strongly opposed the salary increase, denouncing it as
contrary to government overseas job generation agenda (Aning 2006b). According to
them, a 100% salary increase would have negative impacts on deployment.
Representatives from private agencies also argued the increase would encourage illegal
recruitment and severely harm the legitimate recruitment business in the country, since
the Philippine government was creating these reforms unilaterally (Aning 2006c).158
Eduarto Mahiya, President of the Federated Association of Manpower Agencies
(FAMA) added that, as a labor-supplying country, the Philippines could not afford to
impose conditions on foreign employers. Victor Fernandez, president ofPASEI,
supported Mahiya's claim expressing his concern that doubling the minimum pay could
lead to "massive contract substitution, increased fake job orders, airport brazo, 159 and
increase in illegal recruitment in general (Aning 2006b). Finally, the Federated
Association of Manpower Agencies Inc. called the plan equivalent to a ban on the
deployment of domestic helpers. In fact, by the end of 2006 there were already
indications that employers in the Middle East had started to shy away from hiring
Filipina housemaids (Salaverria 2006).
158 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Recruitment Agent, June 2007
159 Immigration and airport officials bypassing legal procedures to allow departure of Filipino with
questionable travel documents.
148
Recruiting agencies and aspiring domestic workers held rallies in Metro Manila, in
which the latter protested the upcoming reforms and expressed their willingness to work
for less than $400 (Aning 2006a; 2007). Protests also took place overseas. Thousands of
Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, for example, whose minimum salary was
already set in $450, opposed the required training and assessment, which were expected
to bring additional financial burdens on workers waiting to be deployed (Mandap 2007;
Rivera 2006). Facing increasing opposition, Arturo Brion defended the rules as part of
reforms giving domestic workers better protection amid a number of high-profile cases
of abuse against them, particularly in countries such as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and
Singapore. Their implementation was for the long-term and was aimed to place domestic
workers on a better footing against abuse and exploitation. According to him, the reform
would not weaken deployment but rather set a favorable standard based on the global
preference for Filipino migrant workers160 (Uy 2007a). Nevertheless, after consulting
with stakeholders, the POEA responded to recruiters and workers' discontent. Aside
from lowering the minimum age for overseas domestic workers from 25 to 23, Brion
declared that DOLE the implementation of the new Household Service Workers Reform
Package would be delayed from December 2006 to March 2007 (Rivera 2006; Uy
2007a). I landed in Manila on April 6, 2007.
6. The Reform Package: From Supermaids to Household Service Workers
Supermaid? [laughs] I think that it's just like our entertainers. They are called
several names but actually their work is all hostessing work. So, maybe supermaid
is, yeah... whatever you call it there is a maid there, right?161
[W]e have our... new policy with the reform package, we had policy reforms for
our domestic helpers. I don't know ifloU read this in the papers lately, we call them
now the household service workers. 16
160 The Reform was designed exclusively on overseas employment and did not address the existing
unemployment at home.
161 Interview 7, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
162 Interview I, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
149
Despite opposition from private agencies and certain migrant workers' sectors, the
Household Service Workers Reform Package was passed in early 2007. Similarly to
RA8042, the Household Service Workers Reform Package is articulated around the
notion of protection. While RA 8042 applied to all Filipino migrant workers, the Reform
Package only concerns to migrant domestic workers. Its main objectives are to "ensure
that only qualified, adequately protected and properly documented domestic helpers are
deployed to pre-qualified foreign placement agencies and employers" and to "prevent the
mental, physical and psychological abuses and maltreatment committed by employers"
(POEA 2006c). Its provisions are divided into three areas of reform. The first concerns
foreign recruitment agencies and employers and aims to implement upgraded verification
and monitoring systems; the second concerns domestic workers and, besides raising their
minimum salary from $200 to $400 a month and making it illegal to exact placement
fees from them, it imposes age and skills restrictions on them. The third concerns
receiving governments, but instead of reforms it includes suggestion for changes. In
other words, while reforms targeting agencies, employers, and workers are, at least in
theory, enforceable provisions, those addressing receiving states are not. I suggest here
this Package precisely stems from the inability of the Philippine government to impose
changes on receiving governments due to its disadvantaged and subordinate geopolitical
position.
As the title of the new policy shows, domestic workers officially became service
workers. The term "household service workers" aimed to clean the controversy the term
supermaid created and to award Filipino women the same respectability and status as
workers in other economic sectors. While it retained the connotations of
professionalization contained in supermaid, it did not have the servile, overachieving
connotations.
So, the term we use now is household service worker, not domestic helper or maid.
Because in the past, whenever they talked of domestic helpers, the thinking is that
all Filipinos are maids, and all they can do is to clean the house, nothing more. 163
163 Interview 16, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2006
150
As I discuss in this section, however, although the government gave up on the use
of the term supermaid to avoid its servile connotations, the servile substance remained. 164
In the following sections I critically examine some of the main provisions of the Reform
Package. I begin with and concentrate most of my attention on the reforms targeting
domestic workers and discuss their potential in providing further protection and higher
work standards. Subsequently I briefly discussion the provisions targeting employers and
reflect on the actual motives behind the Package. Given the inability of the Philippine
government to protect its women overseas, I suggest that the eventual goal of this reform
was to actually price them out of the domestic workers international niche and move
them into higher skill jobs in safer countries.
6.1. Minimum Entry Salary of $400
The Reform Package introduced a new minimum of $400 a month. While the
salary increase is universal, the reform will not affect countries such as Taiwan, Hong
Kong, European countries, Canada, and the United States because they are already
paying above this new minimum165 (see Table 4.2). The countries targeted are Singapore,
which pays only $220-$250, and Malaysia, currently paying around $200 as well, and
most Middle Eastern countries (see Table 4.1.). While the tables show official salaries in
several countries and regions, these minimums are not always respected. Nevertheless,
the tables provide is a useful guide to pay differentials among across countries and
regIOns.
164 While the use of the term "maid" (in Tagalog katulong) is still very common in the Philippines, it is not
used officially.
165 Interview I, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
Kuwait
Hong Kong
Lebanon
Saudi Arabia -
UAE
Qatar
Jordan
Singapore
Oman
Cyprus
Taiwan
Table 4.1. Monthly Salary in Lowest Paying
Countries
200 US$
446 US$
200 US$
200 US$
200 US$
200 US$
200 US$
200 US$
200 US$
300 US$
500 US$
Source: POEA 2006b
Table 4.2. Salary Ranges by Region (US$)
151
Africa
America
Asia
Europe
Middle East
Oceania
Trust Territories
200-300
200-1,400
200-1.134
358-1,850
200-785 (Israel)
1,485
272-300
Source: POEA 2006b
The rationale for the minimum salary increase was the enhancement of workers'
welfare, since $200 a month had not been changed since the early 1980s.1 66 It also
responded to a long lasting underpayment and lack of recognition of domestic workers:
[W]e should remember that they are not regular 8-5 workers with entitlement to
overtime pay in excess of 8 hours of work. They are in a household setting and they
are on call by their employers 24 hours a day and 6 to 7 days a week, without
overtime pay (POEA 2007b).
The salary increase also needs to be understood in connection with the introduction
of compulsory skills training and assessment. In one government official's words, "we
166 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
152
are saying that if they want really skilled or qualified household workers, then they
should pay the price.,,167 As I discuss in subsequent sections, since Filipino domestic
workers were being improved through compulsory training, the resulting improved
product deserved a higher price.
While the initial reaction of most migrant workers organizations to this wage raise
was positive, they were skeptical to the ability of the government to actually implement
it. As explained in Chapter III, the Philippine government has had difficulty in their
attempts to implement some of RA8042 provisions, and illegal recruiting practices have
been one of them. Even when the minimum salary used to be $200 contract substitution
was already a generalized practice. POEA decided that employers would be imposed a
daily $13 fine for failing to pay workers $400 or paying them late. Because the Reform
Package has only been passed recently passed, it is hard to predict what its actual impact
is going to be on salary improvement for Filipino domestic workers. Nevertheless, I did
not find indications during my fieldwork that the government had taken any concrete
steps to facilitate enforcement. Besides statements of good intentions, the only
measurable indicator of increased enforcement efforts would be an increase in resources
toward these ends. But I found no evidence of this. Therefore, the skepticism of migrant
workers' organizations is reasonable.
While POEA employees acknowledged that it was too early to assess the success of
the salary increase, they explained that up to May 2007 some employers were already
willing to pay $400 168. Private recruiters responded that, due to the salary increase,
deployment in the first quarter of2007 had actually decreased and the government was
manipulating the statistics to mask this fact:
They are again presenting it this way, 'Oh! After we increased the salary, we have
now been receiving job orders at $400,' and we said, no, we have about 546 job
orders for domestic helpers at $400 and I think one or two of my maids are actually
in that statistic ... But they are not presenting that it used to be over 11,000 or
167 Interview I I, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
168 Interview 13, Philippines, Government Employee. May 2007
153
12,000 job orders for the same quarter. .. But now, I am only presenting 500. So, for
media purposes they are saying it's good, we have 500 job orders. 169
This interviewee, who represented the largest recruitment agencies association in
the Philippines, did not think that the "domestic workers deployment business" could
prosper under the new minimum wage regulation. According to him:
[I]fyou multiply $400 by zero, what is your answer? Zero. But if you multiply
$200 by ten, you have $2000. So, the point is, you cannot promise workers that they
will have $400 when nobody will pay you $400. 170
Later on the interview he acknowledged that private agencies would need to resort
to contract substitution to ensure the continuation of the migration business, which is
exactly the same worry migrant organizations have:
Many of the [job orders] the government is talking about will be false contracts.
They will only be for purposes to go through POEA. [B]ut agencies do not have
jobs due to the high salary. The workers are willing to take less in order to have a
job. The agencies will make the offer and then they tell her, but you still have to
sign the job order which says $400 even ifthere is another contract for $200. Even
if it's against the law, the workers beg to be able to leave on fake contract because
they need to support their families. They [will] sign everything. [Workers say:] 'just
give me a job'. So ... even if government is saying that they now have 500 [job
orders], I am sure that not all of them are actually paying $400.... So, what Reform
Package are we talking about? Who is [it] benefiting? Nobody. Instead of moving
forward in order to meet competition, government is saying, 'don't worry, there is
now an increase in the deployment of the high end workers.' Maybe there is, but
please, what happens now to this particular maid who lost her job? Can we ask her
now to become a construction engineer? 17 I
According to the interviewee, the continuation of deployment would only be
possible if agencies managed to circumvent the new rules. Workers were anxious that
with such a high new minimum salary it would be hard to find jobs overseas. In other
words, both workers and recruitment agencies had the perception that a regulation
resulting in higher salaries would make Filipino domestic workers less competitive in the
169 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agent, June 2007
170 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agent, June 2007
171 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agent, June 2007
154
global domestic work market. The only way to get around this was by breaking the
law and continuing to accept jobs and deploy workers at the old rate of $200, since this
was all employers in many receiving countries were willing to pay. 172
6.2. No-Placement Fee Policy
The Reform Package also states recruitment agencies can no longer collect
placement fees from domestic workers. This change is meant to alleviate the financial
burden recruitment agencies impose on domestic workers and "in recognition of the
nature of their work and their vulnerability to exploitation and abuses, particularly at the
worksite, household workers should be exempted from payment of placement fee, either
collected prior to their deployment or on-site thru salary deduction" (POEA 2006c).
The no-placement fee provision has also been controversial. Private recruitment
agents have expressed their discontent for the loss of revenue they will suffer because of
this provision. Both migrant workers' organizations and private agencies have argued
that the government will not be able to implement this provision.
It's very impossible. The government has this Department Order 34, it's actually
issued by [the] D[epartment] O[f] L[abor and] E[mployment]. It sets a ceiling of
equivalent of 1 month salary for placement fee, but nobody followed that
Department Order. Recruitment Agencies charge placement fees 4 or 5 times higher
than that ceiling, so now they are saying that there is no placement fee, so if you are
no critical on the policies, you will be very happy, you can work abroad without
paying the fee, but it's not true. 173
This interviewee explained the existence of a law does not guarantee it will be
respected, especially in a context where violations of the one-month placement fee had
been recurrent. This was confirmed during my interviews with owners of recruitment
agencies:
They don't have any monitoring. We [Filipinos] are good at coming up with
systems and procedures imposing, but the monitoring is nothing, because they also
172 Private agencies suggested that the government could create a layered system in which, depending on
the worker's experience, there would be different salary categories: $400 for a skilled and experienced
domestic worker but $250 or $300 for a novel one.
173 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
155
have a ready argument... we are under... we don't have the budget, we are
overworked. 174
Another recruitment agent stated that the abolition of the fee was not realistic.
There were already rules on placements fees and recruitment agencies rarely followed
them:
Now, this is the problem: implementation of the rules. The POEA should do what
they are supposed to be doing, OK? Look at Hong Kong. They know that in Hong
Kong people are paying three months oftheir basic salary and they are not lifting
anything out of it. In Taiwan nannies are paying more than PI00,000 ($2,000), and
no one is opening their mouth about it. They have the rules. [Up to now] the rule is
one month maximum. You cannot take one centavo more. It's very clear. It's
always people in our government who are going to Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore,
and Hong Kong. Why aren't they doing their work? Why are they selective when
there is a rule? You see, that is the biggest problem in our country. We never run
out of rulers, laws, we have so many laws, believe me, we have better laws than in
the U.S., believe me, but who is going to implement these laws?175
Both migrant workers' organizations and some private agencies criticized this
reform since it did not acknowledge the difficulties of monitoring, implementation and
competition in the international labor market. They argued that limitations on placement
fees have not been enforced in the past and, particularly recruitment agents, recognized
the government had never been inspected or monitored them. Despite the abolition on
paper, according to them, agencies would continue to charge abusive placement fees and
government would not do anything about it:
There is no way for the government to monitor because, like I said, [the
government] sets the policy, and later on, [agencies will ask them] to look the other
way. But government has acted well. That makes government a hypocrite. 176
This trend fits the pattern, outlined in this and the previous chapter, of ongoing
tension between the need of the Philippine government to establish itself as a protector of
women and its ability or even willingness to actually do so. Low implementation and
174 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agency, June 2007
175 Interview 23, Philippines, Private Agency, June 2007
176 Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agency, June 2007
156
enforcement resources and efforts, as well as corruption in the government, have
rendered past protection efforts useless. The same will probably happen with the salary
increase and the abolition of the placement fee for Filipino domestic workers.
6.3. Skills Provide Protection
In the two previous sections I addressed two provisions of the Reform Package
aimed to improve the standards under which Filipino domestic workers are deployed. In
section 6.3 I discuss three provisions that set up conditions domestic workers need to
fulfill in order to be deployed: compulsory culture orientation, required training, and
minimum age. I suggest these reforms are rendered to fail to protect domestic workers
since they do not recognize the fact that gender, class, and race power relationships shape
their work conditions.
Since the creation of RA 8042, skills have been considered as the ultimate
protection for migrant workers. The more and better skills they have, the easier it will be
for them to find jobs and protect their rights (Department of Labor and Employment
1997). The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has had a
primary role in this process, since it is the main government agency in charge of training,
assessment, and certification of both local and migrant workers. Working in
collaboration with the POEA, TESDA specializes in worker training, which employers in
the receiving countries often require. According to a TESDA employee:
[O]ne of the major mandates ofTESDA is really the certification of workers,
skilled workers. Not only household. We started in 1975. We had trained in
automotives, electronics and then later on, there is a need in the industry, we started
with the soft trades (... ) We also have assessment and certification for caregiving
and then household service workers. 177
There are thousands of TESDA certified courses offered throughout the country
(Rodriguez 2005). They include computer secretarial; computer technician; cosmetology;
electronics technician, hair and beauty; mechanics; dressmaking; and caregiving,
domestic work, among many others.
177 Interview 16, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
157
In the context of increased globalization of the labor force, the government trains
and processes workers to be ready to go to practically any country in the world and to do
practically any job well. Skills become key to provide jobs and are a distinct feature
making the Filipino workforce attractive to employers. Filipino overseas workers are
known in the intemationallabor market for being educated and possessing high levels of
skills. This is the basis of what I call the Filipino Brand. Filipino workers usually get
higher wages than nationals from other sending countries. This pay differential is usually
justified by their English proficiency, their high educational background, and their skills.
Equating skills to ability to find jobs, however, is problematic. Political, economic,
gender, and racial dynamics constrain the structural location of Filipino migrant workers
as service and domestic workers in the global labor market, and often place them in
disadvantaged positions. Despite often being college graduates, for example, Filipino
women tend to work as domestic workers overseas. While my interviewees at POEA did
not provide me with statistics on the educational level of Filipino migrant domestic
workers, I designed the following table from my interviews with Filipino domestic
workers in Barcelona. As table 4.4 shows, the differences between formal training and
the job occupied are striking:
158
TABLE 4.3. Educational and Professional Backgrounds and Jobs in Spain
As I discuss in Chapters VI and VII, these are the only jobs available to them in
many countries. Although skills place Filipino domestic workers in a more favorable
situation than nationals from other sending nations (e.g. Sri Lanka, Indonesia), this does
not reverse the fact that hundreds of thousands of highly educated Filipino women are
taking jobs far below their formal training. Their concentration in the international
reproductive labor niche constitutes a racial, gendered, and national version of glass
ceiling. They are not allowed access to professional or skilled jobs more in accordance
with their educational level. In the international division oflabor, it is not U.S.ers or
Germans or Spaniards who are internationally known as ideal domestic workers, but
Filipinas. Their concentration in domestic work stems from updated versions of colonial
discourses that perpetuate the Philippines' servile and dependent position in the world
economy. Given the high educational levels of Filipinos, the reason why they are not
known as ideal engineers, doctors, or teachers is a mystery to many. The idea that
Filipinos are favored in the international labor market for their possession of skills needs
159
to be considered in a context in which thousands of educated Filipinas are actually being
demoted when they migrate overseas.
The govemment also sees skills, in the context of domestic work, as crucial to
provide protection in the sense that they prevent abuse. In other words, if the worker
knows how to do her job there will be no reason for her employer to maltreat her or, as a
govemment official explained during our discussion of abuse of migrant domestic
workers:
[A]nd many instances happen because the girl doesn't know how to do the work.
So, if you can do your work, you are very comfortable with what you are doing,
there is no reason for the employer to abuse you. Maybe she'll even love you
because you are doing perfectly what she wants you to do, she'll be very happy
with you. 178
Perhaps there is some truth to this. One consistent pattem among the cases of abuse
made public is that they often stem from some error the Filipino worker makes. Ana, for
example, explained how her employer in Lebanon constantly complained about her way
of doing things around the house and stated that "Filipinos are like animals.,,179 One day
she hit Ana when she failed to clean the oven properly. When Ana complained, her
employer repeatedly beat her and pulled her hair. Her body was bruised and she was in a
great deal of pain. Other testimonies I read in the legal office of a migrant workers'
organization stated the women were constantly nagged, in front of strangers, for their
"different way of doing things." Preci Padilla, for instance, also bound in Lebanon, stated
she was always being yelled at for the little mistakes that she committed. Words such as
"sharmuta," an Arabic term for whore, were often flung at her. One day, after asking for
her seven-month salary, her employers shoved her to the ground and whipped her with a
belt (Kanlungan, January 13th 2004).
While workers' inability is often the reason behind employers' abuse, this, as Preci
Padilla's story shows, is not the only reason. Sometimes the reason has nothing to do
with the worker's behavior. Sometimes there is no reason. In sub-sections 6.3.1 and 6.3.2
I provide what the skill provisions in the Reform Package have consisted of and suggest
178 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007 [emphasis added]
179 Interview 17, Philippines, Migrant Worker, May 2007
160
that since they fail to acknowledge the reason behind abuse of Filipino domestic workers
(i.e. power inequalities) they are deemed to fail to protect them.
6.3.1. Attendance to the OWWA Language and Culture Orientation
Upon the premise that skills equal protection, the Reform Package included two
provisions which are specifically about skills as enhancers of protections. The first one
required attendance to an OWWA conducted country-specific language and culture
orientation. The second mandated the possession of a TESDA certified National
Certificate for Household Service Workers (NCII) (POEA 2007b). As a condition for the
processing oftheir contract and issuance of exist clearance, the workers or the agency
must submit proof of fulfillment of the two requirements (POEA 2006b). In this section I
discuss the first provision and I examine the second in section 6.3.2.
The new Reform Package mandates migrant domestic workers to complete a
language and culture orientation. These trainings teach Arabic to workers going to the
Middle East and Mandarin and Cantonese for those going to Singapore and Hong Kong.
In addition, they also provide information on receiving countries' cultural traditions. The
Mandarin language course lasts 14 hours, with 12 hours for language and 2 for culture
orientation. The Arabic course has 20 hours for language and 4 hours for culture
orientation. The trainings are compulsory and free, and once a woman obtains her
"certificate of completion" she can submit it in POEA and process the rest of her papers
to go overseas. Knowledge of Middle Eastern or Chinese culture is seen to help migrant
women cope when overseas, as well as help them communicate with their employers.
These seminars mostly address steps that women need to take in order to take care
of themselves. For example, the course description for the Arab language training and
culture orientation program, the course description states:
The course has two distinct components: the first one is designed to impart the
participants commonly practiced Arab culture which includes manners and ethics,
with a spice of geography, which every Domestic Helper (DH) should understand
and respect during their stay in the Middle East" (Octaviano 2007).
Emphasizing the need to become familiar with cultural and ethical habits in
receiving countries in order to stay safe, OWWA employees explained that some of the
161
worst abuses happened because Filipino domestic workers failed to understand the
culture in which they inserted themselves upon migration. This was particularly true in
the Middle East:
[W]hat is more important is the culture and tradition, because it's very different,
like in Saudi Arabia, for example, you camlOt look into the eyes of male Arabs if
you are a woman, especially if you are not Muslim or you are not the wife. Whereas
us, Filipinos, we look directly in the eyes when we talk, and you cam10t even touch
anybody, Filipinos is a touching people, so these are the things that we try to tell
them, the nuances in the cultural differences, because these are very basic things
that you have to know so that you won't commit mistakes and you won't encounter
problems being misunderstood by [your employers] because of cultural differences.
[T]his is the very advice that we tell domestic helpers. 180
Some cultural misunderstandings, according to govermnent employees, can even
result in physical abuse:
When you talk about physical abuse, these are ... well Filipinos are, from the
Middle East perspective, they look at Filipinos, by culture and habit. Filipinos are
really hygiene conscious, you know. Before they go to work they take a bath in the
morning, and before they sleep they take a bath as well. And the madam does not
like that. Plus the culture says that if your hair is wet you are inviting the attention
of your male employers. 181
Consequently, Filipino migrant women are told at the culture orientation seminars that,
in order to avoid sexually provoking their male employer, they should never bathe during
the day or to blow dry their hair before starting work. I suggest this emphasis on norms
of conduct makes the workers responsible for avoiding difficult situations and explains
the abuse in terms of culture. As other cases illustrate, cultural explanations, in the
context oflabor relations, can be problematic. Ana's Saudi employers, for example, did
not allow her to leave the house on her own. One day she left the house to go shopping
with a Filipino friend and a policeman, thinking she was a runaway, arrested in the
supermarket. After the police officer returned her to her employers' house, her employer
physically punished her employer for having left without permission. While it is
180 Interview 2, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
181 Interview I I, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
162
considered normal for a Middle Eastern employer to keep her domestic worker within
the house, the fact that the Philippine government warns future migrants of this does not
change the fact that workers' seclusion and physical punishment violate fundamental
human rights. Similarly, while it may be considered normal for Saudi women to blow dry
their hair to avoid sexual tension, this does not change the fact that employers' sexual
assault on Filipino domestic workers (and all women indeed) is wrong and illegal.
Government discourse turns physical and sexual abuse into prominent manifestations of
culture shock, where cultural, and implicitly racial, difference and workers' inability to
adjust to the 'employers' ways,' are used to explain abuse. The violence is seen to be
rooted in difference and cultural mistakes on the part of the worker rather than presented
as stemming from the power inequality present in the labor relationship. The worker
becomes both the victim and perpetrator of the abuse, since the solution for the problem
is the improvement of the domestic worker, "who is tasked with the work of
accommodating the difference(s) between her and her employer" (Tadiar 2002:275).
This discourse reproduces the historical construction of women as inherently willing to
serve the needs of others, and constructs Filipino domestic workers as products needing
further processing before being exported to other countries.
Lack of language proficiency has also been a factor in situations of abuse.
Government employees explained they often received reports from domestic workers
who cited their own inability to handle their employers' language as the cause of
employers' rage. This is why language seminars have been introduced in the Reform
Package. Migrant women I interviewed emphasized that learning the language could be
an empowering tool, since it would allow them to better negotiate their employment
terms. I found however, that the curriculum included in language classes is far from
empowering. Due to the time limitations, the classes focus on basic communication skills
relevant to the domestic workers jobs. While the curriculum includes "expression of
apologies," it does not say anything about assertion ofthe worker's rights or relevant
sentences in case of an employer's sexual advances, or other critical situations. In fact,
many of the sentences being taught in the course are full of servile connotations: "I am
163
very sorry;" "I did not mean to do it;" "Forgive me;" "Pardon me;" "I will not do it
again;" "It was an accident;" "Thank you."
Similarly to the culture orientation, intersecting gender, class, and race ideologies
shape the language curriculum. Gender ideologies expect mothers and wives to be
abnegated and unconditional carers. They act to reinforce a racialized class position,
where subservient responses to conflict are presented as the ultimate, and only, means of
protection. For example, during one of the culture orientation seminars for the Middle
East, the facilitator told prospective migrants that if they wanted to finish their contract
they had to do whatever their employers told them to do. 182 The emphasis on
subservience is not new. While the language and culture orientation seminar is an
outcome of the recently passed Household Service Workers Reform Package, its
discourse has been part of government trainings for few years now. Concha, for example,
explained that when she took the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar back in the late
1990s, she was told "once they started to work they had to be kind, to be good and to put
up with everything.,,183 When asked what kinds of things were discussed in that seminar,
Coraz6n, another interviewee in Barcelona, explained that they were told to be obedient
and not hard-headed. 184 Other interviewees in Barcelona reported they were told in the
seminar that even if employers were not right, they should agree with him/her l85 . Such
curriculums normalize and actually promote racialized and feminized models of
behavior, where Filipino domestic workers overseas are encouraged (and expected) to
show servile attitudes.
Knowledge of cultural traditions is undoubtedly important in order for Filipino
women to adjust to living and working in different countries. The provision that makes
culture and language orientation mandatory and implicitly equals them to protection,
however, is oblivious to three facts: First, workers are often abused without "having
asked for it" by violating some kind of cultural norm. Second, even when they do behave
182 Fieldnotes, Manila, July 2007
183 Interview 4, Barcelona, Concha, November 2006
184 Interview 8, Barcelona, Coraz6n, January 2007
185 Interview 20, Barcelona, Paulita, March 2007
164
in a way their employers may misunderstand, they do not deserve to be abused. Third, no
cultural difference should be a valid explanation for workers' abuse. Therefore, though
the cultural element of the abuse is addressed by training Filipino women in cultural
differences prior to their deployment, there is nothing in the culture and language
orientation provision that addresses the fact that employers often feel entitled to harass
and abuse Filipino domestic workers. Would not it be interesting the Filipino domestic
workers learned how to demand the fulfillment of their contract in Arabic? Moreover,
given the multiplicity of seminars they need to go through, would not it be great if the
Philippine government offered compulsory self-defense classes? However, multiple
power dynamics taking place within the household as workplace go unaddressed. These
include, among others, her dependence on her employers' to keep legal status and to send
remittances homes, her overexposure to employers' control in the live-in arrangement, as
well as the isolation and limited autonomy that characterize domestic work. Further,
domestic workers in many countries are still perceived as an updated version of slaves.
When they are migrant workers, as it is the case with Filipino women, racial
constructions in receiving countries devalue them even more.
Abuse in the context under study is an outcome ofpower,- based on class, racial,
and gender- as well as cultural relations. These relations take different shape in different
contexts. The bottom line is, however, the Filipino migrant domestic workers'
experiences are characterized by dependency, subordination, precariousness, and even
de-humanization. While consideration of domestic work as slavery can, in some Middle
Eastern countries, be partially attributed to cultural and historical differences, a three day
long seminar on cultural traditions does not change the fact the many Filipino domestic
workers in those and other countries are treated as slaves. A better knowledge of the
traditions in the destination country may be helpful to obtain a better understanding of
the new surroundings, but such knowledge does not change the objective structural
conditions in which the workers often find themselves: they are low wage and invisible
subsidizers of the economy of dozens of countries. They occupy a subordinate class and
gender position as domestic workers, which, in combination with their racialization as
foreigners, makes them an easy target for abuse. Rosa, for example, was repeatedly
165
verbally abused by her second employer in San Jose, California. Her case presents a
double paradox: First, her abuse took place in the United States, supposedly the world
leader in democracy and human rights. Second, Rosa's employer was herself Filipina,
which problematizes the notion of cultural difference as the only source of abuse. Rosa's
employer seemed to think Rosa should be available for her 24 hours a day and 7 days a
week. Rather than respectfully treating her as a worker, she expected Rosa to put up with
verbal abuse and to let go of her limited labor rights.
A cultural orientation remains insufficient to protect Filipino migrant workers
unless cultural, social, and legal differences placing them in disadvantageous positions in
the receiving countries addressed and changed. Although it is true that gender relations,
and the power differences stemming from them, vary by country, the fact is that Filipino
domestic workers are often expected to behave subserviently, due to their different class
and ethnic position, and they become easy targets of sexual and other kinds of abuse.
Teaching them cultural norms as a protective measure does not recognize that power
dynamics are systemic to domestic work, and casts the worker sole responsible for her
own protection and abuse.
As the Philippine government often finds itself incapable of negotiating with
receiving countries, it does not empower women to negotiate with their employers either.
The Philippine state is close to powerless and unable to protect the workers it exports. It
expects the woman to reproduce in the private home the same kind of subservient
relationship it has at the inter-nation level. Global macro power inequalities are therefore
reflected in the micro-cosmos of the private household where migrant Filipino women
labor.
6.3.2. Professionalization of Migrant Domestic Workers
Consistent with RA8042, the Reform Package also states that before a domestic
worker can be deployed overseas, she must possess a Household Service Workers
National Competency 2 certificate ( Hereafter NCIl) (POEA 2006b; see also Appendix
4.3 ). The certificate attests to her possession of the following core skill competencies:
house cleaning, laundry and ironing, preparation of hot and cold meals, and provision of
166
hot and cold food and beverage services. In order to obtain the certificate, the workers
must go through a 3 to 4 hour long examination. Both private and TESDA assessors
conduct the assessment, which costs approximately P1,000 ($20). Because TESDA
cannot service the high number of domestic workers requiring training and assessment
every day, it is mostly private agencies the ones in charge of this task. According to
TESDA data, as of May 2,2007 there were 121 accredited assessment centers for
household service.
In order to obtain the certificate, unless they have experience doing household work
overseas, women are expected to go through compulsory training. Similarly to the
assessment process, TESDA cannot offer all the trainings, and private agencies are
increasingly specializing in this task. It is often the private recruiting agencies the ones
offering the trainings. As of December 2006, there were 54 training centers on household
work to prepare women for the Nell certificate, most of them private as weU186.
Although TESDA does not set the training cost, leaving this up to private training
centers, the prevailing fee for the required 216 hours of training ranges from PIO.OOO to
P15,000 ($200-$300) (POEA 2007). Some items included in the curriculum are the use
of appropriate cleaning equipment, supplies, and materials or maintain a clean and
sanitized environment (TESDA 2006).187
186 It was impossible for me to assess the exact number of legal and illegal centers since TESDA's data
showed that many of these centers' licenses were expired. I was not able to verify whether a more updated
data would show a renewal of licenses or whether TESDA was actually working with non-licensed
agencies. In addition, for obvious reasons, I was not able to quantify how many illegal agencies- that do not
appear in TESDA's lists- there are. I would venture to suggest that since the statistics on trainings centers
date from December'06 and the Reform Package was approved in March 2007, many more agencies, both
legal and illegal, have flourished since then.
187 The following are the expected learning outcomes from the course: Use of appropriate cleaning
equipment, supplies and materials; Clean surfaces, floors, furniture and fixtures; Make up beds and cots;
Clean toilet and bathroom; Clean kitchen area, utensils/table appointments and kitchen appliances; Provide
supplies for dining room, living room, bedroom and bathroom/toilet; Maintain clean and sanitize room
environment; Check And Sort Soiled Clothes, Linen And Fabric; Prepare Washing Equipment And
Supplies; Perform Laundry; Dry Clothes, Linen And Fabric; Iron Clothes, Linen And Fabric; Maintain
Regular Housekeeping And Maintenance Of Laundry Area And Equipment; Prepare ingredients according
to recipes; Check "Mise en Place"; Cook soup as per menu; Cook vegetable dishes as per recipe; Cook
meat/poultry, fish/seafood dishes as per culinary method; Cook egg dishes as per client's preference; Cook
pasta, grain and farinaceous dishes as per recipe; Garnish cooked dishes; Prepare appetizers as per
requirement or client's preference; Prepare sauces as per recipe; Prepare cold desserts; Prepare pastry
167
During my visit to PASEI training and assessment center I was given a tour around
the facilities and observed part of the assessment process. The building was divided into
multiple fully furnished kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, and so on. The
different rooms contained furniture and appliances the workers encounter in households
overseas. During few hours, the worker undergoing assessment is supposed to fulfill
several of the tasks included in the TESDA's curriculum. During my brief tour I could
see few workers being tested on cleaning the bathroom rapidly and using the right
products or setting the table in different ways depending on the occasion (i.e. formal
versus informal meals). One worker was asked to iron different types of fabric in a short
period of time. The assessor tested both her ability to iron a piece of cloth rightly and
quickly. The picture in Figure 4.2 was taken during my tour around the center while an
agency supervisor explained the assessment process to me:
Domestic Work Skill Assessment
desserts; Prepare sandwiches; Store dry and liquid ingredients; Prepare dining area; Set-up table; Serve
food and beverage; Clear table (TESDA 2006).
168
6.3.3. State Protection
Several government officials mentioned during interviews that the idea behind
implementing mandatory assessment is that improvement of workers' skills will help
protect them in the worksite overseas. As two government officials put it:
[Domestic helpers] are subject to maltreatment and abuse simply because they
cannot perform effectively the duties and functions of a domestic helper. It is
especially true with recruits coming from the provinces. They don't know how to
operate the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, and everything, and usually the
cont1ict will start there. But most of the trained qualified domestic helpers they
don't encounter this kind of abuse. So, to prevent abuses, maltreatment, we have
decided to train and assess them before allowing them to go overseas. 188
[W]e thought the Philippine government should take steps to enhance their
protection and welfare. The training requirement or their possession of the core
competencies is a good tool to protect them, because if you know what to do in the
household that you are going to serve, if you know how to go about doing your
daily routine, you know how to operate appliances, there's no reason for the
employer to abuse you. Many abuses have been committed against our women
because they didn't know how to work ... They would iron the back of the girl
because the girl didn't know how to iron the silk blouse ... ofthe employer and
the... welL .. while she was ironing it got burned, and ofcourse, the employer was
so angry that she took the iron and ironed the back of the worker. And many
instances happen because the girl doesn't know how to do the work. So, if you can
do your work, you are very comfortable with what you are doing, there is no reason
for the employer to abuse you. Maybe she'll even love you because you are doing
perfectly what she wants you to do, she'll be very happy with you. 189
The government argument about the need for training and assessment is twofold.
On the one hand, the first interviewee explains that particularly Filipino women coming
from the province lack sufficient knowledge on how to use certain appliances or fulfill
tasks the way they are done in the destination country. Given that household work in the
Philippines, particularly in the rural areas, is less "mechanized" than in many receiving
countries, teaching migrant women how to use appliances enhances their ability to
successfully complete their tasks according to their employers' expectations.
188 Interview 20, Philippines, Government Official, May 2007
189 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007 [emphasis added]
169
On the other hand, by equating skill enhancement with protection, the interviewees
state the lack of skills is the main reason why Filipino domestic workers overseas become
victims of abuse. The second interviewee, in relating the case of the Filipino woman in
Singapore whose back was brutally ironed as punishment for burning her employer's
outfit tells that, had the domestic worker known how to properly iron a silk blouse
without burning it, there would not have been any reason to punish her. This logic is
highly problematic, since it does not consider the power relations taking place in the
workplace. Gender, race, and class dynamics shape these power relations and often
justify the arbitrary use of violence.
The argument equating skills with protection, in fact, intersects with the discourse
promoting cultural sensitivity. Gender and racial ideologies viewed as roots of
exploitation are masked behind cultural and technical explanations. Part of the curriculum
to achieve a NC2 certificate is "right attitude." Similarly to the culture orientation, this
unit teaches and encourages behavior based on compliance toward and understanding of
employers' needs. Technical skills, cultural sensitivity, and submissive attitudes are all
changes that the worker needs to make. All of them are skills workers must acquire in
order to fit into the labor, gender, and racial expectations of the employer and to avoid
situations that, due to the same expectations, may lead to abuse:
[W]e prepare them, we teach them the right knowledge and attitude that a
household service worker must have. And we believe that if an individual is
properly equipped, educated, she will not be subjected to exploitation ... If she is
really capable and really competent, she will not be exploited by her employer ...
[and the right attitudes are] that you should be patient, you should be loving, you
should be understanding. Because we focus on cultural sensitivity in our training
and assessment programs. 190
The mandatory training that the Reform Package establishes reinforces the racial
and gender logic of subservience and denies the important role power plays in this
scenario. By correlating lack of skills with abuse, the government fails again to consider
the brutality, maliciousness, and arbitrariness that characterizes thousands of employers
190 Interview 16, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
170
and which, in fact, are endemic to the very structure of domestic work (See Tadiar 2002)
Furthermore, it contends the worker bears the whole responsibility to ensure her own
protection through the acquisition of technical skills and the adoption of submissive
attitudes. Exploitation is denied as a structural component to labor relations, since
"patient," "competent," and "capable" workers will not be exploited. These traits
characterize the ideal domestic worker as a hyper racialized and feminized being: it is her
smooth and invisible efficiency, her unconditional loyalty and patience, her lack of
complaints, and her multitasking what tum her into the ideal employee and grant them
protection from employers' anger at mistakes and challenges to the role. This resonates
habitual arguments that tell women who suffer domestic violence to be quiet and keep
their man happy as a way to avoid harm. It also reminds us of arguments telling
colonized people to surrender to avoid imperial violence. In an early 20th century
featuring a U.S. soldier to a Filipino indigenous leader after the Spanish-American War
and the subsequent transfer of the Philippines from Spain to the United States, the U.S.
soldier tell the Filipino man: "be good or you will be dead" (Ignacio et al. 2004). The
only way to avoid or mitigated colonial violence was often a submissive attitude.
This provision, in a nutshell, is another version of blame on the victim and,
therefore, ofthe award of immunity to the oppressor. This immunity is achieved by
invisibilizing, as I said earlier, the central role of power, which adopts gendered and
racialized shapes. Traits such as "loving," "understanding," and "patient" are all
characteristics usually associated with good mothers and wives on the one hand, and
model servants on the other. The message thus becomes that protection resides in
workers' ability to comply with gender roles, as well as with the racialized class position
of the submissive servant. It illustrates a grave failure on the part of the Philippine
government to acknowledge that labor relations are always shaped by power relations. As
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo states,
[W]orkers are subordinates in a relationship marked by asymmetries of race,
nationality, language, and class, unaccustomed to expressing face-to-face criticism
to a superior. In fact, they fear retribution for doing so" (2001: 129).
171
Labor relations, particularly those that take place in a private household, always
involve different and unequal access to power, resources, and support. In the case of
domestic work these asymmetries are intensified, since these often target their physical,
mental, and emotional wellbeing. Further, domestic work often involves the employer's
dehumanization of the worker. This often translates into arbitrary maltreatment. The
reason behind the maltreatment (i.e. the worker making a mistake) should be besides the
point. What matters is that employers feel entitled to use it. Like the domestic worker
quoted in the former chapter, right to love, to dignity, to respect, to physical safety, is
often absent for many migrant domestic workers. Granting these rights, which involves
recognizing their equality vis avis their employers as well as their humanity, should
come prior to any training or professionalization efforts. The feminization and
racialization that turn domestic workers into the "inferior others" need to be addressed
and, if needed, regulated, in order to convert workers, in the employers' eyes, into
deservers of minimum human rights.
Culture and ideology based on gendered, racial, and class stereotypes also favor the
view of domestic workers in many countries as non-productive laborers. As illustrated in
the previous chapter, Employment Laws in receiving countries often do not cover
domestic work. This triggers and encourages abusive and exploitative practices on the
part of the employers. While, as I just discussed, it is important to address micro power
dynamics taking place at the household level, biases happening at the state level, which
are at the root of under-regulation of reproductive labor, also need to be contested. Lack
of legal protection for immigrant domestic workers, thus, needs to be altered as well.
Receiving states will not have any legal authority to ask employers to end their abusive
treatment unless they accompany this request with legal improvements.
In a nutshell, the provision of skills as a means for protection does not address the
inequalities present in the current scenario for so many Filipino women, both at the
macro and the micro levels. It places the responsibility of the abuse on worker's inability
to do the work as it is expected from her. It blames the victim, and does not address the
employer's responsibility toward the woman working in their house neither does it
discuss the failure of sending and receiving states to intervene.
172
6.3.4. State Exaction
A constant question throughout all my interviews with Filipino migrant domestic
workers concerned the bureaucratic steps needed for them to leave the country legally as
migrant domestic workers. It was not possible to analyze all of these in-depth. My
inquiry about bureaucratic steps, however, provided me a good picture ofthe complexity
of the process. In addition, it also shed light, as discussed earlier, on the financial cost
that each of the steps imposes on migrants and showed that labor migration is indeed an
expensive process. Table 4.4 is a summary of the average expenses migrant women incur
prior to their deployment. It is based on data gathered in Spain, the United States, and the
Philippines. Besides each item I specify whether the expense women incur in results in
private or public revenue:
TABLE 4.4. Migration Expenses
Medical Examination: Pl,500-P3,000 ($30-$60) [Private Sector]
Birth Certificate: P150 ($3) [Government]
Passport: P500 ($10) [Government]
National Bureau of Intelligence Clearance: P70 ($1,40) [Government]
OWWA membership: Pl,250 ($25) [Government]
PhilHealth: P900 ($18) [Government]
POEA Fee: P5,000 ($100) [Government]
Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar: PI00 ($2) [Non-profit Sector]
Flight Ticket: P50,000 ($1,000) [Private Sector]
TOTAL: P59,470-60,970 ($1,189.40-1,219.40)
The training and assessment requirements of the Reform Package add even more
expenses to this list. Training fees run between PI O,OOO-P 15,000 ($200-$300) and
assessment usually costs P900 ($18). According to interviewees from migrant workers
organizations, and as domestic workers' protests upon the passage of the Reform Package
illustrate, the new training and assessment requirement imposes additional cost on the
worker. It also slows down her deployment, since rather than migrating right away, she
needs to go through several-week-Iong training. These difficulties become particularly
burdensome when potential migrants and their families must go into debt to pay all these
173
expenses. This means they need to reach their workplaces as soon as possible in order to
start sending remittances to their families. In many cases, the employers are not willing to
wait for Filipino workers to end their training and they hire women from other countries
instead:
[T]he main feature of that policy is actually ... another state exaction, because
another feature is requiring migrant workers to undergo training, retraining, and
assessment, and TESDA, which is the main attached agency of the DOLE,
responsible for training workers applying abroad, is collecting P 10,000, now.
[They] only have 21 training centers throughout the country, so [they gave opened]
up to the private companies, so private agencies putting up training centers, and the
agencies collect more than PI 0,000 ... So, the whole thing ofthe new policy
guidelines is actually how they can raise more revenues from the migrant
workers. 191
Regardless whether raising revenues was one of the motivations behind this reform,
it has been one of its outcomes. This favors both the government and the private sector,
since both ofthem have been collecting money through the newly approved training and
assessment. Thus, while workers' protection is the explicit motivation behind the skills
provision, this serves other interests as well. The additional taxation stemming from
compulsory training and assessment takes place in a context in which abuse is not
addressed as the employers' responsibility. According to the interviewee from a migrant
workers' organization, the training and assessment provision is not only blaming the
victim but is also further "taxing" her.
6.4. Minimum Age
The last reform the Package introduced is a new minimum age of 23 to be
deployed overseas as a domestic worker. 192 A document produced to inform parties
involved about the Reform reads:
191 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
192 POEA's 1994 Governing Board Resolution No 2 prescribed a minimum age of twenty-five years for
female household workers. In 1998, Governing Board Resolution No 5 lowered the minimum age to 21 for
all genders. This was further amended in 2001, when Governing Board Resolution of that year set the
minimum age of all workers deployed overseas to 18 (POEA 2006a).
174
The increase in age is expected to provide employers with better skilled and
physically and psychologically prepared HSW. It will ensure a higher level of
maturity and sense of responsibility of the worker in dealing with her employer and
toward her work. This will effectively reduce incidents of homesickness and
psychological unpreparedness of the worker which are often the causes of
"runaways" and contract pre-termination (POEA 2007a).
Several interviews with government employees and officials posited a correlation
between young age and vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. The older and more
experienced a worker was the more aware she would be of her rights and the more
patient she would be to put up with difficult situations.
The first problem with this rationale is that it makes a satisfactory work experience
dependent upon the skills, physical, and psychological preparedness, and the
responsibility ofthe worker, and does not address the role employers' actions and
attitudes may play. According to interviewees from migrant workers' organizations, by
presenting age as one of the factors behind overseas abuse, the government is indirectly
blaming abuse and runaways on workers' immaturity and inexperience rather than on the
employer or the government ofthe destination country.193 Regardless of age and
experience, however, the fact remains that overseas Filipino domestic workers find
themselves very frequently in difficult and even dangerous situations. These abuses and
dangers are often the result of unreasonable and exploitative employers and weak and
exclusionary labor laws in the destination country. To identify age as a factor behind
their difficulties overseas without addressing the private (employer) and public
(government) sectors in the destination country is insufficient and falls again into the trap
of blaming the victim. As I discuss below, this is one indicator that any political move
the Philippine government makes to protect its overseas workers needs to consider
employer-employee relations, the legal framework, and the political will in the
destination country in order to be effective.
Other opposition arguments against the age reduction provision have been
regarding the effects it will have on young Filipina's migration. While interviewees from
migrant workers' organizations welcomed the efforts to protect young women from the
193 Fieldnotes, Manila, June 2007
175
dangers involved in migration, they also complained that this provision would make it
impossible for young workers to migrate as domestic workers. This would translate in a
loss of economic opportunities for thousands of women, which in many cases would
have grave impacts on their households' economies. Consequently, given the prohibition
and similarly to what happened during Aquino's ban, migrant workers' organizations
argued that the age reduction would only promote undocumented migration in the long
run, since young women (aided by some agencies) would fake their age in order to work
overseas.
Finally, the age requirement stems from the gender differentiated policy making of
the Philippine government, since it only applies to domestic workers and these are
always women. Except in the case of civil wars and natural disasters, male Filipino
migrants are free to go to any country, and the minimum age required is 18. As Oishi
(2005) has argued, "state officials often explain this is because women need to be
"mature" if they are going to work abroad, in order to be able to protect themselves from
abuse and harassment" (61). Gender specific age requirements, therefore, assume women
are not as mature as men simply because they are women (Ibid.78). Even women with
education are considered "less mature" than younger men with no education. In
forwarding a "protection argument" to support this provision, the Philippine government
infantilizes Filipino women. While male migration is seen as purely economic, the
regulation of female migration is also based upon non-economic values and reproduces
gender stereotypes that fail to analyze the real roots of the abuse.
6.5. Targeting Employers and Receiving Countries
During my time in the Philippines public discussion about the Reform Package
centered on the changes imposed on migrant domestic workers. When I met with
government officials and representatives from non-profit organizations, they spoke about
these. When checking POEA website and newspaper articles, these were also the Reform
changes that were highlighted.
The only time a government interviewee mentioned reforms targeting was when
she told me of the introduction of stricter verification mechanisms to assess employers'
176
trustworthiness and likelihood to treat domestic workers properly. The Reform Package
requires that all future employers have to hold an interview with the Philippine Labor
Attache in their corresponding Embassy. Personally meeting employers and assessing
certain criteria such as track record, family income, number of family members to be
serviced, and compliance with the provisions of the contract, the Labor Attache should
be able to determine whether the household would be safe for the domestic worker. 194 I
also learned through migrant workers organizations' documents that employers would be
required to take the worker to the Philippine Embassy and to appear themselves when so
required. In addition, they are not allowed to keep workers' passport and are expected to
provide them with a separate sleeping room and a continuous 8-hour rest period.195
The Reform Package imposed similar pre-qualification conditions on foreign
placement agencies. These included attendance at an orientation seminar on Philippine
culture and policies, and on their responsibilities. They were also to commit to allow
workers to communicate freely with their families and the Philippine Embassy,
reporting, upon request, on the whereabouts or condition of domestic workers, taking,
when required, domestic workers to the Philippine Embassy, allowing the Philippine
Embassy to visit workers, and assisting the Philippine Embassy in resolving problems
(POEA 2006c; Fieldnotes, Manila, June 2007),196
Only one change affects Philippine recruitment agencies, but I find it particularly
relevant to understanding the motivations behind the Reform Package. POEA issued a
moratorium "in the issuance of new license using Domestic Work as its new market"
(POEA 2006c). This means that POEA decided to stop issuing licenses to agencies to
deploy domestic workers overseas. While other reforms in this package indirectly
impeded the deployment of domestic workers, such as the salary increase, this was the
only change that directly limited the deployment within the sector. I comment more on
194 Interview 1, Philippines, Government Official, April 2007
195 Fieldnotes, Manila June 2007
196 I never had the chance to ask any government representative about the reason behind imposing a culture
sensitivity orientation on the foreign placement agency and not to the employer, since the latter is who the
domestic worker is going to spend most time with and the Filipino worker herself is expected to go through
a culture orientation to facilitate the relationship with her employer.
177
this issue in subsequent sections. In addition, POEA said it would cancel licenses of
agencies found in violation of any regulation of the package (POEA 2006c). While this
provision was important, it did not add anything to the already existing language on
illegal recruitment in RA 8042. Nor did it specify mechanisms to be followed detect
agency or employer violations. Despite these shortcomings, though, reforms targeting
employers and recruitment agencies constituted important steps toward guaranteeing
more control over the whereabouts of migrant domestic workers and they demanded a
major commitment from both employers and foreign agencies to preserve workers' well
being. They also aimed to regulate privacy issues and to provide a minimum of non-
interrupted resting time.
Migrant workers organizations raised concerns about the ability of the government
to enact these changes on employers and agencies. During the Asian Domestic Workers
Assembly, which took place in June 2007 in Pasig City (Metro Manila), a representative
from the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA) presented the main elements of the
Reform Package to domestic workers and non-profit leaders from all over Asia.
According to her, while the Reform takes positive steps toward the improvement of
Filipino migrant domestic workers, her group had concerns about its outcomes. First, the
group felt strongly about the exclusion of migrant workers' organizations from the
design of this policy. While the Package was going to affect directly migrant workers,
these were excluded from the decision-making process. Their exclusion from bilateral
agreements deliberations has been common (Rodriguez 1999) and, according to the
representative from CMA and several of my interviewees, the same has been true with
this Reform Package. The second concern CMA presented was that country specificities,
such as local laws or customs, would increase the difficulty in implementing the Refornl
Package. In fact, as discussed in the previous chapter, receiving governments and
employers have consistently neglected and ignored some of RA 8042. The fact that the
Refornl Package did not involve receiving countries in the deliberations either, created
some questions around whether it would be honored. The last concern CMA raised, and
connected with the one just mentioned, was in regards the Reform Package
implementation and enforcement. Given their limited resources, it was not clear how
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different government agencies, both within the Philippines and in receiving countries,
were going to coordinate to make sure employers respected the new rules and, in the case
of violations, were penalized.
The Reform Package also included some recommendations for receiving
governments. These were the inclusion of domestic work in national labor and social
legislation, bilateral agreements on terms and conditions governing recruitment,
selection, and hiring of Filipino workers, adoption ofajointly approved Standard
Employment Contract, sharing of a database of workers' information, and the adoption
of the alternative "corporate servicing scheme" or live-out arrangement (POEA 2006c).
The first three ofthese recommendations (receiving countries regulation of
domestic work, creation of bilateral agreements, and approval of a standard contract)
were part ofRA 8042 since its inception birth and, due to an uneven playing field in the
international labor market, as well as illegal recruitment practices, did not translate into
comprehensive protection of migrant Filipino domestic workers. It is not clear how the
Reform Package will change this trend.
The other two provisions (creating a new data base and the adoption of live-out
arrangements for Filipino domestic workers) may be departures from the already existing
protective approaches and may offer potential for comprehensive protection of domestic
workers overseas. Sharing of a data base between the Philippines and the receiving
countries may facilitate the sharing of information and speed up government
intervention, particularly in a crisis context such as the Lebanon War. Success, however,
will depend on the existence of political will in the Philippines, but even more in
receiving countries. Finally, general adoption of "live-out" arrangements could address
some of the inherent problems of domestic work. Issues of lack of privacy, control of
movement, lack of adequate food, unreasonably long hours, and workers' maltreatment,
could be drastically ameliorated by allowing workers to work for a clearly stipulated
amount of time. This would allow a clearer boundary between work and non-work time
and deal with the conception of workers as slaves or property. In addition, and partially
stemming from these factors, it would recognize the domestic worker as a real person
with her own private time and space and, consequently, in control of her own existence.
179
In sum, a shift away from live-in toward live-out domestic work would substantially
contribute to the decommodification of Filipino domestic workers. The challenges of
enacting this shift, however, are considerable.
6.6. Current and Projected Outcomes
Once I moved beyond questioning interviewees about the particular provisions
contained in the Reform Package and started asking them about the outcomes and
motivations behind its passage, I sensed a qualitative shift in their responses. While a
higher protection of domestic workers explained all the provisions, the issue of
protection actually played a smaller role in the interviewees' discussion of both the
motivations and outcomes of the Reform Package. In this section I discuss some of the
current outcomes of the Reform Package, which were an increase of illegal recruitment
and an overall decrease of domestic workers migration. In the next section I discuss that,
while the state intent of the Reform Package was to enhance domestic workers'
protection, the actual motivations of the government to create it were more complex.
The first outcome I observed was the use of contract substitution and illegal
recruitment in general to avoid fulfillment of provisions such as the new minimum wage.
According to the representative of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, since the enactment
of the Reform Package, recruiters continued to deploy Filipino domestic workers using
other job categories (i.e. dressmakers) to avoid the minimum wage and the non-
recruitment fee provisions. Agencies also continued to deploy domestic workers using
tourist visas,197 which triggered an increase in undocumented and illegal migration. 198 In
addition, Asian Migration News wrote in November 2007 that some agencies had been
hiring cleaners with a monthly pay of US$268 who actually ended up as domestic
workers. Agencies had also been violating the government no-placement fee for
household service workers. 199
197 Fieldnotes, Pasig City, June 2007
198 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
199 Asian Migration News, Philippines Section, November 15,2007,
http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm. Accessed 2/29/08
180
The second outcome I registered was a decrease in job orders for domestic workers.
In late April 2007 POEA reported an 11 % drop in the deployment of Filipino migrant
workers for the first quarter of the year, compared to deployment in the same period of
2006. This decline was particularly notable in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which were
resisting the policy eliminating placement fees. Labor Secretary Arturo Brion attributed
this drop to the Reform Package, though he maintained that the decrease would only be
temporary. The recruitment industry responded that unless the new rules were removed
or revised, they would lead to virtual closure ofthe market for Filipino domestic
workers.2oo They claimed the new minimum salary would price Filipinas out of the
market, since very few employers would be willing to pay $400 a month.2°1 According to
a Migrant Workers Organization's representative:
I talked to some recruitment agencies and their recruitment was lowered to 50%, so
the host countries decided to divert their recruitment to Indonesians, Bangladeshies,
and it's more cheap than Filipinos.2°2
A couple of months after the implementation of the Reform Package Asian
Migration News continued to report a decrease in the deployment of Filipino migrant
workers. According to an anonymous recruitment industry leader, the deployment of
domestic workers in 2007 was not expected to reach even 50,000 due to the new
policy.2°3 In fact, only 6,602 domestic workers were (legally) deployed from January 1 to
August 13 of 2007. This figure equaled a little bit more than one-tenth of the 57,923
domestic workers deployed in the corresponding period of 2006.2°4 Further, Victor
200 Asian Migration News. Philippines Section. April 30. http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm.
Accessed 5114107
201 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007; Interview 22, Philippines, Private Agent,
June 2007
202 Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, May 2007
203 Asian Migration News. Philippines Section. July 15. http://www.smc.org.phlamnews/amnarch.htm.
Accessed 2/28108
204 Asian Migration News, Philippines Section, August 15, http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm.
Accessed 2/28107
181
Fernandez, president ofPASEI, predicted that the Reform Package would displace over
100,000 domestic workers in 2006 alone.2°5
While official deployment statistics are relatively easy to access in the Philippines,
the same is not the case with undocumented migration. This is not a problem unique to
the Philippines. Consequently, it is not possible to state whether the data indicating
deployment reduction represent an absolute decrease in domestic workers migration or
rather their resort to illegal migration. In my view, though it is very likely contract
substitution and misrepresentation have been one response to the higher standards the
Reform Package imposed, it is not likely that over 100,000 women left the country
bypassing government control in only few months. It is reasonable to conclude,
therefore, that within the first year of its passage the Reform Package led to a decrease in
deployment.
The generalization of illegal recruitment defeats the purpose of protection, which
was the main goal of the Reform Package. While it remains to be seen to what extent the
package will be effective in protecting migrant domestic workers, I have already stated
that it responded more to the need of the government to regain hegemony after the
Lebanon Crisis than to actually provide comprehensive protection. Also, the decreasing
deployment of domestic workers seems contradictory to the economic role migration has
had in the country and government promotion of migration in the past few decades. If, as
I have consistently argued, labor migration has a crucial role as a development strategy,
how can we make sense of a policy whose effect is the reduction of migration? Is this a
miscalculation of the Philippine government? Is the drop in the deployment an
unintended consequence of the package? What was the actual motivation behind the
passage of the Reform Package?
205 Asian Migration News. Philippines Section. November 15.
http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm. Accessed 2/28/08
182
6.7. Motivations Behind the Reform Package
As argued above, the main stated motivation behind the Household Service
Workers Reform Package was women's protection and further regulation of their
deployment through higher wages and elimination of placement fees. However, I suggest
that protection was not the only or even the main motivation behind the Reform Package.
The real motivation behind this reform was instead to gradually retreat from such a
problematic and controversial labor niche as domestic work, particularly in those
countries where abuse is more generalized. Given past experiences with deployment
bans, the government aimed to achieve the retreat without offending receiving countries.
Members of both migrant workers organizations and government employees told
me they were convinced the Reform Package responded to a clear intention on the part of
the Philippine government to "price itself out of the market because nobody will 'touch
you' with the $400.,,206 In other words, it aimed to make Filipino domestic workers so
expensive that no foreign employer would hire them.
When I asked a top DOLE official about the consequences of the Reform Package
in terms deployment of workers, his response was that the government was "preparing for
the disadvantages. Surely the deployment of domestic helpers will go down, but we are
not alarmed because I think that this is a positive thing.,,207 When I asked him if this
meant the Philippines was gradually retreating from the domestic worker global market,
he responded that the intention was to retreat from those countries where there are low
wages and abuse is high. My next question was, why did the Philippine government not
ban deployment to those countries instead? At that point the interviewee asked me to turn
the recorder off and said the government was afraid that a ban would trigger a backlash
from receiving countries. These, like in the past, could stop issuing visas for all Filipino
migrants or provoke trade disruptions. Given this history, the Reform Package was an
indirect way of exiting the domestic work market. Similarly, a top official from DFA
implied during our interview explained that the goal of the package was to price Filipino
206 Interview 4, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007; Interview 5, Philippines, Migrant Workers
Organization, May 2007; Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007.
207 Interview 20, Philippines, Government Official, June 2007.
183
domestic workers out of the market and rechannel Filipino migration into more skilled
work. This was to be done without using bans and without offending receiving
countries.208
Informal conversations with government employees who had previously been
stationed in foreign posts as welfare officers confirmed that the government was trying
both to move domestic workers away from "difficult countries" and redirect them into
higher skill occupations. They commented on how they had obtained information, right
after the Lebanon Crisis, that the President wanted "these domestic workers' welfare
cases" to end and that the government was making a shift toward deployment of skilled
workers overseas (Fieldnotes, Manila, June 2007). In addition, tired of the bad press
female abuse cases had been getting for decades and perhaps finally recognizing its
inability to stop them, the government was attempting to gradually stop the deployment
of domestic workers to countries where abuse and exploitation were more common.
Rather than banning their deployment, the government thought that substantially
increasing the minimum standards for the hire of Filipino domestic workers would
selectively maintain it both in countries that were already paying well above the
minimum (some Asian countries, Canada, Europe, and the United States) and countries
willing to raise domestic workers' salary to $400. According to a private recruitment
agent:
As far as my understanding is concerned, it is that [the Reform Package] is one
way, this is our government's way of saying no to deploying household workers.
Because they cannot use it the way they have used before a ban, because when you
ban, that's... you know, it's very undiplomatic, but when you rate... when you rate
or you impose regulations like that, which is mandatory, it is something that foreign
governments cannot say that it is undiplomatic. But the objective is really to cut or
to even stop deployment of household workers in the Middle East particularly,z°9
As a result of the minimum wage increase, countries unwilling to pay higher
salaries and accept the other conditions would most likely stop hiring Filipino domestic
workers. This would be their own decision rather than a reaction to a ban. The Reform
208 Interview 24, Philippines, Government Official, June 2004
209 Interview 23, Philippines, Private Agency, June 2007
184
Package is thus expected to achieve a double market shift. It is meant to re-direct
domestic workers to better paying and more "fair" countries, such as Canada, Spain, and
Japan, and it aims to shift, as much as possible, away from domestic toward higher
skilled labor sectors. According to a government employee, this would resolve the
multiple image problem of the Philippine government: It would save face with Philippine
civil society presenting itself as always working to safeguard migrant women's
wellbeing. This became particularly relevant in a context of a mid-term election, held
only two months after the full implementation of the Reform Package. Migrant workers
were allowed to vote from overseas for the first time in Philippine history. It would also
save face with receiving countries in Asia and the Middle East, since the Reform was
presented as a generalized protective and regulatory measure, without pointing the finger
at particular countries. Laughing, this interviewee explained that saving face is an Asian
thing and that "saving face is saving power." According to him, "for a country like the
Philippines, you cannot dictate to the world, you need the world. We are a poor people.
So we have to bend.',2]O His words were both a beautiful and a sad expression of power
and hierarchy in the current world order. As I argue in the next section, more than being
an "Asian thing," saving face may be, at the political and diplomatic level, the only way
poor countries can achieve gains or have leverage in the international arena.
7. Analysis and Conclusion
In early June 2007, the Philippine press published several articles warning of a
potential negative impact of the Reform Package. The Recruiters Committee of
Cooperation Council of the Arab States in the Gulf (GCC) announced after a meeting
that they would recommend their respective governments stop importing Filipino
workers until the new Philippine labor laws were clarified.2I I While they acknowledged
210 Interview 15, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
211 The GCC is a trade bloc involving six Arab Gulf countries with many economic and social objectives,
including the formulation of similar regulations in various fields such as economy, finance, trade, customs,
tourism, legislation, and administration. They also seek to encourage the cooperation between their
different private sectors. Created in 1981, the Council comprises the states ofBharain, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. A common market was launched by its members on
January 1,2008. The GCC area has one of the fastest growing economies in the world, mostly due to a
185
the Philippine government salary raise was intended to improve the standard of living of
its citizens, they protested the $13 daily penalty on foreign employers who would not pay
their workers on time and at the new minimum of $400 a month.212 While the minimum
salary regulations were not binding in any of the Gee six member countries, they were a
requisite these countries had to follow in order to continue to hire Filipino domestic
workers. Gee declarations acted as a reminder of the danger of political and economic
retaliation from receiving countries. The message it was sending was that if the
Philippine government insisted on raising the labor standards of Filipino domestic
workers they would stop hiring Filipino workers altogether. This threatened not only
domestic workers' jobs and remittances but also those of professionals and workers in
other sectors. One private recruitment agent expressed concern over the Gee
declarations:
In the surface [the Reform Package] is good, because it says that the government is
really looking after the welfare of domestic helpers. But if you look at the backlash
that there is going to be... it's going to be very difficult for some of our people.
Have you seen the news last Friday? The declaration of Gee? To even consider
banning the influx of all migrant workers in the Middle East... This is the backlash
that I am talking about and that my country has not studied well. Because that kind
of statement sends a very strong indication to our government, and I don't know
how tough the government will be if they are put to test. I am sure that they are
going to back down (...) How many millions of Filipinos work in the Middle East?
Now, tell me, can the government afford to lose millions of jobs? Where are they
going to put these millions of people?213
The interviewee's comment underscores the inability of the Philippine government
to impose labor standards on receiving countries. While the Reform Package constituted
a diplomatic way to regulate Filipino workers' overseas labor conditions without
boom in oil and natural gas, a building and investment boom, and oil revenues' savings. While the 2004
GDP per capita in the ASEAN region (to which the Philippines belongs) was of$4,044, it was of$14,949
in the Gee area. To put these figures in perspective, their equivalent in the European Union and the
NAFTA area were of$24,235 and $35,491 respectively (see CIA World Factbook 2005,
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html, accessed 3/5/2008).
212 According to POEA data, the six Gee member-states, as of December 2006, employ 435,190 Filipinos.
This breaks down into 223,459 in Saudi Arabia, 99,212 in UAE, 47,795 in Kuwait, 11,736 in Bahrain, and
7,071 in Oman (see http:www.migrantnews.blogspot.com. accessed 11/15/07).
213 Interview 23, Philippines, Private Agent, June 2007
186
imposing a ban, it seemed the outcome would resemble the effects bans had in the past.
Although government officials acknowledged the government didn't impose a direct ban
to prevent retaliation, they trusted that conversations with foreign agencies and officials
could convince them that the Reform Package was about protection and skill levels. The
latter, which are unique to Filipino domestic workers, should be rewarded with a higher
salary and other advantages. By the end of June of 2007 Asian Migration News reported
that labor officials in the Gee countries had not supported the Gee recruiters'
committee request for a ban on all Filipino migrant workers. But DOLE undersecretary
Arturo Brion also acknowledged that recruitment agencies in those countries were
checking out countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka, where salaries are much lower.214
While the long-term effects of the Reform Package remain to be seen, events up to
end of the 2007 prove those who predicted that the Philippine government would have to
back down wrong. The Philippine government appears to be standing strong against the
pressures coming from both Philippine and foreign recruiters and employers to revise the
salary and fee provisions of the Reform Package. This is undoubtedly good news for
labor sending countries, and may set a precedent whereby countries like the Philippines
have a say in their migrant workers' labor conditions. Despite its limited political and
economic power in the international arena, the Philippine government has managed to
find an effective way to influence the working conditions of its citizens overseas by
acting in a diplomatic way and using its bargaining power. This mainly resides in its
availability oftens of thousands of well-trained, English speaking, responsible, and loyal
domestic workers. In this sense the Reform Package decommodifies domestic workers
through further protections and rights while it simultaneously recommodifies them, since
the regulation is justified with the "added value" of skills215 that Filipino domestic
workers present in comparison with their counterparts from other sending countries.
214 Asian Migration News. Philippines Section. June 15,2007.
http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm. Accessed 3/5/08
215 Interview 24, Philippines, Government Official, June 2007
187
Nonetheless, the Reform Package does not address the structural factors behind
Filipino domestic workers abuse and hardships. Of this the Philippine government is
silent. The Reform Package does not discuss the issues of power and arbitrariness and
the way skills are introduced re-create racial and gender stereotypes and discourses in
problematic ways. They say Filipino women will make more money and will avoid
maltreatment by becoming more skilled and culturally sensitive. They also say that
higher paying jobs are safer and less likely to create abuse. Is this true, however? Why do
Filipino migrant domestic workers suffer abuse in the workplace? What are the power
dynamics taking place within the household that often trigger arbitrary violence and
dehumanization of the workers? What is the responsibility of receiving governments in
protecting migrant women through more comprehensive laws?
In addition, while the package constitutes a diplomatic way to end a migration
pattern that has brought vast harm to Filipino women and, consequently, has put
government legitimacy on the spot, numerous question marks about future responses to a
decreasing deployment of Filipino domestic workers remain. If the decrease in the
deployment of domestic workers continues, and given that the Philippine government
does not seem to be able to increase local employment opportunities in the short term,
what will happen to all the domestic workers returning to the Philippines due to the new
rules and to all those who will never be deployed in the first place?
As mentioned earlier, government employees and informants from migrant workers
organizations explained that "in a dialogue that we had with [POEA] administrator
Baldoz, she told us that they are reducing the number of domestic workers. The trend
now is to encourage Filipinos to work in a more high care skill, like nursing aid, and
caregivers... ,,216 Ranking officials shared that the hope was "high profile" markets, such
as Japan and Spain, would reabsorb the workers who lost their jobs in the Middle East
and Asia. These two countries, as well as Canada, were expressing a need for caregivers,
and the Philippines had many chances to provide them with these workers. Recently
216 Interview 21, Philippines, Migrant Workers Organization, June 2007; Interview 18, Philippines,
Government Employee, May 2007
188
signed agreements, such as Proyecto Piloto with Spain,217 work toward the formalization
of these transactions. The Philippine government perceived these new markets as being
safer for workers and as providing more remittance revenues, given the higher salaries.
Migrant workers' organizations and private agencies, however, received this
argument with skepticism. There are hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers in the
Middle East, and the restrictive nature of Spanish and Japanese immigration laws, as
well as the small size of these countries, will render the total relocation of Filipino
domestic workers formerly employed in the Middle East and Asia to Spain and Japan
unlikely. In fact, the hiring of caregivers in these two receiving countries has only taken
the shape of pilot programs limited so far to few dozen workers. In addition, both Spain
and Japan require Spanish and Japanese language proficiency and strong educational
backgrounds in caregiving. While Filipino domestic workers often present a high
educational profile, they have not necessarily been trained for in health and care. While
TESDA offers six-month long courses in caregiving, Spain and Japan have expressed
their preference for midwife, nursing, or physical therapy college graduates.218
As a consequence, I found a generalized perception among migrant workers'
organizations that the Philippine government actually is more concerned with the
maintenance and increase of remittances than with the preservation and creation of good
quality jobs. Although the Reform Package will bring a deployment decrease, if it
translates into more qualified better paying jobs, the deployment decrease will not affect
the remittance level. In other words, while the Package may have the effect of reducing
jobs it may increase income. Some evidence suggests this is occurring: despite lower
deployment in 2007, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas reported remittances for the first
eight months of the year reached US$9.3 billion, a 15.3% increase compared to the same
period in 2006.119 While the Reform Package does not seem as if it will alter the inflow
217 Proyecto Pilato, is a Memorandum of Agreement signed in June 2006 between the Spanish and the
Philippine governments to pave the way for the entry of Filipino caregivers to Spain.
218 Interview 23, Philippines, Private Agency, June 2007
219 Asian Migration News. Philippines Section. October 31,2007.
http://www.smc.org.ph/amnews/amnarch.htm. Accessed 3/5/08
189
of remittances, it is not clear what its effects on Filipino women's overseas employment
are going to be. In addition, migrant workers' organizations have repeatedly complained
that the Reform Package will be ineffective in raising labor standards and provide
protection to Filipino domestic workers unless the Philippine government considers the
structural factors behind migration and migrant women's abuse. This would require three
major political actions:
First, the deployment of domestic workers to those countries where workers' rights
are frequently being violated must be stopped. Typically, these are countries where
domestic labor is not legally or culturally considered "real" work. This, as I discussed, is
easier said than done. Banning migration may have the effect of increasing
undocumented migration and therefore increasing the number of workers in precarious
and vulnerable situations. In addition, based on past experiences, the Philippine
government fears the political and economic consequences stemming from such a ban,
which could translate into the cancellation of visas for all Filipino workers, as well as
trade, investment, and economic aid retaliation. This again illustrates how the Philippine
government must consider whether any effort to protect its workers may backfire in such
ways. Whether it can stand up to external political and economic pressures will be a
political decision based upon a clear definition of priorities.
Second, the Philippine government must aggressively and openly advocate for
major changes in labor and immigration laws of receiving countries. A great deal of the
Reform Package has been made into an issue of the personal responsibility of the
domestic workers and indirectly blames them for their own maltreatment and
exploitation due to their lack of maturity or skills. Factors in both the employer-
employee relationship and the legal bodies of the destination countries, however, create
and reproduce power differentials based on, class, race, and gender. Reproductive labor
is not considered real work and domestic workers are often not treated as real workers
entitled to certain rights and regulations. Therefore, governments subsidize the cost of
reproductive labor, which I see as the keystone of the productive economy, through
allowing low wages and insufficiently protecting the workers' rights and welfare. Any
attempt on the part of the Philippine government to address this must include
190
negotiations with both the private and public sectors in the receiving countries. Since
they are currently part of the problem, they should also be part of the solution. The
Philippine government should also collaborate with other sending countries currently
deploying domestic workers. If all supplying countries raise the standards as a block,
receiving countries will not have a choice but to make improvements. Raising the
standards of all main providers of paid reproductive labor would prevent any nationality
from being excluded from the sector and would slow down the "race to the bottom."
Rather, than increase the value of its women, thus, the Philippine government should be
working for the protection of and respect for all migrant domestic workers. All these
efforts could take the form of bilateral agreements as well as multilateral treaties that do
provide actual protection and are a result from a serious commitment of all governments
to improve the conditions of migrant women.
Third, it does not make political sense to make Filipino women overseas
employment difficult when the Filipino government is not in a position to provide jobs at
home. The Philippine government must plan for economic development and job creation
so that the Philippine economy becomes less dependent on migrant workers' remittances
to stay afloat. This may actually require a shift of economic paradigm and would not be
easy to do unilaterally, but it would not be the first time an underdeveloped country takes
a stand against the international capitalist order. The current paradigm, based on austerity
programs and dependent trade and economic relations with other countries, has failed to
create jobs in the country and to raise Filipino people's living standards. By adopting this
paradigm, the Philippine government has become dependent on the economic and
political decisions of other countries and has consistently failed and deceived its citizens
through the lack of a sound economic policy that favors the creation of good quality jobs,
attends people's basic needs, and makes, overall, the Philippines a desirable place to live.
This has provoked the migration of millions of Filipino people, the majority being
women.
In order to halt Filipinos' tendency to migrate overseas, the Philippine government
will need to think and act outside the economic and political paradigm that forced it to
export its people to begin with. This may involve deep reforms in the countryside and
191
economic policy that emphasize food crops for local consumption and a more just
distribution of land ownership. This should run parallel to substantial public investment
to update farming techniques and make local agriculture more productive. It may also
involve a major shift in its investment priorities. Rather than supporting the U.S. in its
global war on terror, the Philippine government should be allocating more resources to
public services and infrastructure and supporting local economic initiatives which,
besides energizing the Philippine economy, could lead into the creation of local jobs.
People currently leave because there is no hope for them in their country. As I have
discussed throughout the past two Chapters, they usually pay a high price for leaving. If
the Philippine government really wants to protect its women, it should seriously start
thinking about better and more sustainable ways to keep them home. Save-facing
reforms and token policies to save hegemony will not do.
192
CHAPTER V
ENTERING THE COUNTRY I: SPANISH AND U.S. IMMIGRATION
LAWS AND FILIPINA MIGRATION TO THESE COUNTRIES
[With immigration] the government saves resources that should be allocated
towards solutions for families: assisting those with dependent relatives, promoting
women's incorporation into the labor market, guaranteeing the reconciliation
between work and family life, women being able to take care of their children... of
the elderly... Many women have to leave their job after certain age to take care of
their parents or grandparents in their own home. Somehow, immigration has served
to cover these social services that should have been guaranteed by the government
to begin with. If you have a dependent relative, the government should provide you
with a person that goes to your house to take care of them. It should not be you who
has to hire an Ecuadorian to take are of the elder; there should be vacancies in
public retirement homes if you cannot have your relative in your own house. But
public homes are overcrowded and the private ones are excessively expensive. In
this sense [immigration] has a palliative function for the government, since, as long
as there is undocumented immigration, they do not need to allocate resources. I
think that all this is very related ... Maybe this was not the intended goal, but if it
happens, then the government takes advantage of it, right? Regarding women's
incorporation into the labor market, since someone needs to do the housework...
the patriarchal model has not changed. The only way for Spanish women to join the
labor market is that non-European women do the tasks that the former used to do.
This is because the system does not allow for conciliation between labor and
household tasks. We do so by importing other women who do the [house] work of
Spanish women who want to work... all is part of the same package... and
obviously the state is saving money, resources that should be going toward social
welfare. And at the same time, the[the government] justifies that lack of resources
saying that immigrants are using them up... If you see the "other" as a danger for
your welfare, for your cultural identity, for your language, for whatever it is, it is
easier to accept that they have more restrictive conditions, that they are legally
inferior, that they cannot vote, because if things are like this, there must be a good
reason, right? I mean that all this is a quite complex ideological construct.
Regarding immigration, discussions are always posed in terms of black and white,
193
too simple, too simplistic.. But the issue is so complex that we need to be more
fl · 220re ectIve ...
1. Preface
In the first three chapters of this study I undertook an analysis of some of the
political-economic conditions in the Philippines that help to explain the generalization of
labor migration in that country. I also discussed some of the most recent political reforms
the Philippine state has made, and reflected on the consequences of these for Filipina
migrant workers. The institutionalization and increase of Philippine migration needs to be
understood in a context of long-term colonial relations with Spain and, particularly, with
the United States and the neoliberal reforms enacted in the Global South in the past few
decades. Despite that Philippine migration in the early 20th century was almost
exclusively to the United States, POEA reports that Filipino migrant workers are
currently in more than 190 countries in the world. My in-depth interviews with Filipino
women in both Spain and in the United States indicate that they have relatives working in
the following countries: The United States, England, Canada, China, Saudi Arabia, Japan,
Italy, Israel, Australia, Germany, Austria, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria,
Singapore, France, and Spain. My interviewees' responses illustrate the important
dimension of current Filipino and Filipina migration, both in terms of its numbers and its
variety.
Another goal I had in the first chapters was to discuss some of the difficulties the
Philippine government has had to provide protections to overseas workers and the
resulting legitimacy crisis of the government migration program. Yet, an analysis that
challenges Philippine massive labor migration, must also question the reasons behind
their departure and the role the government has in this process. So far labor migration has
not proven a sustainable development strategy, and its continuation sheds light on the
stagnation of the Philippines economy, as well as the inability of the government to come
up with political proposals not based on the export of cheap local resources, including
220 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2006. Original interview conducted in
Spanish. My translation.
194
labor. I predict, along with many of my interviewees in the Philippines and critical
scholars of Filipino migration, that Philippine migration will not end unless the
government takes responsibility to conduct people-centered policies and end its
dependency and sub-alternate position to (neo) imperial countries. Although this is not an
easy endeavor, it will be a crucial factor for enacting profound change on the Philippine
socio-economic structure and its rampant inequalities.
As important as the "sending context" is, however, it is not possible to reach a
holistic understanding of Filipino women's migration without examining what takes
place in their destination countries. In the following four chapters I focus my analysis on
the U.S. and Spanish political context. My goal is to elucidate some of the ways in which
these two states shape three social scenarios I think are key to understand Filipino
women's migration there: 1) the role of the U.S. and Spanish states vis-a.-vis an
increasing "care void" that creates a need for paid reproductive workers; 2) the role their
immigration polices have in transferring reproductive labor from the Philippines to these
two countries and; 3) the degree of protection Filipino domestic workers have under
employment law in both countries.
By focusing on these scenarios I suggest a transnational approach to immigration
studies cannot be limited to understanding the social networks migrants establish across
borders in the form of remittances or civic participation, or what I see as micro-
transnationalism. While I definitely think that migrants' transnational practices are worth
our attention, I am particularly interested in understanding what transnationalism looks
like from above or, in other words, how sending and receiving states shape migrant
women's experiences. Thus, I ask what is happening at the state level that Filipino
women both in Spain and the United States often find themselves with precarious legal
status and occupying marginalized and vulnerable socio-economic positions. Chapters V,
VI, VII, and VIII aim to answer this question.
Also in Chapters II, III, and IV I illustrated and discussed the main challenges the
Philippine government faces in regulating Filipino women's entry and work in Asian and
the Middle East. Immigration scholars have classified these regions as the most
restrictive in terms of immigration and employment laws. During my time in the
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Philippines, government officials, as well as most migrant workers' organizations,
insisted that neither Spain nor the United States present significant problems as
destination countries for Filipino women. While there was a generalized acknowledgment
of the restrictive nature of Spanish and U.S. immigration laws, according to most
interviewees, once a Filipino manages to enter Europe or the United States, the problems
end:
The challenges for [domestic workers] in Europe [are] ... how to get in to Europe
[laughs]. But when you are there there's no problem there. Even if you work as a
domestic worker your life is happy, your life is protected, even if you work
illega1[ly] you can earn money there. So that's the reason why everybody wants to
go to Europe, because of that, because even if you are illegal, you can still earn,
with the promise that sooner or latter you will be legal or documented, or even
Spain will give amnesty, you have this amnesty... for foreign workers.
In the United States is the same thing. [Although they have no amnesty] but then
you can work as a TnT,221 you know? They can manage; they can send a lot of
money to the Philippines. Even if they are TnTs, they are better off than in the
Middle East. [It's better to be a TnT in the United States than to be] in the Middle
East with a contract. [In the Middle East it is easier] to be exploited, to have a
harder time. The challenge is to enter Europe or the United States.222
A comparison of U.S. and Spanish immigration and employment laws with those in
Middle Eastern countries sheds light on more comprehensive protections for labor,
including female labor, in the two Western countries. Filipino workers migrate to Middle
Eastern and Asian countries as flexible laborers on contracts of limited duration. They are
seen as merely labor and their incorporation into the receiving societies is not expected
and, often, not even allowed.
I do not challenge the fact that Filipino migrant workers find the most difficulties in
countries such as Saudi Arabia. Yet, the fact that the U.S. and Spain recognize more labor
and social rights for immigrants should not lead us to romanticize Filipino migrants' ,
221 TnT stands for Tago nang Tago which, in Tagalog, means "always hiding." This is a common term
among Filipinos in the United States to refer to undocumented Filipinos. I want to kindly thank Maria
Hwang and my interviewee and friend Maria for their help with translation and Tagalog classes.
222 Interview 2, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
196
particularly women', experiences in those countries. Western countries, including Spain
and the United States present increasingly restrictive immigration policies, which
substantially limit the legal entry of non-nationals. In addition, while it is true that labor
law in these countries tends to be more comprehensive than in Asia, an examination of
their regulation of reproductive labor, particularly when migrant women conduct it,
reminds us that reproductive workers enjoy less rights than workers from other labor
sectors.
2. Introduction
Both Spain and the United States have found themselves in need for reproductive
workers in the past few decades. Since Spanish and (often White) U.S. women are unable
and/or unwilling to conduct these tasks, and because both governments fail to support the
"care void" that women's absence from the household has created, both Spain and the
United States have resorted to the cheap work of poor immigrant women of color. In this
chapter I outline Spanish and U.S. immigration law in the past few decades in order to
answer the following question: How are the Spanish and U.S. governments regulating the
transfer of reproductive labor from the Third World, particularly the Philippines, to their
countries?
The attitudes of receiving states toward immigration are key to understand the
conditions under which immigrant incorporation in the destination society occurs. Thus,
an examination of Spanish and U.S. immigration policies is essential to shed light on how
immigrants enter receiving countries and the conditions under which they join the new
labor market (See Cach6n 1995; Parella 2003). According to Calavita (2005a; 2005b),
with regards with immigration regulation, the state acts following contradictory interests.
While on the one hand it works to provide the economy with the flexible labor force it
needs, on the other hand it must seek legitimacy among the public and avoid excessive
competition between the foreign and national workforces. My research suggests this often
results in contradictory and unrealistic policies that, rather than having at their heart the
interests and well-being of immigrant people, place them in marginal and vulnerable
situations.
197
After reviewing U.S. and Spanish immigration law I give a historical account of
Filipino migration to these two countries. As my analysis shows, the colonial relationship
the Philippines has had with Spain and the U.S. has shaped Filipino migration flows to
these two countries. Even after formal colonial ties ended, Filipinos and Filipinas have
continued to provide them with cheap and flexible labor. Both my policy analysis and my
description of Filipino historical migration to both receiving countries create the context
for Chapter VI, which focuses on how Filipino women currently experience immigration
law in the United States and Spain.
3. Socio-Economic Context: The Creation of a "Care Void"
While I perceive institutional processes as having an essential role in the
configuration of migration dynamics, these need to be understood within a larger social
context, which includes changes in the labor market and in family relations. In this
section I overview the social context in which we need to understand U.S. and Spanish
immigration law and Filipino women's migration to both countries.
Feminist authors argue that gender relations organize immigration patterns. One
way in which this happens is when a country has a significant demand for "female." As
women have joined the paid workforce, they have increasingly refused- or been unable-
to continue to be responsible for reproductive tasks in the home. This has resulted in an
extemalization of reproductive responsibilities and, given insufficient state support and
the refusal of many men and business to participate in reproductive work, women have
resorted to the market- and more often than not to immigrant women- to make sure
reproductive tasks continue to be fulfilled. Spain and the United States present many
similarities, as well as some differences, in how this has occurred.
First, for the past three decades, the incorporation of Spanish women into the labor
market has taken a place in the context of the rapid aging of the Spanish population, one
of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and the decline of the traditional Spanish
extended family (See Boyle 2002). In comparison to other European countries and in the
context of neoliberal calls for fiscal surplus, Spain has a weak welfare state that expects
families- and within them women- to cater to the needs of children, the ill, and the elderly
198
(Esping-Andersen 2000) and to be in charge of housekeeping tasks. When women have
started to join men in the paid labor force, the Spanish government has generally not
provided support through services to fill the "care void" created at home. Instead, it has
privatized the solution, by facilitating the market substitution of Spanish women's
reproductive labor with the remunerated work of immigrant women.
Second, in the past few years, cities like Madrid and Barcelona have seen the
upper-classes go back to hiring live-in domestic workers as a status and ostentation
symbol (See Misra and King 2005; Phizacklea 1998). In the past it was rural Spanish
women who used to do these jobs. More recently, these have shown a preference for
factory or other kinds of service work (See Castello 2007; Martinez Veiga 2004).
These two processes have created "an increasing structural reliance on mostly
female domestic and care workers from poor countries" (Misra and King 2005: 22). The
presence of immigrant women as domestic workers has been one of the main features of
migration flows toward Southern Europe, including Spain (Zontini 2002; 2004).
Immigrant women constitute a flexible and cheap labor force for the domestic service
sector and have occupied the lower echelons of the Spanish labor market, which is
becoming increasingly racially segregated (Anthias and Yuval-Davies 1992; Arango
2007; Escriva 2000). Whether due to demand by the Spanish urban upper classes or to
replace working and middle class working women at home, immigrant women have
responded to the demand for reproductive laborers in Spain. This trend has created
opportunities to migrate to Spain and has resulted in the feminization of migration flows
to this country. Immigrant women's reproductive labor in Spain masks, and therefore
leaves unresolved, the sexual division of labor within Spanish households.
The situation in the United States is very similar. An increased employment of
women has paralleled an aging of the population and a scarcity of childcare centers in the
country (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001). Economic restructuring since the 1970s has created
the emergence in "global cities" such as New York of a highly remunerated professional
class which needs low skill service workers to cook for them, take care of their children,
on clear their office buildings (Sassen 1991). While the fonner require paid reproductive
labor to avoid or mitigate the "double shift," the latter want to obtain more free time for
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leisure and other activities. Both groups have resorted to immigrant women of color to
fill their different needs. While Spanish immigration law has explicitly recognized a need
for this labor and facilitated the immigration of reproductive workers, the U.S.
government, for the most part, has not. Despite this, it is mostly immigrant women who
conduct remunerated reproductive tasks in both places.
A key difference between Spain and the United States is the role race has had in the
replacement oflocal women's reproductive tasks with immigrant women's labor. Spanish
poor rural women used to do domestic work in that country. They would move to the city
at a young age and work as live-in domestic workers until they married. Since the 1960s
these women have moved into other labor sectors, such as factory or service work. In this
way, Spain has witnessed the racialization of the domestic work sector. While this
racialization is a relatively recent phenomenon in Spain, in the U.S. women of color have
historically occupied positions in reproductive work. Initially conducted almost
exclusively by African American women, domestic work in the U.S. has also been
conducted by Mexican and Asian immigrant women (Glenn 1981; 1985; 1992). More
recently, undocumented immigrant women have severely concentrated in the domestic
and care work sector in the United States (Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001).
Despite these differences, immigrant care and domestic labor has strong similarities
in both countries: precariousness, flexibility, invisibility, and low wages, among others.
The fact that immigrant women of color have such a strong presence within reproductive
labor makes it necessary to undertake an analysis of its regulation, both by immigration
and employment legislation. In the current Chapter and in Chapter VI I do this by
addressing the following questions: What legal framework does the state provide to
facilitate the commodification· of reproductive work? How does the state regulate the
entry of the reproductive labor force? How do these regulations differ between Spain and
the United States?
This Chapter provides the policy and historical framework to help answer these
questions, and Chapter VI focuses on how policy has affected immigrant Filipinas and
the strategies they have followed to enter both countries.
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4. Spain and the Import of Domestic Workers
After a century of emigration toward America and Northern Europe, Spain has
recently become an immigrant receiving country223 (Battistella 1995; Escriva 2000; Misra
and King 2005). The shift took place in the 1980s (Kofman 1999), and immigrant flows
have multiplied since then224 (Arango 2000; Baldwin-Edwards 2002). Spain has recently
received the second largest number of immigrants in the world. Only the U.S. has higher
figures. In 2006 the number of immigrants in Spain was 4,226,000. This presents a
marked contrast with the 1999 figure, which was of 801,332 (Caste1l6 2007).
Some of the main traits of migration to Spain have been 1) the heterogeneity of
immigrant nationalities, 2) gender asymmetry, where, depending on the country of origin,
flows have been predominantly male or female, 3) increasingly feminized immigration
flows, and 4) high numbers of clandestine or undocumented immigration. Due to the
large infonnal economy in the country, as well as some challenges Spanish immigration
policy poses, immigrants have been concentrated in low-skill and infonnallabor sectors
(Arango and lachimowicz 2005). These include agriculture, construction, industry,
tourism and catering, and domestic labor. All these sectors consist of low-paid, marginal,
and exploitative jobs that lead to social exclusion (Misra and King 2005; Pascual de Sans
223 According to a 1968 article in La Vanguardia, one of the main Spanish newspapers, that year there were
almost 2,500,000 Spanish migrants in several destination countries: 86,000 in Switzerland, 121,000 in
Germany, 18,000 in Holland, 36,000 in Belgium, 18,000 in England, 800,000 in France, 22,000 in Canada,
60,000 in the United States, 120,000 in Cuba, 300,000 in Venezuela, 31,000 in Chile, and 1,000,000 in
Argentina. Ironically interesting for the discussion that I conduct in this chapter, there were 22% more of
Spanish female migrants than men. The majority of the overall flows were concentrated in the construction
and domestic work sectors (La Vanguardia, November 30, 1968, by Carmen de las Casas). Thus, as I
discuss below, in a couple of decades Spain shifted from being an "exporter" of domestic workers to
"importing" them.
224 The official number oflegal immigrants in Spain at the end of 1997 was 610,000. The equivalent figure
at the end of 1993 had been 430,000 and 500,000 at the end of 1995 (see Arango 2000). According to
Baldwin-Edwards (2002), the figure for 2000 was nearly one million. The number oflegal foreign residents
in Spain rose from fewer than 250,000 in 1985 to over 1.2 million in 2002 to more than 1.6 million by
2004. In addition, with just 11 % of the EU population, Spain currently receives an estimated 22% of its
immigrants (Calavita 2005). The Spanish media currently talk about the presence of4 million immigrants,
both legal and illegal, in the country. 20% of these are in Barcelona.
201
and Solana 2000). Conversely, Spaniards tend to concentrate in the formal sector
characterized by higher paid and skilled jobs225 (Moreno 2005).
4.1. Ley de Extranjer{a: Only Immigrant Workers are Real Immigrants
Immigration legislation in Spain almost preceded immigration itself. Basic
immigration policy was created only in the mid 1980s, before immigration started
attracting the attention of institutions and the public.226 The first immigration law (Ley de
Extranjeria) was crafted in 1985 in the context of updating the 1978 Constitution and,
more importantly, was a requisite European countries imposed for accepting Spain into
the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986. According to Arango (2000),
European countries had been erecting migration barriers since the mid 1970s and were
worried about the laxity of Spanish immigration controls. Given the geographic location
of Spain, the Ley de Extranjeria "placed [it] in the role of gatekeeper of the EEC's
Southern border, leaving unresolved the issues arising from the presence of a growing
immigrant population living and working in Spain" (Moreno 2005:12). In addition, while
the incorporation of Spain into the European Community opened the doors to European
goods, capital, and people, it closed them to non-European Union citizens.
The initial Ley de Extranjeria was limited in scope and restrictive, focusing
particularly on administrative issues such as entry, residence and work permits, and
repatriation, disregarding other issues such as integration or family reunification (Ibid.,
265; Moreno 2005). Immigration was mainly seen in terms of national labor needs, and
only those workers that the economy needed were allowed to enter the country
(Battistella 1995). According to Mestre (1999), the regulation of the entry of a foreign
labor force rather than facilitating their integration has characterized Spanish immigration
law since the beginning. Immigrants are supposed to fill gaps in the labor market and
their stay in Spain was initially thought to be temporary.
225 Spanish underground economy is among the largest in the context of the European Union. In 2003 it
constituted 22% of the country's GDP and was only overcome by Italy (27,1%) and Greece (28,7%)
(Moreno 2005).
226 Ley Orgimica 7/1985 sabre los derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en Espana (LOE).
202
Since its enactment in the mid 1980s, the guiding principle of the law has been the
preference for natives in the filling of vacancies and the protection of the domestic labor
market against foreign job seekers (Ague10 Navarro 2003). This principle is both
politically and socially relevant given the high unemployment rates in Spain in the 1980s
and 1990s (Cornelius 2004; Pascual de Sans and Solana 2000). Although the
unemployment rate has recently decreased and was 8.3% in 2007, it had been as high as
21.6% in 1986 and 24.2% in 1994 (Stoyanova 2006). High unemployment rates have
made it necessary for the state to adopt measures to protect "Spanish labor."
It is important to keep in mind that the labor sectors immigrant workers occupy,
demand labor not because there are no people available in Spain for these jobs but
because, due to their precarious conditions, Spaniards are not willing to do them.
Immigrant workers, thus, are complementing, rather than replacing, Spanish laborers (see
L6pez Sala 2005), and are associated to certain jobs, such as agriculture and domestic
work. Given the close ties between immigration policy and the Spanish labor market, it is
reasonable to suggest that this segregation and marginalization have been state
sanctioned.
The Ley de Extranjeria requires immigrants to obtain a work and a residence permit
of limited duration. Residence permits are initially valid for one year and can be renewed
twice into two-year-Iong residence permits. After five years they can eventually become
permanent. It is only upon the acquisition of permanent residence that an immigrant can
take any job without a work permit. Renewal of the residence always requires a work
contract, which, in turn, is required to obtain a work permit. I include in table 5.1 the
three different categories of work permits. They have certain limitations based on
economic activity and geographic location:
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TABLE 5.1. Work permits
The possession of a work contract is essential since an immigrant's presence in
Spain is justified because he or she is productive rather than a burden or a potential cause
of social conflict. Immigration law in Spain is built upon the same premise as its welfare
state, which gives social rights only to those who work and pay taxes. While in the
context of the welfare state this has had an important impact on women, in the context of
immigration it dramatically affects immigrants (Mestre 2001). Given the high
concentration of immigrant workers in the informal economy, where there is usually no
formal or written contract, immigrant workers in Spain face difficulties maintaining legal
status (See Mestre 1999).
The law also expects immigrant workers to obtain ajob offer when they are still in
their country of origin so that they can obtain a residence and work permit as soon as they
enter Spain. This mechanism is rarely followed, however. Rather, immigrants usually
enter Spain on a tourist visa or clandestinely. The law, however, did not initially provide
any mechanism for workers to acquire legal residence once they found themselves in
Spain with undocumented status. The obligation of continual possession of a work
contract in order to maintain legal residence and work permits and the requirement to
have ajob offer before arriving in Spain yet have triggered an increase of the
undocumented immigrant population in Spain since the 1980s.
By the late 1980s and the early 1990s government officials realized Spain was
becoming an immigration receiving country and saw the need for a comprehensive
immigration policy that addressed the existence of an increasing pool of undocumented
204
immigrants (Parella 2003). In 1991 the government enacted an amnesty or regularization
process for immigrant workers only, which resulted in the award of over 100,000 work
and residence permits to undocumented workers already residing in Spain. This process
revealed growing diversification of immigrants in terms of their country of origin. In
addition, the fact that the largest number of work permits granted to legalized migrants
went to domestic service providers also showed the important presence of working
immigrant women, many of them independent and unaccompanied by relatives227 (See
Arango 2000; Cornelius 2004).
Also in 1991 the government established a yearly labor entry quota allocating visas
to specific labor sectors and nationalities. The quota systems was aimed at satisfying the
demand in domestic service, construction, and agriculture sectors and halt a mismatch
between work permits and unfilled vacancies. The goal of the quota was also to
ameliorate undocumented immigration. It allowed for an annual allocation of 20,000 to
40,000 work permits. While this was meant to provide visas to immigrants still residing
in their countries of origin and who had ajob offer from a Spanish employer, it was
undocumented immigrants already residing in Spain who used this venue to become
documented. They would find a Spanish employer willing to offer them ajob and would
use the quotas to legalize their status. The quotas ended up becoming a non-official
legalization mechanism. According to Moreno,
This system did not accomplish its original objective of regulating and controlling
the inflows of immigrants, but it provided the unskilled labor demanded by certain
sectors of the Spanish economy, while it simultaneously helped to gradually bring
to the surface the stocks of undocumented immigrants otherwise condemned to
work in the underground economy (2005: 19).
227 In 1999, out of 199,753 work permits issued to foreigners in Spain, 116,814 were given to the service sector.
This constituted 58.5 % of the total work permits issued that year. In addition, the number of work permits granted
to regularized immigrants in domestic service was 23,289 (21.2% of the total) in 1991 and 2,814 (21.6% of the
total) in 1996. These figures shed light on the importance of the service sector within the Spanish economy and,
most importantly, on the relevance of domestic service, mostly done by immigrant women (Cornelius 2004).
205
Despite the efforts toward legalization, however, the difficulties many immigrants
have faced maintaining legal work contracts have led to their failure to renew their work
and residence permits. They have constantly been falling back into illegality instead.
In 1996 the government finally recognized the existence of stable immigration into
the country. New reforms included the creation of a permanent work permit achievable
after five years oflegal work in Spain (see Table 5.1). This measure aimed to move the
law beyond the view of the immigrant as a transient laborer. The government also
regulated the right to family reunification for migrants who had stable residence permits
and with adequate resources (health insurance, income, housing, etc.). Another
legalization program was enacted in 1996, which granted a residence permit to any
immigrant who had previously been in possession of a work permit. The number of
regularizations was over 200,000 (Moreno 2005).
Four years later, LO 4/2000 introduced language on integration and granted
immigrants - regardless of legal status- similar rights to Spanish nationals.228 However, it
did not change the need for a work permit to be able to work and reside in Spain. In
addition, similar to what happens in other European countries, the acquisition of work
permits continued to be limited by the so-called "national preference in employment"
(Parella 2003 :201).229 Finally, this law granted reunification rights after the first year of
residence in Spain. The existence of the LO 4/2000 was ephemeral, however, and, after
the political consolidation ofthe right-wing Partido Popular, a new law was approved.
LO 812000 limited the above mentioned rights to legal immigrants (except in the case of
health services) (Lopez Sala 2007 ). In addition, it limited provisions for family
reunification. Finally, it limited the use of the quota system to people still residing in their
country of origin. This meant that undocumented immigrants already residing in Spain
could no longer use the quota system as a regularization venue.230 LO 8/2000 re-
228 Some of the main rights that they obtain are: right to reunion and protest, right to organize themselves and join
organizations, right to unionize and to strike, right to health assistance, and right to basic social services.
229 Nevertheless, through the establishment of the legal concept of rooting or arraigo, the 2000 Law opened a
permanent regularization mechanism available to any foreigner who can prove uninterrupted stay in Spain for two
years and ajob offer.
230 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2007
206
emphasized border control and the view of immigrants as labor by weakening the
provisions on integration. The last immigration reform took place in 2003, through LO
14/2003. The main goals of this reform were the control of immigrant flows and
immigrant integration. This law also further curtailed undocumented immigrants' rights.
Despite the fluctuations described above, Spanish immigration law has been based
on the premise that only those authorized to work within the narrow parameters
immigration law establishes are deemed legitimate immigrants. The imperative of
managing the labor market has superseded immigrant integration. The main effects have
been the concentration of foreign workers in specific economic sectors, mainly
characterized by poor working conditions. The connection between immigration and
needed labor has been reflected in the recent conversion of the Ministry of Work into the
Ministry of Work and Immigration.231 The requirement ofa work contract to enter legally
the country poses unrealistic expectations that often result in illegal entry. In addition,
immigrants are not allowed in economic sectors where local workers are available, which
tend to be professional, well-paid jobs (See Moreno 2005; Parella 2003).
4.2. On the Feminization and Racialization of Immigration Flows
Spain does not welcome people but rather, facilitates the transfer of labor deemed
necessary. Given the labor shortages the Spanish labor market presents as well as the
ways in which Spanish immigration law works to fill these shortages, I support other
authors' arguments that the Ley de Extranjeria shapes the gender and racial composition
of migration flows into Spain (Escriva 2000; Parella 2003; Ribas-Mateos 2000).
The Office ofInitial Labor Residencies at the Foreigners' Office in each Spanish
provincial capital receives applications from Spanish employers with job vacancies.
These employers supposedly cannot find candidates in Spain and they make a job offer to
a foreign person still in her home country. These authorizations are always dependent on
the employer paying the employee's social security. Other requirements are that the
contract be 40 hours a week for at least one year and that the annual income of the
231 Immigration used to be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Social Welfare.
207
employer is above 50,000 Euros a year ($77,000).232 Once an application is approved,
the job offer is sent to the potential worker in her country of origin so her visa can be
processed. Upon her entry into Spain, she obtains her work and residence permits.
The 2004 Reglamento de Extranjeria introduced the Catalogo Trimestral de
Ocupaciones de Dificil Cobertura (Trimestral Catalogue of Difficult to Fill Occupations).
Public employment offices update this catalogue every three months, and this determines
what sectors present labor shortages. The oficina de extranjeros uses the information in
the catalogue to grant work authorizations. This serves to guarantee that the employment
of a foreign worker does not have a negative impact on the indigenous labor force. The
existence of the catalogue makes it unnecessary to limit the number of permits that can be
allocated each year. As long as there is a need for a particular kind of labor, permits will
continue to be awarded. Around 12,000 work and residence permits were allocated
following this procedure in 2005.233 It is unknown how many undocumented immigrants
entered that year. Except from early 2006, domestic work in the province of Barcelona
has always been listed in this catalogue (See Rius 2008).
The fact that Spanish immigration policy regulates the entry and/or legalization of
workers the local economy needs makes the quota system dependent on domestic service,
since this presents the highest labor shortages. Domestic work constituted 72% of the
1993 quota, against the 2% of agriculture, 20% in personal services, and 0% in the
building sector (Ribas-Mateos 2000). This has contributed to the feminization of
migration flows (see Oso 1998) to Spain through two different, though interrelated
mechanisms. First, through the recruiting "from origin," that the law prescribes. Given
ideological conceptualizations of domestic work as inherently women's labor, both in
Spain and the sending countries, the recruited workers are usually women. Second, since
women from other countries know of the availability ofjobs in the domestic sector, even
232 Although I cannot assert the motivations behind these conditions, they have certainly had, in the context
of domestic work, that only upper class families can afford to legally sponsor an immigrant domestic
worker from origin. This modality usually involves a live-in job. This, however, does not mean that
immigrant women are filling jobs in middle and even working class households. When they gain permanent
residence they usually tend to work by hours in homes. In addition, it is mostly undocumented immigrant
women who end up working for families making less than the above cited income.
233 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2006
208
if they do not have ajob offer, travel to Spain with a tourist visa and seek ajob with work
contract to legalize their situation.
Thus, according to Parella (2003), Spanish immigration law makes domestic work
as the easiest entry venue into Spain. Since employers, migrants, and the state itself
perceive reproductive work as women's work, female labor migration is being indirectly
and implicitly promoted institutionally. Official recognition of a demand for domestic
workers, geographically organized in provincial units, selects immigrants according to
the work they will fulfill, the area in Spain where they will labor, and their sex. This
shapes both "the composition of the flows and the migration strategies, acting as a pull
effect, and stimulating feminine migration of "independent" character" (Ibid. 207). This
means that women do not migrate following a husband or a parent but are rather the
pioneer, breadwinner migrants in the family. Although Spain does not have a program
promoting the entry of women, the close connection between immigration policy and the
local labor market prioritizes their entry and stay. This explains the marked feminine and
racialized character of migration flows to that country.
It is worth noting that while the quota system relegates immigrant women,
regardless of their educational background, to domestic work, it also offers them a legal
entry access and the possibility to regularize their situation. In this sense, Spanish
immigration law makes it easier for women to immigrate than for men. However, an easy
access to domestic work does not equal labor integration and recognition of rights, given
the precariousness and vulnerability of the job. As Ruth Mestre argues, while immigrant
men in Spain access to jobs that could be in the formal (e.g. construction), immigrant
women, particularly in the domestic and care work, access irregular and under-regulated
jobs" (2001 :363). Even when work contracts are formalized, these are particularly
vulnerable and precarious jobs that offer less social protections,z34
234 In addition, as I further develop in Chapter VI, it is discriminatory to demand women to possess a work
contract to be entitled to rights since domestic work's labor regulation does not follow the same principles
as "masculine sectors" and often leaves the worker unprotected by, for example, not demanding the
existence of a work contract. This leads to either a difficulty on the part of the immigrant domestic worker
to obtain a work contract and regularize therefore her situation or, in the case of having the contract, she
does not enjoy the same rights.
209
In the past few decades the European Union has allowed for the free circulation of
European nationals across EU borders. This has resulted in an increasing mobility of
professional and skilled workers, as well as tourists and students within the European
Union. Immigration law in Spain, thus, does not apply to European nationals and it is
aimed instead to regulate the entry, work, and residence of non-European foreigners. The
acceleration of immigration flows into Spain has had a dual component. First, First
World, White, middle-class professionals, retirees, and students can easily cross the
borders and accesses labor and social rights, and enjoy sunny weather and beautiful
beaches.235 The entry of Third World workers, however, is heavily monitored and
restricted. These workers see their labor opportunities, regardless of their human, social,
and cultural capital, limited to informal and precarious economic activities. Spanish
immigration law racializes migration flows in two different ways. On the one hand, it
treats non-European (read non-White) people as objects of restrictive regulation. On the
other hand, it channels them into the lower echelons of a segregated labor market which,
as non-European immigration becomes more predominant, is increasingly characterized
by its racial and ethnic divisions and hierarchies (See Calavita 2005a).
Immigrant options, consequently, are limited by "field of possibilities" the labor
market offers (See Parella 2000), since immigrants will only obtain work permits in those
sectors facing labor shortages. Both the state, through the law, and the market, through
families who need to hire domestic workers, look at international female migration as the
solution to the void left in the reproductive sphere. This has dovetailed with a promotion
of female migration on the Philippine side. While the recruiting process aims to hire
workers while still in their countries of origin, and therefore act as a regulator of
immigrant entry, it often acts as an -illegal-legalizing mechanism for workers who are
already in but undocumented. These workers most likely entered the country with tourist
visas or fell from documented status after losing their job.
235 Many Northern Europeans move to Spain upon their retirement due to the country's good weather,
numerous beaches, and lower living costs.
210
5. U.S. Immigration Policy: A Shifting Balance between Family and Employment
Migration
5.1. Historical Background
Immigration law in the United States has historically defined "what the United
States should look like as a nation-state" (Park and Park 2005:9) and has shaped the
contours of the nation along class, gender, and racial lines. Reforms such as the Page Law
of 1875 severely limited the entry of Chinese women into the U.S. This restricted the
family formation in the Chinese American community, which in turn had an impact on
the racial configuration of the United States. Up to the 1960s, U.S. immigration policies
explicit excluded people ofcolor- particularly Asians- for both admission and
naturalization (Dng Hing 1993; 2004).236 In addition, although post-1965 legislation has
limited the entry of immigrants of low socio-economic status and suspected of becoming
a financial burden to the U.S. government. In section 4.2 I discuss relevant legislative
reforms enacted since 1965 and turn to the pre-1965 policy changes particularly affecting
the Filipino community in the United States in section 4.3.
5.2. From Family to Labor Migration
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act inaugurated a new era in the history of
U.S. immigration. Its main feature of the 1965 Act was the abolition of the national-
origin quotas that had been in place since the Immigration Act of 1924.237 An annual
limit of 170,000 visas was established for immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere, with
no more than 20,000 per country.238 The limitation for the Western Hemisphere was set at
120,000. Another relevant feature of the 1965 Act, which in principle contrasts with
Spanish immigration law, was the centrality of family reunification mechanisms. While
236 The Naturalization Act of 1790 restricted naturalized citizenship to "free White persons only." This
principle in law lasted until 1952.
237 The Immigration Act of 1924 or Johnson-Reed Act excluded immigration of Asians into the United
States. The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act was also discriminatory toward Asians. For instance, under this
Act, while the quota for European immigrants was 149,667, the quota for Asian immigrants was 2,990, and
the African quota was 1,400.
238 The 20,000 visas limit was allotted regardless of the size of countries, so that, as Hill Ong Hing (1993;
2004) has repeatedly argued, mainland China had the same quota as Tunisia.
211
employment-based visas were included in the Act, most ofthe permanent visas were
intended to be used to petition relatives of immigrants already residing in the u.S.239 The
distribution ofpermanent residency visas was organized into the following manner:
• First Preference: Adult, unmarried sons and daughters of U.S citizens. Up to
23,400 a year.
• Second Preference: Spouses and unmarried sons and daughters of lawful
permanent residents. Up to 114,200 a year.
• Third Preference: Members of the professions or those with exceptional ability in
the sciences or the arts. Up to 40,000 a year.
• Fourth Preference: Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens. 23,400.
• Fifth Preference: Siblings of U.S. citizens. Up to 65,000 a year.
• Sixth Preference: Skilled or Unskilled workers of which there was a shortage of
employable and willing workers in the United States. Up to 40,000, 10,000 of
which could be allotted to unskilled workers.
In addition, an unlimited "immediate family" quota allowed for the petition of U.S.
citizens' spouses, and minor children. This, and the fact that only one ofthe four family
preferences corresponds to permanent residents' relatives, puts U.S. citizens in a much
better position to petition for family reunification than permanent residents. This has
acted in the past decades as an incentive for many permanent residents to naturalize.
Despite a more inclusive definition of kin categories than that Spanish immigration law
provides, U.S. law gives priority to nuclear families, particularly those of U.S. citizens.
Similar to Spain, gay couples are not granted the right of family reunification.
Employment preferences aided the entry of professionals and other potential
immigrant workers who filled jobs for which qualified U.S. workers were not available.
For the first time workers entering the country as skilled or unskilled laborers were
required to have approval of the Secretary of Labor. This restriction has survived to the
present and, similarly to the Spanish context, it protects the jobs, wages, and working
239 As it becomes clear throughout my analysis, these include both Permanent Legal Residents and
immigrants who have become u.s. Citizens.
212
conditions of U.S. labor (See Ong Hing 2004). While there is no evidence that
immigrants take U.S. citizens' jobs away, pressure from labor unions has made this
restriction a necessary, and popular, political decision.
The 1980s saw important immigration reforms aimed at undocumented immigrants,
particularly those working in agriculture, and to increase border controls. The 1986
Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) legalized over two million undocumented
immigrants and established punitive sanctions for undocumented workers and employers
hiring them. Despite the initial emphasis on family immigration, the second half of the
1980s and the early 1990s saw efforts to increase employment, and particularly
professional-based versus family, visas. Prior to 1990, besides the unlimited category of
immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, 80% of the worldwide preference system of270,000
was reserved for kin. However, reports showing pending shortage in U.S. skilled workers
resulted in an increase in the number of visas allotted to skilled immigrants and a
decrease the number of family immigrants.24o The former were seen as contributing to the
U.S. economy, while the latter were considered likely to become public charges (Park
and Park 2005).
The 1990s Immigration Act tripled the number of visas for professional workers
and reduced the number for unskilled workers. While the Act did not reduce the number
of family immigrants, it signaled the beginning of a "shift toward a policy of importing
skilled workers" (Ong Hing 2004:109). This also resulted in the implementation of the H-
IB program. H-IB allows for the entry of professionals the U.S. economy needs. It limits
the workers' stay and makes it dependent upon continued employment and renewal. As
some of my interviewees in San Francisco put it, H-IB constituted a "guest professional
worker program.,,241 Other temporary visas include the H-2A and the H-2B programs,
which allow for the entry for temporary and seasonal unskilled labor.
The 1990 Act did not reduce family reunification visas. However, the idea that
family immigrants, particularly the elderly, tended to rely on public services, prevailed.
240 As well as the category of brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens.
241 Field notes, August 2006, San Francisco
213
Other legislation, such as Welfare Reform in 1996, limited non-U.S. citizen access to
welfare programs and curtailed the number of non-U.S. citizens who could receive public
benefits (See Espenshade and Huber 1999; Freeman 2001 b; Fujiwara 1999a; 1999b;
Gerstle 1999; Martinez Veiga 2004; Singer and Gilbertson 2003). In addition, the 1996
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) made family
immigration sponsors financially liable through an affidavit of support for any public
services their petitioned relatives consumed and made them prove they were not public
charges themselves (See also Fujiwara 2005). 242 These provisions clearly defined
acceptable immigrants in terms of their class position and were likely to disqualify large
groups of immigrants. In fact, their only likely outcome was, according to Park and Park
(2005), to discourage family migration, particularly among low-income people. Some of
the harshest provisions of 1996 Welfare and Immigration Reform were repealed.
Nevertheless, family migration has become a smaller fraction of total migration to the
United States243 since then and the number of employment-based preferences,
particularly for professional workers, has consistently increased?44
5.3. Immigration Legislation and Reproductive Labor
An aging baby boom generation is entering retirement, while simultaneously an
increasing number of working- and middle- class women are joining the workforce.
Despite the resulting high demand for care and domestic workers and their importance
for the maintenance of the capitalist economy,245 the U.S. government has not established
242 In addition, through this Act, Congress authorized immigration officials to assess all immigrants under
these five criteria: age; health; family status; assets, resources, and financial status; and education and skills
(see Park and Park 2005).
243 213,331 in 1997, 191,480 in 1998,216,883 in 1999, 230,000 in 2000 and 2001, and 187,069 in 2004
(Park and Park 2005).
244 By 1995, five years after the Act of 1990 increased employment-based visas to 140,000 per year, the
fraction of employment-based visas rose to 26%. By 2002, immigrants admitted under employment-based
preferences were admitted at about the same rate as immigrants coming under family reunification
preferences (Park and Park 2005).
245 According to the US Census, services in private households were of718,000 in 2000, 757,000 in 2002,
764,000 in 2003, and 779,000 in 2004. Thus there has been a steady increase of this occupation. The
increase has probably been more accentuated if we take into account a lot of these jobs are done by
undocumented women. Of these workers, 92.2 percent are female.
214
an immigration program to regulate the entry of care workers and provide them with
protections. New employment visa programs have usually targeted the technology and
health care sectors, as well as other professional occupations (Green 2002). These facts
need to be understood in the larger context of government discouragement of low-income
and unskilled immigration, both within family reunification and work-based immigration.
A key factor behind the lack of an immigration program for care and domestic work
has been the failure of the U.S. Department of Labor to recognize the shortage oflocal
workers in this sector. This takes place despite the publication of a Health and Human
Services Department report in 2003 indicating that the U.S. demand for caregivers would
multiply from 1.9 million workers in 2000 to 6.5 million in 2050. In marked contrast, the
United States, has long recognized a shortage of nurses and has put into place an
immigration program facilitating non-U.S. nurses' entry and establishing a legal route for
them to achieve permanent residency. In my interviews with legal experts and
government officials, I tried, unsuccessfully, to find an explanation for the absence of
such an immigration program for caregivers and domestic workers. One of my
interviewees suggested an answer: "[The] nurses lobbying group- hospital owners and
managers- is quite strong, while there is not a lobbying group for immigrant groups or
elderly in need for care.,,246
I forward three additional reasons for the U.S. failure to establish an immigration
program for reproductive workers resembling that of nurses: 1) unwillingness to facilitate
the legal entry and permanent residence of non-skilled workers,247 2) availability of a
pool of 12 million undocumented immigrants already residing in the country who can
(and do) perform these jobs for low wages and have limited access to social rights and
services (See Park and Park 2005), and 3) government failure, due a gender bias, to
recognize the value reproductive work has for the U.S. economy and the welfare of U.S.
society in general.
246 Interview 46, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, August 2006
247 Whom, often wrongly, policy makers identify as low income immigrants.
215
6. A History of Filipino Migration to Spain: From Maids in the Colony to Maids in
the Metropolis
According to a Jaume Bojill Foundation study (GESES 2007), two main traits
characterize the Filipino community in Spain: It is one of the oldest immigrant
communities, and it was markedly feminine from its origins. It also has the reputation
among Spaniards of being well organized and relatively stable (Pe-Pua 2003).
Historical ties between Spain and the Philippines go back to the beginning of
Spanish colonization of the Philippines in 1565. Colonial occupation and dominance
lasted until the Philippines achieved independence in 1898. The colonial connections
between these two countries created long term trading bonds and cooperation between
them. It is common, for example, to run into newspaper articles from as late as the 1960s
and 1970s citing Filipino officials referring to Spain as the "Mother Land" (EFE 1970c).
During the 1970s, the Philippine and the Spanish government signed several economic,
political, and cultural cooperation treaties. In 1970 the Spanish government gave a 10
million dollar loan and other development aid funds to the Philippines (EFE 1970b).
Trade treaties during that decade were based on Philippine agricultural exports in
exchange for Spanish manufactured goods (EFE 1970a). Cooperation initiatives between
the two countries emphasized their common Catholic identity as a source of historical
and contemporary alliances.248 The Spanish media presented economic cooperation with
the Philippines as efforts to restore the "virtues of the Spanish race" in its old colony at a
time when the United States seemed to be losing moral influence in the region (EFE
1970b).
After independence, a handful of Spanish families with businesses in the
Philippines returned to Spain and took their Filipino domestic workers with them.
Throughout the second third ofthe 20th century these women brought their relatives,
sisters, cousins, etc. (GESES 2007) to work in Spain as domestic workers as well.
Beginning with this initial migration, Filipinos started to arrive in Spain at significant
rates at the end of the 1970s. Women were a key component of this flow from the
248 Ironically, the Catholic religion was brutally imposed by Spain in the Philippines starting in the 16th
century.
216
beginning, making their community into one of the most feminized within Spain
(Cornelius 2004; Misra and King 2005; Ribas-Mateos 1999).
Given the colonial history, until 1985 Filipino nationals were given preferential
immigration treatment. They did not need to apply for a tourist visa in order to enter
Spain and they could exchange their tourist status for an employment visa very easily.
This changed with the 1985 Ley de Extranjeria, which required Filipinos to apply for
tourist visas at the Spanish Embassy in Manila and made the obtainment of a work permit
more bureaucratically complex (Pe-Pua 2005).
In the early 1990s government statistics showed there were around 25,000 Filipinos
in the country, 75% of which resided in Spain illegally. During my research in
Barcelona's historical archives I found a 1995 issue of La Vanguardia that estimated the
number of Filipinos in Barcelona of that year to be 8,000.249 This number increased in
after the 1991 and 1992 legalization and quota programs, which many Filipinos used to
legalize their situation. By the mid 1990s the Filipino community in Spain numbered
50,000 members (Pe-Pua 2003; 2005). As with the pioneers, Filipino women continue to
be concentrated in the domestic work sector (Ribas-Mateos 1999).
During the past decade the number of Filipino men has increased substantially due
to the improvement in family reunification mechanisms250 and an increasing demand for
English-speaking workers in the tourism sector. Despite this, women continue to be the
majority in the community. They constitute 57% of the Filipino community, which, only
in Barcelona, has over 6,000 documented members. This number does not include
undocumented immigrants or Filipinos who adopted Spanish citizenship. While I do not
have data on nationalization rates, 10 out of the 20 Filipino domestic workers that I
interviewed had become Spanish citizens.251 This indicates that, counting residents,
naturalized, and undocumented immigrants, the Filipino community in Barcelona may
249 La Vanguardia Revista, October 9, 1995, by Eugenio Maduefio
250 As well as female migrants' better leverage to petition their relatives.
251 The Spanish Census does not include information on racial background. Since citizenship is the only
way to identify immigrant populations in the census, and given relatively high rates of naturalization
among Filipinos in Spain, it is reasonable to expect the community to be much larger than what official
numbers show.
217
well have over 20,000 members. An interview conducted with a Filipino consular official
in Barcelona indicates there are about 19,000 documented Filipino immigrants in
Catalunya and Aragon alone, most of them concentrated in the city of Barcelona.252
Currently, 90% of Filipinos in Spain work in the domestic sector, in retirement
homes, and in tourism. A small percentage are factory workers or teachers and
professionals (Pe-Pua 2005). The domestic and care sectors, however, continue to be the
main destination for women, and to a lesser extent men.253 While in the 1970s and the
19805 it was quite easy for Filipino women to work as domestic workers, more recent
immigration of other nationalities has intensified the competition for these jobs.
Filipino women, however, continue to have a relatively easier time finding jobs
than their male counterparts and even than women from other nationalities. As my
research, as well as that of other authors shows (See Oso 1998; Ribas-Mateos 1999),
family, friendship, and community networks have played a crucial role in promoting
Filipino migration to Spain and in helping new immigrants find jobs. While it may take
longer than it used to, Filipino women today continue to find jobs in Barcelona and, due
to the more limited job opportunities offered to men, women often become the
breadwinners for their families in the Philippines and in Spain. High unemployment rates
among Filipino men are one of the main problems of the Barcelona community.254
According to various studies, and to the responses of my interviewees, Filipino
domestic workers are in high demand in Barcelona and are preferred over other
nationalities. This is due to their good reputation as skilled workers, their extensive
professional experience, and high educational levels (Pe-Pua 2003; Pe-Pua 2005; Ribas-
Mateos 1999), and is in line with findings of studies about Filipino domestic workers in
other countries (See Parrefias 2001). The fact that Filipinas have high English proficiency
makes them candidates for the upper classes in Barcelona who, besides hiring them as
domestic workers, expect them to teach their children English and help them with their
252 Interview 27, Barcelona, Philippine Consular Official, March 2007.
253 Interview 2, Barcelona, Elena, November 2006
254 Field notes, Barcelona, March 2008
218
homework. According to a community member, they "do both things for the same price.
[The employers] take advantage ofthat.,,255
The higher prestige of Filipino women has translated into higher salaries and it is
mostly-upper class families who hire them as domestic workers. Historically used as a
synonym for "maid," the word Fi1ipina has class and racial connotations in Spanish
society. The following is an excerpt from an article published in Combate, a Catalan
newspaper, in March of 1986:
To have a Filipina maid has been a sign of distinction among the Western high
bourgeoisie, the Spanish one in particular, for many years.256
Even today, "Filipina" means a refined maid who works for a wealthy family in
urban Spain. Filipinas have become a "status symbol" whose characterization is defined
around racial and colonial discourses. I further discuss this in Chapter VII.
While there are a variety of labor incorporation strategies Filipino women follow
upon their arrival to Barcelona, my interviews show that women tend to start working as
live-in domestic workers (fijas). Live-in jobs allow the newcomers to save money in food
and rent. With few exceptions, women eventually move toward full time live-out jobs for
a single family and/or hourly cleaning jobs for multiple employers (See also Anderson
2000). The exit from live-in jobs coincides in some cases with family reunification and
the worker's petition of her husband and/or children.
While in the past Spanish immigration policy favored the entry of Filipino
nationals into Spain by imposing less requirements, the bureaucratization and
politicization of immigration in Spain nullified most of those privileges. Yet, the colonial
past of the two countries continues to be reflected in their current relationships. Besides
the importance of investment agreements, Spain and the Philippines have signed different
treaties of relevance for the Filipino population in Spain. These relate to Filipinos' ability
to receive Spanish retirement benefits even after they return to the Philippines and the
regulation of the transfer of care workers from the Philippines to Spain. In addition,
255 Field notes, Barcelona, March 2008
256 Original article in Spanish. My translation.
219
similar to nationals from fonner Spanish colonies, Filipinos qualify for Spanish
citizenship after only two years of legal residence as opposed to up to ten years for other
nationalities.257 This may be the reason behind high naturalization rates.
7. A History of Filipino Immigration to the United States: On (Neo) Colonial Ties
and Cheap Labor
Filipinos comprise the second largest immigrant group in the United States today
(Espiritu 1995; Novas and Cao 2004; Parrefias 2001; Parrefias 2005b). With 51,308
Filipinos admitted in 2002 alone, the Filipino American population reached 2,100,000 in
2003 (US Census Bureau 2003; Homeland Security 2002). Two thirds of the community
were born in the Philippines and migrated after 1965. Of these, 1,369,070 were residing
legally in the U.S. in 2000. Despite this, community groups consider the number of
undocumented Filipinos to be quite sizeable. In 2000 the U.S. government estimated the
number of undocumented Filipinos to be 85,000, while a study the Philippine government
conducted in 2003 estimated the figure to be 535,000. Advocates and community groups
in the United States guess the total is closer to the estimate of the Philippine
government.258
Numerous authors argue that the importance of the U.S. as the destination for
Filipinos must be attributed to the fonner colonial connection between the two countries
(Abella 1. 1992; Choy 2003; Lowe 1999; Rodriguez 2005). This produced, among other
things, a pervasive Americanization of Philippine culture and its educational system,
close economic ties between both countries, and military and political connections.
Filipinos were considered U.S. nationals and used to enjoy free access to the U.S. This
facilitated their migration during the early decades of the 20th century.
For the past one hundred years, the Philippines has consistently functioned as a
source of cheap and flexible immigrant labor whenever U.S. local markets have faced
shortages. These shortages have occurred in the agricultural sector, the U.S. Army and
257 Other nationals allowed to obtain nationality after only two years oflegal residency are those from Latin
American countries, Andorra, Equatorial Guinea, and foreigners belonging to Sefardie communities.
258 Interview 46, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, August 2006
220
Navy, and service jobs. By the last decade of the 19th century, Hawaii's economy was
heavily dependent on sugar cane cultivation and plantation owners were in constant need
of cheap and manageable labor. Filipinos became a key source, and Hawaii became the
first large-scale emigration destination from the Philippines. Between 1907 and 1929
more than 102,000 Filipinos were recruited to work on these plantations, and
approximately 87% of these were men (Tyner 2000).
Other initial groups of Filipino immigrants in the U.S. were students on government
scholarships during the 191 Os. The colonial government sent several hundred
pensionados, mostly men, to study in U.S. universities and familiarize themselves with
U.S. politics and institutions. These students often belonged to important Filipino
families. By the early 1920s most of them had returned to the Philippines to well paying
positions in agriculture, business, education, and government. Inspired by these
experiences, thousands of non-sponsored students migrated to the United States between
1910 and 1938. Their goal was to work in order to pay for their studies in U.S.
universities. However, due to racial discrimination, they were consigned to unskilled and
low paying jobs. Most of them never completed higher education, and the economic
crisis- and resulting anti-immigrant backlash- the Great Depression brought turned them
into unwanted immigrants (See Espiritu 1995).
During the 1920s and 1930s, additional migration flows developed in response to
labor shortages along the West Coast. In the decade of the 1920s alone, 45,000 Filipinos
migrated to the Pacific Coast. Similar to migration to Hawaii, single males with little
formal education dominated this flow. They concentrated in agriculture, moving along
the coast with the crops. They also worked in salmon canneries of the Pacific Northwest
and Alaska, and as service workers, including janitors, valets, kitchen helpers,
pantrymen, and dishwashers. (Espiritu 1995; Takaki 1989).
Overall, Filipinos were only tolerated as a transient, cheap labor force. The 1921
Anti-Alien Land Law was designed to prevent aliens ineligible for citizenship (Filipinos,
Chinese, and Japanese) from owning land. During the late 1920s and the 193 Os, as the
Filipino population grew in the U.S. and the Great Depression took place, White
resentment against Filipinos grew. They were seen as direct competitors for jobs and
221
social services for the White working class and as sexual threats to White women.
In this context of anti-Filipino sentiment, the only way the government could
restrict the number of Filipino immigrants was by removing their legal status as U.S.
nationals. However, this was not possible as long as the Philippines were a U.S. colony.
In 1934 the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-Mac Duffie Independence Act. This
granted the Philippines independence within a 10-year period, declared Filipinos aliens,
and cut Filipino migration to a mere 50 persons a year. Those who stayed within U.S.
borders were rendered ineligible for the New Deal assistance programs, and were often
targets of bigotry and racial violence from White workers and citizens. This took place in
a generalized context of anti-Asian sentiment and severe legal restrictions against the
immigration of Chinese and Japanese nationals (Ong Hing 1993; 2004).
U.S. military bases in the Philippines have historically been a key employer to
thousands of Filipinos. Many Filipinos who served in the U.S. Army during World War
II earned U.S. citizenship. Filipinos enlistees have traditionally performed the domestic
work within the U.S. Army, preparing and serving the officers' meals, and caring for the
officers' galley, wardroom, and living spaces (Espiritu 1995). Similarly to the agricultural
sector, Filipinos often obtained servile positions in the racial division oflabor in the U.S.
Armed Forces. Filipino participation in the forces has continued up to today, both in the
U.S. bases in the Philippines and in the United States. Aside from few hundred
agricultural workers, Filipino migration between the end of World War II and the 1960s
was limited to military personnel and their dependents. It also included Filipino women
whom members of the U.S. Armed Forces had married during the war.259 My research
documents the importance of this trend since several of my interviewees had been
petitioned by a relative who had previously served in the forces.
The 1965 U.S. Immigration Act eliminated racist national-origins quotas of and
replaced them with emphases on family reunification and occupational characteristics
(Choy 2003). Family reunification and occupational immigration have resulted in most of
the growth of the Philippine population in the United States since then. In the twenty
259 The War Brides Act was enacted in 1945 to allow spouses and adopted children of U.S. military
personnel to enter the U.S. alter World War II and afterwards from South Korea during the Korean War.
222
years following the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, about 40% of legal
immigration to the United States was from Asia. Filipinos constitute the largest portion at
almost one-quarter of total Asian immigration (Ancheta 1998; Espiritu 1995). In addition,
during the 1960s two-thirds of all Philippine immigrants were female. Female migrants
still outweigh males. Family reunification and the demand for health and other
professional workers in the United States, which has been greatly filled by Filipino
women, explain the gender composition ofthis immigration flow (Tyner 2000).
During the 1970s, U.S. firms relocated their factories to sites with cheaper labor.
Their administrative headquarters, though, remained in key urban areas in the Global
North (Sassen 1984). Consequently, the labor market has become more polarized, marked
by the expansion of high-wage, high-skill occupations and low-wage, low-skill service
jobs (Lowe 1999). The 1965 Immigration Act favored the entrance of foreign workers
willing to fill all these vacancies in the U.S. labor market. Many of these were Filipinos.
The Philippine government-organized labor export has been able to satisfy much of the
demand within the professional sectors (Choy 2003; Espiritu 1995; Tyner 1999). In
addition, both legal and illegal Philippine immigrants, despite high educational levels,
have occupied the poorly paid jobs in the service sector (Strobel 2001).
The contemporary Filipino American community presents more class diversity than
ever before. Although we find many professionals within the Filipino American
community, sixty-five percent of the total are foreign born or what is commonly referred
to as newcomers,z60 Thirty-five percent of the community entered the United States
within the past decade, and the same percentage is not proficient in English and finds
itself concentrated in low-wage jobS,z61
Despite the above mentioned absence of an immigration program specifically
regulating the entry of reproductive workers into the United States, the reality is that
caregiving and domestic work has become common employment for Filipinas,
particularly in urban areas such as Los Angeles, New York, and the San Francisco Bay
260 A pejorative term that Filipino Americans use to refer to "newcomers" is FOB or Fresh Off the Boat.
261 Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
223
Area. Although U.S. Immigration Law does not place them there, it is still Filipino
women who provide an important amount of reproductive labor in this country. The
historical tendency to concentrate in low-wage jobs, often with servile aspects, continues
within the Filipino American community today. While many Filipinos occupy
professional jobs in the United States, their concentration in the bottom of a racially
segmented labor market is still a reality. A Filipino community leader told me that while
during the 1970s many Filipino professionals had accessed the U.S. on professional
employment visas and had maintained good jobs, Filipinos are currently struggling more
to find well paid or professional jobs:
In our family gatherings I listen and I hear, and it's a different story, different
experience than growing up listening to my aunts and uncles on my father's side,
who migrated in the 70s, they basically own their own homes, economically, on that
leveL .. And then I think that for the Filipino community, historically, I think that
you can measure the levels of income, they are higher for the 70s, the people who
. d' h 70 262mIgrate III t e s versus now.
In contrast to Asian and Middle Eastern countries, where the transaction of Filipino
labor is usually temporary and contract-based, but similar to Spain, Filipino migration to
the United States tends to be permanent.263
8. Conclusion
An overview of both Spanish and U.S. immigration law shows that while the
former explicitly regulates the entry of low skilled labor the Spanish economy needs,
since the 1965 the latter has formally focused on family migration. Despite the centrality
of family reunification in U.S. immigration law, however, I have shown that
employment-based migration programs are becoming increasingly important. These have
262 Interview 8, San Francisco, Community Organizer, May 2006
263 This distinction introduces the key difference between what constitutes a migrant (temporary, contract
bound) and an immigrant (permanent, with residence permit). This differentiation responds to analytical or
legal definitions of migration flows rather than to personal ones. In fact, women may temporary migration
venues to eventually become permanent immigrants. I interviewed Filipino women who, although they
entered the United States on temporary visas, have always planned to stay indefinitely or somehow ended
up doing so. Individual intention and outcome are not always clear and/or explicit, and other factors, such
as the connection with the homeland throughout time, may also affect that definition of what constitutes a
migrant or an immigrant.
224
not included reproductive labor in its provisions. While Spain responds to its need for
reproductive labor by promoting the entry of immigrant women to conduct this work, the
U.S. does not. It is still immigrant women, though, including Filipinas, who mostly
occupy the reproductive labor sector in the U.S. While U.S. immigration law does not
directly promote the entry of reproductive workers, thus, it still contributes to the transfer
of reproductive labor from the Global South. Once I have understood this policy context,
as well as the history behind Philippine migration to these two countries, I discuss in
Chapter VI some specific ways in which immigration policy shapes the experiences of
Filipino women in Spain and the United States and how the women, in turn, react to the
law. This discussion will further contribute to understand how the transfer of Filipino
reproductive workers to Spain and the United States currently takes place.
225
CHAPTER VI
ENTERING THE COUNTRY II: FILIPINO WOMEN FULFILLING AND
CIRCUMVENTING IMlVIIGRATION LAW
1. Introduction
In this study I see the state as a key actor placing immigrant women in difficult
situations such as temporary legal status, segregation in the labor market, family
separation, undocumented status, and trafficking. Yet, while the past two decades have
seen growing scholarship and public debate on illegal migration and trafficking (Chin
1999), these studies have usually focused on the migrants themselves, the employers, or
the recruiters. This emphasis has often resulted in a treatment of the "trafficked person"
or the illegal immigrant as perpetrator rather than as victim, as well as an explanation of
the reality of trafficking by the existence of unscrupulous individuals or agencies (Wong
2006). Although important, micro-level analysis of migration focusing on the migrant
person or recruiting/employing individuals may favor a view of trafficking, exploitation
and illegality as realities stemming from individual actions, since they emphasize
individuals' failure or refusal to respect the law.
In contrast, I introduce the possibility, through an examination of the experiences of
Filipino domestic workers in the United States and Spain, that pseudo-legality,
trafficking, illegality, and exploitation, rather than stemming from failure to follow the
law, are outcomes of state action. I argue these experiences are structural and systematic
in the sense that it is the law itself, and its unrealistic rigidities, what promotes and/or
facilitates them. However, because I do not want women's stories to get lost in my
discussion of structures, I take their experiences as my departure point. This puts a face
on otherwise impersonal bureaucratic processes. Women's experiences allow me to move
226
beyond state action to provide a glimpse of Filipino women's agency to circumvent and
manipulate political processes.
Always insisting on the complexity of the migration phenomenon and the
interaction of multiple factors, I shed light on the state as an actor that often goes
unaddressed in immigration debates (See Garces-Mascarenas 2006; Hayter 2000). As
Jacqueline Bhabha (2005) argues, industrialized countries are increasingly placing legal
obstacles for entry, therefore severely limiting legal immigration. Instead of seeing the
law and illegality as two opposite realities-where the law draws the line of what is legal
and illegal- I view the state as promoting difficulties in immigrating, illegal experiences
(Johnson 2006), or situations that, although legal, may resemble illegal and/or
exploitative scenarios (See Heyman 1999). Immigrant women try to follow the law but
often feel forced to circumvent it to achieve legal status, obtain a job, or reunify with
their families. This places them in vulnerable positions. Because the law constructs them
as perpetrators, they cannot obtain help from authorities in receiving countries.
In this chapter I contrast U.S. and Spanish immigration law with Filipino women's
experiences in both countries in order to better understand how the two governments
regulate the transfer of reproductive labor from the Global South, particularly from the
Philippines, to their countries. I also raise the following questions: 1) How is immigration
policy in both countries affecting the experiences of Filipino reproductive workers in
Barcelona and San Francisco? 2) To what extent is immigration policy realistic and what
strategies do the women follow to comply with or circumvent the law?
2. Filipino Women's Migration to Spain Today: The Law Shaping Experiences and
Experiences Shaping the Law
A commonly expressed view throughout my interviews in Barcelona was that
Filipino women, unlike women from other immigrant populations, usually enter and/or
find themselves in the country with documented status. Their long history as domestic
workers in Spain and the well established networks that they have created have turned the
community into a stable one. Filipinos, according to Spaniards and Filipinos themselves,
227
do not usually have problems with immigration or labor law. Elena, a domestic worker
and president of one of the Filipino immigrant centers in the told me:
Filipino immigrants have fewer problems than they used to. People say that we are
well organized, in terms ofpapers. With other nationalities they have problems with
legality. We do not have problems. We have been here for years, we know the law
very well ... There are some women who have problems. Some employers abuse
them, they do not allow them to go out, and they are strict. But the employers
respect our organization. I call them and try to mediate. We know Spanish laws and
we protect our rights.264
Along similar lines, when I asked an officer at the Philippine Consulate about the
kinds of problems Filipino domestic workers encounter in Barcelona, she responded:
Problems here in Spain... in fact that is very rare, because the... the Spanish
government and Spanish people welcome them very well. With great deal of
kindness. And they are highly demanded as domestic service, because they have a
very good reputation ... Then, problems, I would say that they do not have
problems here, and they should not.265
Consistent with interviewees' responses in the Philippines, these two quotes assume
the view that Filipinos follow legal migration mechanisms. A perception of Filipino
domestic workers as superior to their counterparts from other countries, which I have
discussed in Part I, is also present in Spain. While, as I suggest in Chapter VII and
Chapter VIII, Filipino women in Barcelona enjoy a relatively privileged position
compared to other national groups in terms of their immigration and labor situation, this
does mean an absence of problems. In fact, my interviews with Filipino domestic workers
currently residing in Barcelona indicate recurrent problems.
2.1. On Fictitious Premises
Despite the rigidities Spanish immigration policy imposes, immigrant women
follow different venues to enter Spain in search of a job. The law shapes migration flows,
but only to a certain extent, since immigrant people's experiences often contest legally
264 Interview 2, Barcelona, Elena, November 2006. Original interview conducted in Spanish. My
translation.
265 Interview 27, Barcelona, Philippine Consular Officer, March 2007. Original interview conducted in
Spanish. My translation.
228
established mechanisms. The law may define what is legal, but it certainly cannot define
what is real or fully control people's migration projects. I suggest that in the context of
migrant domestic work there are several factors the law fails to acknowledge. First, the
urgency many people have to migrate does not allow them to follow often unreasonably
long legal mechanisms. Second, Spanish immigration law does not acknowledge the
intimacy involved in domestic work and treats it as other economic sectors. Third,
processing a work contract from the sending country may take few months. Employers
are often not willing to wait for that long and hire someone who is already in Spain with
no legal status. Fourth, narrow definitions of family under family reunification provisions
force immigrants to find alternative venues to facilitate their relatives' migration.
As explained above, one of the main principles of Spanish immigration law is that,
within the quota system, a worker is expected to receive a job offer when she is still in
her country of origin. The future employer makes an offer from Barcelona266 and sends it
to the worker's country in order for her to obtain a work visa in the Spanish Embassy
there. Once the worker obtains her visa, she travels to Spain, where she obtains both a
residence and a work permit. The permit is valid for one year and limited to a particular
economic activity and geographic location. The law also allows employers to make job
offers to immigrants already residing in Spain as long as their status is legal. This means
initial hires are always expected to be conducted when the worker is still in her country of
origin. This premise, however, similar to the one assuming only necessary labor will
enter Spain, is fictitious (See De Lucas and Torres 2002), since it does not consider social
and economic pressures making people migrate even when it is not easy or possible to
follow legally established mechanisms. In other words,
[The law] ignores the flows, the pressure that immigrants exert, who are the ones
who want to come at any rate, due to the differences between rich and poor
countries, right? The law is based upon the ideal premise that only those workers
we need will come to Spain. Well, this is a fiction, I think. And from the legal point
of view it has not been fixed. And I do not think that there is an easy solution.267
266 Or elsewhere for employers residing in other provinces.
267 Interview 25, Barcelona, Government Employee, March 2007. Original interview conducted in
Spanish. My translation.
229
The interviewee's statement is consistent with Van Amersfoot's (1996) view that
immigration policy is often a mismatch between the short term needs of the country and
the long-term effects of migration flows. During my interviews with Spanish immigration
officials, it became clear employers and immigrant workers do not always respect hires
"from origin.,,268 Entry into Spain on a tourist visa and overstaying it in the hopes of
finding a job and eventually legalize status is quite common. Although illegally residing
in Spain is cause for removal and a worker's illegal presence in the country makes her
automatically ineligible for a work visa, there are ways in which the rules can be
circumvented. In the case of domestic work, most immigrant women who receive a job
offer are already residing- often illegally- in Spain. Many entered the country on tourist
visas. When they receive the work offer they travel to their country of origin to prove
they were not in Spain and process their immigration papers at the Spanish Embassy
there. Then they travel back to Spain, pretending that they were in their country when the
offer was made.269
The frequent violation oflegal entry into Spain also results from the failure of the
law to consider the particularities of domestic work, which may not fit well into the
orderly mechanisms immigration law envisions. The law treats domestic work, especially
live-in domestic work, as other kinds of labor, in the sense that the employer is expected
to hire a person that they have never met. While this may make sense for agricultural or
factory work, it is reasonable to expect families who hire someone to live in their home
and take care of their loved ones would want to have a personal connection with that
person or some reference about her before they decide to hire her. The intimacy involved
in domestic work may be the reason, according to government interviewees, why many
Spanish employers prefer to hire an undocumented woman who is already in Spain. This
allows them to meet her before hand, which would not be possible if they hired someone
268 Contrato en origen or "hiring from origin" is a commonly used term in Spain to refer to a work offer a
Spanish employer means when the immigrant worker is still in her country as opposed to fmding ajob
when she is already in Spain.
269 Interview 24, Barcelona, Government Employee, March 2007
230
living thousands of miles away.270 An additional reason would be that delays in the
processing of visas in the consulates often force employers to hire an undocumented
person already residing in Spain as opposed to having to wait for months to fill the
vacancy (See Rius 2008).
The rigidity of having to "hire from origin" is not the only fictitious premise of
Spanish immigration law. Family reunification provisions provide narrow definitions of
family and the requirements to petition relatives are often unrealistic. This forces
immigrants to find creative ways to be with their loved ones. These fictions in the
formulation of the law stem from the foundational premise of Spanish immigration law:
Its utilitarian view of immigrants as merely labor. This results in a compartmentalization
of their experiences into unidimensional pieces that do not acknowledge the complexity
of people's reasons to migrate. In other words, the law does not view tourists as workers;
only workers can be real immigrants; petitioned relatives cannot initially work. A law
that identifies an immigrant with a worker does not recognize that person as a mother,
daughter, wife, or sister. It fails to acknowledge the complexity of migrants' lives and
places them in conceptual and legally rigid boxes. While the immigrant women I
interviewed felt obliged to fit into these boxes, they also found creative ways to push the
limits and claim their right to a complex experience that includes multiple dimensions. In
section 2.1 I discuss different ways in which Filipino women have followed the law in
entering Spain and working there, and their efforts to circumvent it and assert their
definition of what their migration is and should be.
2.2. How Are Filipinas Doing It?
My interviews with Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona point to a complex
reality that presents some interesting patterns. Table 6.1 provides information on the age,
date, mode of entry into Spain, and current legal status of the 18 Filipino women I
interviewed in Barcelona during my fieldwork. 271 Only one out of the 18, Coral, who
270 Interview 25, Barcelona, Government Employee, March 2007
271 I gathered information on 2 I Filipino domestic workers currently living and working in Barcelona.
However, most of the tables include information of only 18, since my information on the rest is not
complete.
231
illegally crossed the Portuguese-Spanish border in 1989, bypassed the Spanish
government control. Nine ofthe women entered on work visas, two on family reunion
petitions, and six on tourist visas. At first glance the table seems to confirm Elena's
quoted above vision that Filipino migrants usually enter the country legally. This poses a
contrast with Parrefias' (2001) findings in Rome, where a significant percentage of
Filipino women had entered Italy clandestinely. However, a closer analysis ofthese
women's experiences challenges the claim that Filipinos always follow the law in order
to enter Spain. Let us examine in more detail the different modes of entry Filipinas in
Spain followed and the implications these had for their long term stay in the country.
TABLE 6.1. Age, Date of Entry, Mode of Entry, and Current Status
work permit
hdocumented
panish citizen
panish citi~en
nent Resident
en! Resident
2.2.1. Entering as Tourists
Traveling to Spain on a tourist visa means there is no intent to work and the visa
holder will return to her country upon the expiration of the visa. Six of my interviewees
entered Spain using tourist visas. While keeping in mind the differences established by
232
the enactment of Ley de Extranjerfa in 1985, these women's stories shed light on the fact
that a tourist visa is a regular mechanism used to enter Spain and eventually work.
Legalization programs andjirmas defavor have been the ways in which Filipinas have
transformed their status from tourists and/or illegal to permanent resident workers.
Tourist visas are obtained at the Spanish Embassy in Manila, and they allow
Filipinos to stay legally in Spain for up to 90 days. The conditions for obtaining a tourist
visa were different before and after the 1985 Ley de Extranjeria was passed. Until 1985,
Filipino nationals were exempted from applying for a visa to travel as tourists to Spain.
However, access to Spain has become increasingly restrictive since then, and certain
conditions are imposed now on tourist visas for non-European nationals.
Spanish law does not authorize tourist visa holders to work. All the interviewees
that entered on tourist visas, however, did work upon their arrival and continue to do so.
Besides "seeking adventure," most said they went to Spain already planning to stay
beyond the expiration of their tourist visas. Since they did not have work offers, they
decided to travel as tourists and find a job once in Spain.
The reason I have included the women's date of entry into Spain in Table 6.1 is to
draw an important distinction. There is a difference between Nelly, Teresita, and Auxilio,
who entered Spain in 1988, 1997 and 2006 respectively, and the other three interviewees
entering Spain on tourist visas: Lili, Delfina, and Paola entered the country in 1973, 1978,
and 1982 respectively. The first group of women migrated to Spain after the creation and
enactment of the Ley de Extranjeria. The second group entered when Filipinos were still
not required to apply for a tourist visa in Manila and Spain had not been officially
declared an immigration country. "Migrating illegally" before 1985 had a different
meaning. Many authors have argued that "illegal migration" or "illegal migrants" did not
exist before the creation of the law (See De Lucas and Torres 2002; Mestre 2001). The
law creates a boundary between what is legal and what is not. Without law there is not
perpetration.
The three interviewees entering the country before 1985 said that it was easy both
to find jobs and to change their status from tourists to immigrant workers. Lili explained
that "back [in 1973] Filipinos did not even need a visa. Just the passport and the flight
233
ticket ... ,,272 Both Lili and Delfina agreed that back then "it was easier" and "there was
less control." Within a couple of years, Lili legalized her status through a friend, who
hired her as an English teacher. Delfina also managed to get a job offer really easily
through the help of a priest in the community. As the table shows, Lili is currently a
permanent resident and Delfina a Spanish citizen.
Paola, currently a Spanish citizen, moved to Spain in 1982. She got a job offer from
a Spanish employer through an agency in the Philippines. The employer even paid for her
flight ticket. Despite this, she left on a tourist visa. According to her "back then it was not
like now. Before people used to come on a tourist visa.,,273 Before her arrival in
Barcelona in 1984, Paola worked two years as a live-in domestic worker for a politician
and his family in the Canary Islands. Her case is unique, since she obtained her papers
through her employer's political connections:
They do not want me to leave. My senor, since he is the mayor, they did him a
favor [laughs]. Then he went to Las Palmas to talk to the governor to fix my papers,
since the stamp on my passport said I had to leave Spain since my visa was over.
But because they did not want me to leave, they fixed my papers and made a
contract for two years.274
With the transformation and intensification of migration flows to Spain after 1985,
as well as the social and political identification of migration as a "problem," entry into
the country has become much more difficult. Teresita, for example, explained she had to
"prove" during her interview at the Embassy that she had a good reason to travel to
Europe (i.e. attendance at an art workshop) and to show she had a job and decent income
in the Philippines.275 Auxilio, a 26-year old who had arrived in Spain less than a year
before I interviewed her (2006), also traveled to Spain on a tourist visa. Her aunt,
Concha, who had worked as a domestic worker in Spain and supported Auxilio and her
siblings for ten years, was diagnosed with cancer. Concha had to stop working and
undergo very delicate surgery. As the oldest niece, Auxilio became responsible to go to
272 Interview 1, Barcelona, Lili, October 2006. Original interview conducted in Spanish. My translation.
273 Interview 22, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007. Original interview conducted in Spanish. My translation.
274 Interview 22, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007. Original interview conducted in Spanish. My translation.
275 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006.
234
Spain and take care of her. Auxilio also explained that at her job as a nurse in the
Philippines she was only making $150. After her father had a heart attack, she became
also responsible to support her parents and her 11 siblings. Despite she travelled on a
tourist visa, the need to take care of her aunt and support her family back home were the
reasons why she migrated to Barcelona?76 She eventually became undocumented?77
Although by the time of our interview she had not "fixed her papers" yet, she told me her
aunt's old employer had agreed to sign the papers so that she could get a work visa.
Nelly, a 61-year old live-in domestic worker, went to Spain in 1988 under a tourist
visa as well. Nelly had worked as an elementary school teacher in the Philippines for 21
years. The salary was not very high, but she was "happy" and "content." In 1987 Nelly
adopted a baby girl and became a single mother. It was then when she decided to go and
work overseas:
I thought to go abroad seeking for greener pasture, to earn more money, so
maybe ... because my sisters are out ofthe Philippines, then of course they tell me
that they earn money, that they have a lot of things, that they can buy anything ... so
as a teacher you earn the minimum, very small, so I said, I will try to go, and then I
come to Spain.278
In 1988 Nelly arrived in Spain, where her sister was already living and working as a
live-in domestic worker. Despite not having a work permit, with her sister's help, she
found a job as a domestic worker within three days. She obtained her work and residence
permits during the 1992 legalization program. She is currently a Spanish citizen. Nelly
explained during the interview that she was expecting her daughter to come to Spain one
week later. Nelly's current employers had agreed to offer a contract to her daughter so
she could obtain a work visa.
276 Interview 14, Barcelona, Auxilio, February 2007
277 It is ironic that after 10 years of living, working, and paying taxes in Spain, Concha needed a relative to
come from the Philippines to take care of her. This shows one of the multiple gaps that the Spanish Welfare
state offers in terms of care provision. In addition, while it could be argued that Concha has subsidized the
care in Spain through her cheap labor, now that she is ill, the only solution she can fmd is to obtain care
from a relative from her own country. Both her story and Auxilio's show a double subsidy of the Spanish
state's care responsibility by Filipino women.
278 Interview 11, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007
235
Teresita, a forty-year old midwife and college professor at La Salle University, a
prestigious private university in Northern Philippines, left in 1997 after receiving
numerous death threats due to her political activism in her province. She left on a tourist
visa, supposedly only going to Germany for few days to give a talk at an art symposium.
From Germany she traveled to Barcelona. There she had a close friend, who happened
also to be the priest leading the Filipino community there. A Spanish friend of the
Filipino priest made a fake job offer as a favor to her. Teresita, using a common term
among Filipino migrants, called it afirma defavor (signature of favor). The deal was he
would sign the required papers and after that she would reimburse him for social security
payments and would eventually find a real job. After staying in Spain as an
undocumented immigrant and working illegally for one year, and once her papers were
processed, Teresita went back to the Philippines in 1998 to obtain her work visa at the
Spanish Embassy in Manila. She also processed her papers with the Philippine
government. She went through the compulsory Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar and
paid her OWWA membership, as well as completing all the other bureaucratic steps the
Ph'l' . . 2791 Ippme government reqmres.
Teresita's story exemplifies a quite common situation in which Spanish people
offer to process fake work contracts in order to help out an undocumented immigrant who
needs to fix her papers. However, this is not the only way the law is circumvented. Many
Spanish employers offer real work contracts to immigrant women who have entered on
tourist visas and are currently illegally residing in Spain, as in Auxilio's case. The
process that she needed to follow was identical to the one Ijust described for Teresita.
The only difference was that in Teresita's case the job offer was only a way to legalize
her situation, while in many others employers actually want the immigrant woman to
work for them. The reason there is a legal violation in both cases is because Spanish
immigration law expects immigrants to be hired before they setfoot in Spain and,
obviously, it prohibits offers ofjobs that do not exist.
279 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006
236
Many Filipino women, though, have found ways to circumvent this and, after
entering on tourist visas, legalize their situation. The stories presented above, overall,
show Filipino women often use tourist visas to enter the country planning to stay and
work.
2.2.2. Entering as Workers: The Relevance of Networks
While the stories conveyed in the previous section indicated a common use of
tourist visas to migrate to Spain, nine out of the eighteen interviewees migrated on a work
visa. In this section I shed light on the shapes Filipino domestic workers' migration to
Spain takes. Given the rigidities of Spanish immigration law, migrant social networks
have an essential role in facilitating women's migration. They provide information and
support. I discuss that while sometimes networks facilitate women's migration through
the fulfillment of the law, other times they help migrants to circumvent legal procedures
in order to migrate. While in this section I discuss the importance of support or
benevolent networks, in section 2.2.5 I also examine the presence of non-benevolent or
commodified networks.
I divide the interviewees into two groups: those who entered Spain before and after
1985. Elena, Daisy, Marina, and Viviana arrived in Spain on work visas between 1969
and 1977. Concha, Coraz6n, Adelina, Purisima, and Paulita migrated between 1991 and
2005. Due to low levels of immigration before the 1980s, according to Elena, it was
easier to find jobs then. In her case, her cousin found her ajob while she was still in the
Philippines. She told me that "there were a lot of offers before [1985], and you could
change jobs if you did not like one.,,280 Marina agreed and explained she found an
employer before leaving the Philippines, and once in Spain she was able to change
employers a couple of times when she did not feel well treated. Unlike Elena, Marina
migrated to Spain using the services of a recruitment agency in the Philippines.281
Concha, Coraz6n, Adelina, Purisima, and Paulita all arrived on work visas after
1985. This fact makes them into the five interviewees who came to Spain following legal
280 Interview 2, Barcelona, Elena, November 2006
281 Interview 15, Barcelona, Marina, February 2007
237
procedures of "hiring in origin." After few months of paperwork processing, they arrived
in Spain and, with the exception of Purisima, all worked for the employer who had made
the job offer. Their employers had offered them a job without, with the exception of
Adelina, having ever met them and were willing to wait months until their incorporation
into their workplace. I argued earlier that employers ofdomestic workers are not usually
willing to wait for so long or to hire someone they have never met. The fact that nine of
my interviewees entered the country the way the law expects them to raise questions on
what other factors are involved in the migration process. Given the rigid framework
Spanish immigration law imposes, social networks are important facilitators of women's
migration and, in many cases, is what makes it possible.
An analysis of the social networks in which migrant women are inserted is helpful
to understand their entry and incorporation into the receiving country282 (See also Arango
2000; Ribas-Mateos 2004) and to shed light on the transnational social fields they
establish (See Glick Schiller 1999; 2008). So far I have introduced push and pull factors
to explain Filipino women migration as domestic workers to Spain and elsewhere.
Critical social, political, and economic situations at home have often been the reason
behind women's departure in search for "greener pastures." The Philippine government
has had a crucial role in this process through its institutionalization and promotion of
labor migration in the past few decades. At the same time, a need and demand for
reproductive workers in Spain, as well as government policies aimed at securing this
labor from other countries, has made Spain an increasingly likely and attractive
destination for Filipino migrant women.
While it is important to understand how the state and the labor market have
contributed to the migration of these women, in order to fully comprehend their stories
attention must be paid to the social dynamics of migrant networks. Social networks often
manipulate structural and institutional conditions to guarantee the success of a migration
project (Parrefias 2001). They both shape individual migration and the way it complies
282 In addition, interviewees' explanations on their network membership shed light during my research on
the context in which the migrant decided to leave her country, since they placed the decision at the
household and even the extended family levels.
238
(or not) with the norms the state designs and imposes (See Martinez Veiga 2004). As I
moved forward with my fieldwork, I realized that the connections women establish
among themselves, as well as with other members of communities both within and across
countries, are crucial to understanding the shape their lives as migrants take.
Networks studies, which apply an intermediate- or meso- level of analysis, diverge
from those using a structural approach by stressing the importance of agency in the
development of migration flows. In so doing, they raise questions that macro level studies
cannot answer, such as why migration flows concentrate in particular communities, or
why they persist after initial causal factors erode (See Parrefias 2001). Douglas Massey
(1999:44) has described migrant networks as "sets of interpersonal ties that connect
migrants, former migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas through ties
of kinship, friendships, and shared community origins." According to him, networks
increase the likelihood of prospective migrants finding jobs in the country where other
network members have previously migrated. Building upon his work, and based on my
interviews in Barcelona, I suggest social networks become the transnational channels
through which information about the pull factors is transmitted.
Similarly to Massey, Portes and Rumbaut (1996:278) have established that, "the
decision to migrate is group mediated and its timing and destination determined largely
by the social context of networks established over time." While Massey emphasizes the
role of networks in minimizing risks in the migration process, Portes (2000) has also
talked about their function in terms of support: taking care of the weakest, reunifying
family, improving education, etc. Recall that Filipino migration to Spain started in
considerable numbers in the 1960s and 1970s when small numbers of Filipino women
moved to that country to work for their former Spanish employers in the Philippines.
Once they established themselves in Spain, they facilitated the arrival of other women
from their country (e.g. sisters, cousins, friends, etc.). Personal connections have played
an essential role in Filipino women's migration to Spain and it is important to put this
process in a gender perspective. Hanson and Pratt show how, unlike male networks,
female migrant networks use their family and friendship connections to obtain jobs.
239
According to these authors, male networks usually provide jobs through connections
forged at the work place (Hanson and Pratt 1991 cited in Martinez Veiga 2004).
In table 6.2 I have listed ways the women I interviewed found the jobs that allowed
them to migrate or to regularize their status in Spain.
TABLE 6.2. Mode of Entry and Access to Migration/Work Contract
Interviewee
Lili
Elena
Daisy
Concha
Mari
sita
zon
Nelly
Adelina
Mari
Delfina
Paulita
Bernarda
Paola
Viviana
Coral
arcelona from Novem
nt
Rather than allowing free entry to foreigners who will eventually find jobs, the law
establishes a rigid mechanism through which Spanish employers hire foreign workers
"from origin." Although the difficulties and dilemmas involved are numerous,
particularly for domestic work, Spanish law makes this as one of its main requirements.
Despite this, half of the interviewees in my study were offered work contracts when they
were still in the Philippines. Government employees and employers were surprised by the
fact that Filipino women seem to be frequently hired "from origin;" it is very rare for
domestic workers to find jobs before leaving their home country. They all recognized the
240
difficulties involved in respecting the law in this regard and were intrigued by the fact
that this seems to be working for Filipinas.
A closer examination of these women's trajectories challenges the effectiveness of
the law and shows that social networks make it possible to follow the law. Networks
build bridges between Spanish employers and potential migrants. Except from Marina,
who obtained her job offer through an agency in Manila, the rest of respondents accessed
their work contracts through a relative or a friend.
While in Adelina's case it was her previous employers in Kuwait who offered her a
job in Spain,283 the rest of the interviewees "hired from origin" found work through
sisters, aunts, and cousins already working in Spain. The stories they told during the
interviews show their family networks were decisive in providing information about job
availability and help navigating the bureaucratic system. Networks also offered financial
support to help pay for flight tickets and paper processing in the Philippines. In addition,
it was the relatives, who were already working as domestic workers, who provided the
connections with future employers.
Concha's decision to go to Spain was connected with the fact that her sister had
been a domestic worker in Barcelona for 15 years. When her sister was about to change
jobs she asked her employer to offer her old job to Concha, who was still in the
Philippines. Since the employer was happy with Concha's sister's work, she agreed to
sponsor Concha through a work contract.284
Family connections were also crucial to Coraz6n's migration to Spain. Due to her
low salary as a teacher in the Philippines, Coraz6n decided to migrate overseas to help
support her parents and pay for her mother's medical bills. While she initially intended to
migrate within Asia to stay as close as possible to her country, the fact that her aunt had
migrated to Spain decades before became the decisive factor:
At first I was not expecting to come here. First I wanted to go to Hong Kong
because I wanted to go to an Asian country, near to our country... But my mom did
no allow me to go there. She told me: 'if you go there you have no relatives, and if
283 Interview 12, Barcelona, Adelina, February 2007
284 Interview 4, Barcelona, Concha, December 2006
241
something happens to you it's very difficult ... you are alone, and this is your first
time to go there. You have no experience, you have no knowledge about that
country, so it's very high risk for you.' She told me: 'if you really want to go
abroad, why not Spain? Because in Spain you have your auntie. She is the one who
can help you if something happens, she is your auntie, she can help you... ' So 1
decided to come here.285
Upon her move to Spain, Corazon moved with her auntie, who was retired. Besides
the emotional support, Corazon's aunt provided other kinds of help. Corazon's decision
to leave the Philippines coincided with her aunt's retirement. As a result, her aunt talked
to her employers to sponsor Corazon through a work visa so that her niece would replace
her. She also paid for her flight ticket and other travel expenses.286
Concha and Corazon's stories illustrate the importance of networks for Filipino
women's migration experience. It is these networks, which, given the rigid an unrealistic
legal mechanism of entering Spain, allowed these women to fulfill the requirements of
the law. Where the law assumes an instant transfer of information between sending
countries and Spain, where employers are expected to hire workers they have never met
and who live thousands of miles away, it is these family and friendship networks that
transfer information in both ways. Filipino women find out about existing jobs in Spain
and Spanish employers find out about the availability and reliability of a worker, as
Paulita's experiences illustrates:
[I came here] because my sister's employers' relatives needed another chica, and
they asked my sister if she had any friend who was interested. [M]y sister told them
she had a sister in the Philippines. Los senores were interested and then 1came
with an oferta de trabajo Gob offer). My sister called me in October. She told me,
you can get a passport ... etc, the papers that 1need, and then ... October 1 get my
passport and then the month of March 1 get my visa. 1came here in Apri1.287
Given the intimacy involved in domestic and care work, employers feel more
comfortable hiring a woman for whom they can obtain reliable references. The centrality
of personal connections and references is revealed by the fact that these employers are
285 Interview 8, Barcelona, Corazon, January 2007
286 Interview 8, Barcelona, Corazon, January
287 Interview 20, Barcelona, Paulita, March 2007
242
willing to wait for the several months that it takes to obtain a work visa. Networks also
provide moral and financial support for migrants.
While the examples provided above illustrate the role of networks in supporting the
fulfillment of legal requirements, the presence of relatives or friends may, on the
contrary, contribute to circumvent the law. These cases shed light on networks acting to
obtain afirma de favor which, although illegal, works to allow legal entry into the
country. I found evidence throughout my fieldwork that Filipinas in Barcelona often
convince their employers or other acquaintances to sponsor a Filipina to immigrate to
Spain as a domestic worker. Since the signature is often just afirma de favor, the woman
is on "her own" once in Spain, and becomes responsible to find an employer and/or make
h . I . 'b' 288t e socIa secunty contn utlOns.
As discussed in section 2.2.1, in other situations the presence of networks does not
guarantee ajob offer prior to the woman's departure from the Philippines but it is still
important to eventually find jobs and achieve legal status. This was the case for most
interviewees who had entered Spain on tourist visas. Despite Lili, Teresita, Nelly,
Auxilio, and Delfina did not manage to find a work contract that would allow them to
legally migrate to Spain, the support of relatives, friends, and community members
allowed them, by circumventing the law, to eventually achieve legal status.
I have already discussed Teresita's access to a fake work contract through her priest
friend's friend. Once the papers were processed she went back to the Philippines and
pretended the job offer was made when she was still in her country. While Nelly also
entered Spain on a tourist visa, she found her initial job through her sister, and managed
eventually to legalize her situation. The importance of networks in all these cases is that,
although these women entered on tourist visas, their networks helped them find jobs
which eventually would make their legalization possible. In this context, networks shed
light on the contradictions that the rigidity and instrumentality of the law pose, and open
up opportunities that a strict fulfillment of the law would make impossible. Women, with
their friends' and relatives' help, eventually legalized not because of the law, but despite
288 Field notes, Barcelona, July 2007
243
it. Ironically, it was the support of their social networks in circumventing the law what
allowed them to become legal.
Government employees acknowledged the lack of correspondence between law and
reality. Yet, they still said that, although migration flows do not respond to the scenario
the law envisions, the principles of "hires from origin" and strictly labor migration need
to be maintained. Even if the government knows about this lack of correspondence
between immigration law and immigration reality, it still needs to send a message of the
necessity for orderly and strictly legal migration.289 Migrant networks are crucial to both
make migration flows fit into the labor migration scenario the government envisions or to
manipulate the norms to at least resemble that scenario.
2.2.3. Entering as Relatives
Focused on labor migration, the Ley de Extranjeria did not provide family
reunification rights, since they are connected with permanent migration and involve
integration. Although Spanish immigration law currently conserves much of its initial
labor emphasis, in the past decade family reunification provisions have been liberalized.
This has allowed many immigrant workers who initially came alone to bring their
spouses and children, and the government predicts that family reunification will
geometrically multiply in the next years. In this section I examine how family
reunification has shaped the Filipino community in Spain. I suggest that narrow legal
definitions of who is family, the intimate relationship between family migration and
labor, and the dependency between the petitioner and the petitioned that the law creates
act all as deterrents to use this mechanism to help family members migrate. Filipino
women in Barcelona, as I explain, have found other ways to reunify their families.
Bernarda, a 3D-year old permanent resident, arrived in Spain in 1997. Unlike most
of the other interviewees, she was petitioned by her husband. Bernarda's husband grew
up in the Philippines, where they met and became a couple. His mother had left for Spain
when he was still a child. Before he turned 18 his mother was able to sponsor him on a
family visa, and he left for Spain. Two years later, after he obtained Spanish citizenship,
289 Interview 25, Barcelona, Government Employee, March 2007.
244
we went back to the Philippines to marry Bemarda and petitioned her as his wife. They
have had two children since then, and the four of them live in an apartment they bought
in downtown Barcelona. Like most Filipino men that I met, he works in a restaurant and
Bemarda, after years of working as a live-in domestic worker, cleans in a house a few
hours a week. The only relatives she has in Spain are, besides her husband and children,
her mother and brothers-in-law.
Mari was also petitioned by her husband, who got ajob offer in Spain through his
brother in 2000. By the time I interviewed her she was 27 and had been in Spain only few
months. They have a baby boy, who stayed in the Philippines, with her parents. Her
husband also works in a restaurant and they plan to save to be able to bring their child to
Spain within the next few years. The chain of migration that took Bemarda and Mari to
Spain originated with work and eventually led to family migration.
A family petitioner is the migrant who is already in Spain and applies for a visa in
order to bring a relative from their home country. Overall, family reunification in Spain
currently includes more male petitioners than women. This makes sense since initial
migration to Spain was predominantly male in most national groups (Mestre 1999). 290 In
fact, during my interview with the director of the family reunification office in Barcelona,
she repeatedly used the term "wife" instead of "spouse" when referring to the person
being petitioned.291 This illustrates how most petitioners tend to be male and, conversely,
most petitioned relatives tend to be women. While Mari and Bemarda fit this model,
theirs is not the most common situation in the Filipino community. Given its accentuated
feminine character, as well as the still predominant availability of domestic work jobs,
Filipino women have been the main family petitioners into Spain within their community.
As the government employee acknowledged, "Filipino women reunify. They come first
and then they bring their husband.,,292 Although the tourism sector, as well as family
290 In the particular context ofCatalunya, in 2007 51.7% of the petitioners were men and 48.28% women.
This does not necessarily mean that all men petitioners petitioned a woman (spouse), since in many cases
they did so as family heads petitioning the couple's children.
291 Interview 18, Barcelona, Government Employee, February 2007
292 Interview 18, Barcelona, Government Employee, February 2007
245
reunification, is bringing more and more Filipino men to Barcelona, it is common to find
women in the position of the initial migrant who promotes further migration, either
though family reunification or labor mechanisms. For example, Paulita petitioned her
husband in 2005. As I said, Mari hopes to petition her child in few years and Purisima
would like to petition her husband when she gets a stable job.
Spanish family reunification both resembles and contrasts with U.S. immigration
policy. One divergence is that U.S. family provisions are more generous than those in
Spanish immigration law. While family reunification was predominant among my
interviewees in San Francisco, work migration was more common among interviewees in
Barcelona. This does not necessarily mean Filipinas migrating to Spain conduct less
family migration than their counterparts in the U.S. but rather that, due to the limitations
Spanish family reunification policy imposes, Filipinas there often use work migration
mechanisms to reunite their families. Let us see what some of these limitations are.
2.2.3.1. Difficulties to Work and Dependency on Petitioner
One of the main characteristics of family reunification provisions in Spain since
1996 has been that the relative being petitioned is not granted a work permit upon arrival
in Spain. Feminist scholars have criticized this because the petitioned relative becomes
dependent on his/her sponsor (Mestre 1999). Until 2003 petitioned relatives only
obtained residence permits during their first two years in Spain.293 The renovation of the
residence permit, as well as the allocation of a work permit, was conditional on the
continuation of the marriage. In addition, the legal status ofthe person being petitioned
was, for the first two years, dependent on the legal status of their petitioner. Given that
most petitioners are men, this created legal and financial dependence of women on their
husbands and made it difficult for them in cases of domestic violence.
Since 2003 petitioned relatives are technically authorized to work upon arrival in
Spain. Nevertheless, the residence permit they obtain for the first year does not include a
work permit. Ifthe petitioned person finds a job, she/he, can apply for a work permit. The
processing ofthis work permit, however, can take few months. According to my
293 Meaning that they did not obtain a work permit.
246
interviewees, many Filipinos do not know they could actually get a work permit during
their first year in Spain. In addition, not many employers are willing to wait for months
until the person can begin. One Centro Filipino leader explained this is one of the main
challenges the Filipino community currently faces in Barcelona. Although the law says
the petitioned spouse can already work in his/her first year, it actually makes it difficult
for them to do so until they renew their residence permit and automatically get a work
permit. This leads to difficulties for petitioned relatives to find jobs and their frequent
resort to working illegally in the underground economy. This has been Mari's case.
Months after her arrival in Spain, she had only managed to work under the table cleaning
a house a couple of hours a week. When I asked her why did not she get a full time job,
she showed me her residence permit and, pointing to the line that said she was not
authorized to work, she exclaimed. "no trabaho!,,294 Consequently, Mari was, for the
most part, dependent on her husband's income.
This provision, however, has a worse impact on Filipino men than women, since
there are more of them currently being petitioned by their spouses and they tend to have
more difficulty finding jobs than Filipino women. Given the high rates of unemployment
among Filipino men, the provision places more pressure on women to become
breadwinners. Overall, though, the provision affects the household as a whole. Filipino
migrant families, usually positioned in low paying jobs, need both spouses to work in
order to make ends meet and send money to their families in the Philippines.
2.2.3.2. Work Is Still a Requisite
Family reunification responds to different political motivations than labor
migration: the right of families to be together versus the need of a particular country for
labor. In the case of Spain, however, the two are more connected than one might think. In
order for an immigrant residing in Spain to be able to sponsor her family she needs to
prove both residence and labor stability. What qualifies an immigrant as an apt family
petitioner then is not that she has a family and she should be entitled to be with them, but
rather her identity as a stable worker. The immigrant's economic role is, again, the source
294 No work!
247
of rights. Only if immigrants contribute to the "common good" and are not a burden for
the Spanish government do they deserve to have a family life in the receiving country.
It is not until the end of a migrant's first year of legal residence in Spain that she
can apply for family reunification. This occurs simultaneously with her application for
residence renewal for a second year. Once the residence permit is approved, the family
reunification application is automatically validated. Besides a residence permit and a
work contract, the petitioner is also expected to provide evidence of her past three
payrolls and social security contributions. These prove her work stability. While the law
does not establish a minimum income for authorization of reunification, Spanish
minimum wage is usually the low threshold. In addition, a migrant is expected to prove
her access to proper housing for her incoming family (i.e. square meters, rental lease or
ownership title, utilities, etc).
These three requirements (i.e. work contract or work stability, minimum income,
and proper housing) result in indirect discrimination of immigrant women working in the
domestic sector, including Filipinas, and makes family reunification particularly difficult
for domestic workers in Spain since, 1) they sometimes do not have a written work
contract and their job is not usually characterized by stability, 2) they are often paid under
the minimum wage, and 3) they cannot prove availability of "decent" housing, since they
usually live with their employers or other Filipinas. I suggest that while the law was
written in neutral terms, legislators seem to have had the male immigrant model in mind.
Family reunification provisions place immigrant women, particularly domestic workers,
at disadvantage for becoming apt family petitioners. This disadvantage stems for the
intersection of class and gender dynamics that defines their work and immigration
conditions.
2.2.3.3. Who Constitutes Family?
As discussed earlier, an important difference between Spanish and U.S.
immigration law is that, while the former has been based on labor migration, U.S.
immigration law has generous provisions for family reunification. It allows, at least
formally, the immigration of various categories of relatives, including members of the
248
extended family. Conversely, the type of family members eligible for reunification under
Spanish immigration law is more limited.
Currently, petitioners can sponsor one spouse and her single children under 18
years old. Interestingly, the government employee in charge of family reunification in the
province of Barcelona repeatedly referred to spouse as wife. This substitution is present
in some the language of immigration law. This shows to what extent the model of the
lone male migrant who eventually reunifies his dependent wife remains in the legal and
social imaginaries. Children over 18 can also be petitioned as long as the petitioner
proves they are dependent on her/him for care and support. The immigrant can also
petition her parents. Only parents above 65 years old are eligible under the current law.
The petitioner must prove that she is in a position to support them for the rest of their
lives295 and they are not entitled to any kind of retirement benefits. An immigrant's
parents, thus, are allowed entry into the country as long as are dependent on their
petitioner and do not become a burden to Spain.296
2.2.4. Challenging Official Categorizations
In this section I discuss the implications narrow legal definitions of family and the
work-related requirements for family reunification have for the Filipino community in
Barcelona. Given that these requirements pose difficulties on women's ability to reunify
their families, I also discuss different ways in which Filipino women challenge official
categorizations in order to facilitate their relatives' migration to Spain.
According to Ruth Mestre, family relations are political since their configuration is
based upon those relationships which acquire meaning within a particular political
context. Family policy toward immigrants is a mirror "of the family model the state is
willing to protect (nuclear, heterosexual, monogamous) as well as of the kind of
relationships that must be maintained among the members (i.e. subjection, dependency)"
295 Interview I8, Barcelona, Government Employee, February 2007
296 It is worth noting that, since they will have a residence permit, they will be entitled to health services.
Thus, the state plans to provide support to incoming elderly, but this is limited to health provision which, in
Spain is universal.
249
(2001 :392).297 The existence of different family arrangements is not recognized by
immigration law and the ability to petition one's extended family is limited to the
immigrant's dependent parents. 298 The model of the Spanish welfare state in which it is
families, rather than the state, who are expected to take care of the elderly, is reproduced
in immigration policy.
Given the limitations and conditions family provisions impose, it is not surprising
that only a few of my interviewees resorted to it. As Mestre (2001) argues, immigrant
women in Spain prefer other mechanisms that, while not officially family related, may
make family reunion possible. This is key to understand the migration strategies that I
encountered. While they were channeled, for the most part, through work contracts, they
had as one of their goals keeping family members together. The fact that Spanish
immigration law for the most part sees immigrants only as workers does not mean this is
the only way immigrant women perceive themselves.
Teresita's family's migration strategy shows that family goals may be present even
when migration happens through labor channels. Since Teresita's arrival to Spain in 1997
she has supported, through work contracts, the migration of three sisters, one brother-in-
law, and one-sister-in law. While official records classify them as migrant workers, an in-
depth understanding of their motivations for migrating and their family situation sheds
light on the complexity of factors behind their migration. With the exception of Teresita,
all her siblings have children in the Philippines. Until the arrival of her siblings, Teresita
was putting her nieces and nephew through school. Now that their parents have joined
her in Barcelona, the "burden" will be more evenly distributed.
What the dynamics of Teresita's family show is that their migration is not only
about work. Another goal they have is to reunify members of the family. The migration
of Teresita's siblings will likely also result in their children's migration. Another goal is
297 Original text in Catalan. My translation.
298 Despite that gay marriage was legalized in Spain in 2005, this right was limited to Spanish nationals and
has not translated into its recognition within Immigration law. Only those gay marriages having taken place
in Spain, Holland, Belgium, or Canada qualify for family reunification. Similarly, officially registered
domestic partnership does not award family reunification rights. We witness, again, a configuration of the
social contract limited only to members and built upon the exclusion of non-members.
250
to increase the remittances to the Philippines and to more evenly distribute financial
responsibility among family providers. In other words, Teresita's scenario presents labor
migration as a way to make an extended family migration project possible. In addition,
the more relatives the family has in Spain, the more contributions there are for the
extended family in the Philippines. Any attempt to reduce Teresita's family's migration
strategy to either familiar or economic is too simplistic. Family networks enhance income
generation, and the maximization of the family's income generation supports the
transnational family's survival strategies and long term projects (children's education,
savings, etc.).
This connection between family and labor migration was also present in other
women's stories. During an informal conversation, one recently arrived Filipino woman
in Spain explained that she used the work migration mechanism in order to join a relative
for personal reasons. She told me the reason she decided to go to Spain was that her
sister-in-law had recently been widowed and she needed emotional support from her
family. Since the law does not include petition of siblings, she resorted to labor migration
to be able to accompany her sister-in-law in Spain and support her in such a difficult
moment. Her sister-in-law found ajob for her and she entered the country on a work
permit. Although she is a college graduate, law school graduate, and completed a
master's degree in public administration, she works as a domestic worker and a cleaner in
Barcelona.299 What is relevant in this and Teresita's story is that, while the Spanish state
seems to think it can demand the entry of workers only, immigrant women adapt to
unrealistic rules in order to pursue non-labor agendas (i.e. to be with their loved ones).
Table 6.3 sheds light on the interviewees' role both as migrants and as facilitators
of other people's migration. As the data shows, while a considerable number of them
joined and/or were joined by relatives in Spain, for the most part they did not use family
reunification. Family, friendship, and community networks have, for the most part, used
labor mechanisms to allow for their relatives' migration.
299 Field notes, Barcelona, March 2008
251
TABLE 6.3. Previous Networks, Mode of Entry, and Agency and Contribution
to Further Family Migration
None
Sisler/Sisler in Law
None
Daughter
Sisler/Cousin
None
None
None
Niece
Husband/Niece
None
Two Nieces
None
None
r's Interviewsin Barcelona from November 2006 to March 2
Table 6.3 indicates that only three of the interviewees, Lili, Daisy, and Delfina,
migrated to Spain without using family or friendship networks. They arrived in Spain
between 1969 and 1978, which places them among the pioneer migrants and most likely
explains the lack of contacts in the country.
Six of the interviewees who entered Spain on work visas migrated as a result of the
presence of relatives or close friends in the country.300 None of these women, however,
entered the country through family reunification channels. Teresita and Viviana's
networks in Spain were friends rather than relatives.
300 There are four other interviewees who also joined relatives upon their arrival in Spain but who, rather
than entering on a work visa, used tourist visas or crossed the border illegally. In their case, the difficulties
imposed by the law were increased by their network members' inability to provide them with a work
contract previous to their arrival. As I have discussed, however, they did so after their entry. Interestingly,
there are only two interviewees who entered Spain through family reunification channels: Mari and
Bemarda. As discussed, their migration is an outcome from initial women laborers who eventually
petitioned their sons. It was these women's sons- the interviewees' husbands- who petitioned them. The
fact that the two only reunified interviewees were petitioned by their husbands places them into the
masculine model mentioned above, where it is the male worker reunifYing his wife and possibly children. I
suggest that the fact that both of her husbands work in restaurants, with formal work contracts and higher
incomes than in the domestic work sector increased the likelihood that the petition was successful.
252
The other four cases illustrate the difficulties stemming from legal narrow
definitions of family within family reunification provisions, which made them migrate
under labor rather than family mechanisms. Elena, Concha, Coraz6n, and Paulita joined
their cousin, sister, aunt, and sister respectively. Family reunification provisions are
limited to spouse, under-age and dependent children, and dependent parents. Regardless
of the closeness between the migrant and her network -e.g. belonging to the same
household and/or the same family's migration/survival project- the fact that the formal
kinship ties linking them are not recognized by the law, rendered family reunification
impossible. This raises issues on the definition of family that the Spanish government
establishes and its disregard for other/non-western definitions.3°1
Interviewees' entry mechanisms show only two used formal family reunification
channels being petitioned as wives. However, Table 6.3 shows that 7 of them have
supported the immigration of relatives. These include, sisters, nieces, sisters-in-law, a
daughter, cousins, and a husband. With the exception of the latter, the rest have all used
work contracts and tourist visas. That I found only one case of formal family
reunification does not necessarily mean Filipino women in Spain do not plan to reunify
their families, but it becomes necessary to understand their own concepts of family, and
their particular family situations. Once we contrast these concepts and situations with
family definitions included in the law, some differences appear between them, which
undoubtedly affect the strategies the women follow.
Filipino women whose relatives do not fall into the categories the law includes
cannot reunify them following family reunification procedures. In addition, even when
their relatives qualify as apt for family reunification, the women's material conditions in
Spain make family reunification difficult. In Table 6.4 I specify the marital status of each
interviewee, the existence or not of children, and whether the children are currently in
301 During my informal conversations with Filipino women at Centro Filipino, different conceptualizations
of what constitutes a family member became obvious. For example, one day, when Paola was telling me
about the relatives she had back in the Philippines, she mentioned mUltiple grandchildren. I was surprised,
since I knew that Paola's only child is 9 years old and lives in Barcelona with her and her husband. When I
mentioned this fact, she started laughing and clarified that she referred to her brothers and sisters'
grandchildren. She explained that in the context of the Philippines, they are like their own grandchildren,
and added "but you Spaniards don't call it anything" (Fieldnotes, Barcelona, March 2008).
253
Spain or in the Philippines. In addition, I also specify whether the children are adult or
not and whether they were born in Spain or in the Philippines. These two distinctions
have important consequences in the use of family reunification for migrants.
TABLE 6.4. Marital Status, Existence and Location of
Children
Interviewee
ogle
Married
Married
Married
Ogle
.gte
a
Daisy
Concha
ina
Delfina
Paulita
Bernarda
Paola
Viviana
Coral
As the table shows, ten of the interviewees are single with no children and are part
of what Parrenas has called single "adult child(ren) abroad transnational households"
(200 1: 99). This includes families whose migration responsibility has fallen on a single
adult child, usually a woman. Adelina, for example, responded the following when I
inquired about her relationship with her family back in the Philippines:
254
I don't have family, I don't have my own family, but I am supporting I don't know
how many families in my own family. I am sending four nieces to university. I am
also supporting my sister, who has had a postpartum depression for two years
already, and the other one who is almost paralyzed, and the other one who had the
lung problem, the same problem that my mom had, and the other daughter of my
brother that I am helping to send to a private high school. I am supporting like ten
people.302
Single women like Adelina are often in charge of supporting their parents as well as
siblings, nephews, and nieces.303 They do so by paying for medicines, hospital bills,
education, everyday expenses, etc. The fact that they are single and have no kids304
means that, with the exception of their parents, there are no other family members whom
Spanish law allows them to petition. None has petitioned their parents, though, and this
makes sense in a context where the petition of parents usually happens in situations in
which women need free child care to be able to work outside of the home. 305 Despite
being single, their decision to migrate was part of a larger extended family decision when
it became necessary for at least one family member to migrate to provide for the rest.
During my interviews, these women commented that they arrived in Spain while still
young. However, they have had to "work, work, and work," and had no time left for other
things, including creating a family.306 There is an irony here. While they prioritized the
well being of their extended family over the creation of their nuclear family, current
legislation on family reunion does not recognize the family links that have been the most
relevant in their lives, such as their siblings, nieces, or nephews, and condemns these
women, due to its limited definition of family, to remain separated from their loved ones.
It is a lose-lose situation: women giving up their individual project of creating a nuclear
302 Interview 12, Barcelona, Adelina, February 2007
303 For instance, both Purisima and Concha reported that they had quit school at young age to work in order
to support their brothers' attendance to university. They were the ones designed by their families to support
their siblings, usually male, higher education. Thus, this responsibility to support the larger extended family
can start in the Philippines at young age.
304 With the exception of Coral and Nelly.
305 It probably makes sense to treat Auxilio and Corazon as separate cases for two reasons: One, their age:
both of them were 26 at the time of the interview. And two, their recent arrival to Spain: 2006 in both
cases. Both them declared to have boyfriends in the Philippines. Their relative young age and recent
migration experience leave them with time to have children and strategize in terms of family reunification.
306 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006
255
family for the sake of providing for the extended family members. Since the latter,
according to Spanish law, are no family, these women are left with no one with whom
reunify or, in other words, with no family in Spain at all. Given the lack of opportunities
to migrate through family reunification channels, as Teresita's story illustrated earlier,
work permits become virtually the only viable way to bring siblings, nephews and nieces.
Conforming to certain family models helps. Apparently, only those choosing the
standard Western, nuclear, heterosexual family "format," are entitled to have family lives
without an Ocean dividing them. This, however, does not go without limitations. Daisy,
Paulita, Bernarda, and Paola are married and have children. While Paulita, as I just
explained, recently petitioned her husband, and Bernarda was petitioned by her spouse,
Daisy and Paola met their husbands after they were already in Spain. The four of them
have children who were born in Spain, so reunification is not an issue. However, the
same is not the case for Mari, Purisima, and Marina. Marina is 74 years old and arrived in
Spain in 1977. She has 9 adult children who, except for one daughter who migrated to
Japan as an entertainer worker, live in the Philippines. Her husband died a few years ago,
and she has over 20 grandchildren. When I asked why she never petitioned her husband
when he was still alive and her children when they were young she answered she had
always worked asfija (live-in) and she never had enough money to support them in
Spain. Marina has spent over 30 years far away from her family and during those years
she became a widow. She could not go back because the family needed her income, and
they could not join her in Spain because of her inability to support them there and the
lack ofjobs for Filipino men in Barcelona.
Purisima and Mari arrived in Barcelona in 2004 and 2006 respectively. Mari's child
is in the Philippines with her parents. She and her husband plan to work for several years
before they petition him. They are currently living in a small apartment with three other
Filipinos also working as domestic workers and plan to save to get a place for their own
family. In their case, while the law formally allows them to have their child with them in
Spain, the conditions in the labor market, in which Mari has difficulties finding a stable
job and where a great percentage of their income goes toward their child's and parents'
256
expenses in the Philippines, do not allow them to live as a family in the receiving
country.
Coral is a single mother who arrived in Spain in the late 1980s. Due to her initial
undocumented status and her difficulties in finding a stable job, she could not keep her
daughter with her in Spain:
My daughter was born here [in Spain], but when she was 5 I sent her [to the
Philippines], because I became jobless, the lady I was working for had no money to
pay me, and due to my situation, my aunt decided and said, 'for now, let's take
Patricia to the Philippines so you can work well, and in the meanwhile she is there,'
and my parents were happy to have my daughter. She came back when she was 12
and now she is 16.307
Coral's "care strategy" resembles Mari's in the sense that both chose to leave their
child with their parents in the Philippines for a period of time. Coral's case does not
involve the use of family reunification mechanisms because her daughter was born in
Spain. However, her case represents the stories of many Filipino women who, due to
vulnerable immigration and labor situations, cannot afford having their children with
them in Spain because "everything about having the children here is very expensive.,,308
Both decided to leave or return their children in their home country at the beginning of
their migration trajectory and when their children were still young.
None of my interviewees have petitioned their parents and they do not plan to do
so. However, one of the leaders at Centro Filipino explained it is becoming increasingly
common for Filipino women in Barcelona to petition their parents, particularly their
mothers, to obtain help with the care of the children and the home. In other words, while
relying on the care the extended family can provide in the home country is one well
documented strategy (Parrefias 2001; 2005a; 2005b), another is to petition a relative to
have childcare help in the receiving country.309 Although women cannot obtain any
307 Interview 26, Barcelona, Coral, March 2007
308 Interview 5, Barcelona, Mari, December 2006
309 According to an article published in the newspaper Publico, 85% of immigrant women in Spain work in
domestic service. The schedules and the long hours make it really difficult for them to take care of their
own children. As a matter of fact, the article established childcare as the main problem that immigrant
women face to find jobs. The absence of the extended family to provide free childcare worsens this
257
economic benefit from the presence of their mothers in Spain in the form of additional
income, since these are not allowed to work, their mothers support them taking care of
their children while they are outside of the home doing paid reproductive work for other
families. This is usually a temporary strategy, and the mother eventually returns to the
Philippines when the children grow Up.310
2.2.5. The Commodification of Immigrant Networks
In previous sections I explained the crucial role immigrant networks have in
facilitating Filipino women's legal, illegal, labor, and family migration to Spain.
Networks have been the key sites through which information, emotional and financial
support, references, and trust were transmitted and shared. Networks, however, are not
always benevolent. Other dynamics need to be taken into consideration to avoid the
romanticization of the Filipino migrant community in Barcelona (See Mahler 1995;
Parrefias 2001). Mahler (1995) has shown that labor segregation and competition for
limited resources often result in anomie rather than solidarity within a particular
immigrant group. This prevents the development of benevolent immigrant networks and
triggers competition among or within them. Parrefias argues that anomie exists alongside
solidarity. Along with Parrefias, I found non-benevolent networks within the Filipino
community in Barcelona, which help understand the complexity of social relations among
Filipinos and the forces behind many Filipino women's migration.
Both kinds of networks coexist within the community. During interviews with
government employees they explained that they usually find three scenarios in which
employers' petition immigrant workers. The first motivation would be to cover a work
vacancy. The second would be to volunteer to sign the paperwork in order to help
legalize someone who is already in Spain or firma defavor. The Filipino women's stories
introduced so far illustrate both scenarios. According to these civil servants'
explanations, however, there is a third motivation: "We run into a third group of people
problem, since, according to the author, immigrant women often end up taking two or three jobs in order to
pay for private childcare. Hualde, Marta, "Madre y extranjera, dos baches para el Mercado laboral",
Publico, May 4, 2008.
310 Field notes, Barcelona, March 2008
258
who offer jobs to foreigners in order to make money. And this would include
trafficking.,,3!! This statement reveals that both individuals and agencies conduct the
allocation of work offers and contracts as a profit-making activity. Migrants who do not
have access to the benevolent support of family and friendship networks often need to
resort to other kinds of commodified and commodifying networks.
I found two types of commodifiying networks during my research in Spain. The
first type consists of individuals charging for work offers that will allow for legalization,
the second type corresponds to agencies conducting more conventional types of illegal
recruitment and trafficking.
The findings in my research among Filipino women in Barcelona pointing to the
existence of these practices are not numerous. However, this does not mean that such
practices do not exist. Similarly to Filipinos in the United States, Filipinos in Barcelona
were quite reluctant to talk about any incurred act of illegality. In addition, I suspect that
the limited mention of these kinds of mechanisms in my research may respond to a
sampling bias. In order to undertake my interviews with Filipino domestic workers in
Barcelona I used snowball sampling. However, my initial contacts were at the Centro
Filipino, the main Filipino migrants' organization in Barcelona. As one of the main
leaders of Centro Filipino told me, most members of the organization have arrived at
Spain through benevolent family networks. Most of my interviewees belonged to the
Centro. In addition, I suspect there was also a tendency to show the most favorable
aspects of the community and cover the more shameful ones.
During informal conversations with Filipino women, I learned of the existence of
Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona who look for job offers as a sideline activity. In
other words, through their networks in the Filipino community and their connections with
Spanish employers, they allocate employers willing to sponsor Filipino migrants through
work offers. Raquel told me while we were having merienda3!2 at her house that back in
the early 1980s her cousin, in addition to her job as a cashier in an entertainment center,
3ll Interview 24, Barcelona, Government Employee, March 2007
312 Mid-afternoon snack
259
charged Filipinos for finding them an employer. Sometimes the job offer did exist and
other times it was afirma de favor for which Raquel's cousin would be paid for acting as
an intermediary. She said such activities have continued and become more predominant
throughout time. Currently it can take between $7000 to $10,000 to obtain a job offer
through an intermediary in the community.3J3 One of the leaders at the Centro Filipino
told me of a previous domestic worker who currently charges $7000 to find jobs for
Filipinos who want to "petition" family members through a work contract. The
intermediary's task is to find the work and facilitate the reunification.314 According to
Raquel, in other cases the charges are "as low" as $1,500 and one can even find people
who will do it almost for free. 315
If we compare the charge of$1,500 to that of$8,000 the former may actually seem
reasonable. Both, however, are large amounts of money for immigrant (and non
immigrant) workers in Spain. The existence of individuals charging such high amounts of
money needs to be related, again, to the rigidities immigration law imposes. Given the
difficulties in accessing the country in a legal manner, migrants activate non-benevolent
and quite expensive networks to obtain ajob offer and therefore achieve legal entry.
Given the popularity of Spain as destination country among Filipinos, according to a
government employee in Manila, "potential migrants will pay and do anything to get
there. ,,316
Overall, strict migration controls, rather than stopping the arrival of people, just
divert their access and concentrate it in expensive, illegal, and often dangerous venues.
An organized international business makes profit by "helping" migrants avoid strict
migration controls. Coral entered Spain clandestinely in 1989. She paid a Philippine
"travel agency" $4,000 to process her papers and obtain a tourist visa. She thought she
was going to arrive by plane, and was surprised when she and the 14 other Filipinos she
was traveling with were taken to Portugal and had to cross the border at night:
313 Interview 28, Barcelona, Raquel, March 2008
314 Field notes, Barcelona, April 2008
315 Interview 28, Barcelona, Raquel, March 2008
316 Interview 2, Philippines, Government Employee, April 2007
260
We were in Lisbon, and they put us in taxis. There were 14 of us, so they put four
in each taxi ... we did not eat anything for three days ... I thought I had a visa for
Spain, but the visa was only for Portugal. We had to wait in a hotel for three days,
without eating, and they told us not to take any luggage, because we would have to
walk and run... I was really scared and anguished...317
Coral's case illustrates the existence of "travel agencies" in the Philippines that
charge vast amounts of money to "facilitate" entry to Spain and many other countries.
Her testimony shows she was not given the information about the hardships the trip
would involve. She was not even aware the entry would be clandestine.
Other migrants have been victims of illegal practices resembling human trafficking.
In 2000 the United Nations adopted the Palermo Protocol to prevent, suppress, and
punish the trafficking of persons. Article 3 of the Protocol provides the first
internationally agreed definition of trafficking in persons, and this includes:
[T]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by
means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of
fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation
shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other
forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar
to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs" (Garces-Mascarenas and Doomernik
2007:6).
Conversations with leaders at the Centro Filipino illuminate the existence of several
cases of Filipino women involving deception and illegal recruitment practices. Barbara
was 41 years old when she left the Philippines in May 2007 and has resided in Spain in
legal limbo since then. Despite the regulations the 2007 Household Service Workers
Reform Package introduced, Barbara had to pay an exorbitant placement fee, among
other illegal and abusive fees, which she committed to paying through salary deduction.
Barbara became indebted even before leaving for Spain, since she took out a loan
from her recruitment and training agency in order to pay all the fees. She left for Spain
hoping to obtain permanent residence and eventually bring her family to live with her.
317 Interview 26, Barcelona, Coral, March 2007
261
Supposedly the agency in the Philippines provided her with all the necessary
documentation, and in May 2007 she travelled to Madrid with six other women. Upon
arrival in Madrid a man was waiting for them at the airport and asked for the money and
documentation the Philippine agency sent with the migrants. She was then taken to
Sevilla to her employers' house. She was asked to start working as soon as she got there,
and despite the fact that her POEA contract stated she was entitled to two days off a
week, she was told that she would only have one day off a week and was expected to
work from 8am to midnight. After a little over a week, without her knowing the reason,
one ofthe representatives ofthe agency in Spain sent her to Barcelona. One year after her
arrival in Spain, Barbara has not been able to find a stable job and regularize her
situation. She has asked for help at the Centro Filipino and the Philippine Embassy in
Madrid, but nothing has happened so far. She has been doing illegal, badly paid jobs and
is unable to pay for her debts. While the labor office at the Philippine Embassy has been
trying to address her case, it is still pending.
Despite the large amounts of money she paid to obtain a job in Spain, for some
reason she ignores, she lost her job and has found herself officially jobless and, therefore,
undocumented, for almost a year. The only way she could legalize her situation would be
to find another employer, go back to the Philippines, and start the process all over
again.3I8 Remaining in Spain as an undocumented worker puts her in a vulnerable
position and prone to poverty and exploitation. Her situation is the result of the kind of
deception Philippine recruiters often use (See Varia 2007). The generalization of illegal
recruitment practices in the Philippines runs parallel, in this case, to the restrictive nature
of Spanish immigration law. Barbara's case sheds light on the existence of large,
organized, illegal recruitment agencies that make large profits off women's migration.
While illegal recruitment, often results in legal work and residence, in Barbara's case it
led to legal and financial vulnerability. An immigration law that requires an immigrant to
either have a work contract or be related to someone with one triggers this kind of
situation. Severe immigration restrictions also foster the creation of organized illegal
318 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2006
-------------------------------------
262
smuggling and migration and the enrichment of intermediaries. These generate further
undocumented migration, which is exactly what a strict immigration law tries to prevent
to begin with.3 19 In sum, string immigration controls, and the networks these contribute
to create, result in the creation oflegally weak subjects who, once they make it to the
receiving country will probably do anything to be able to stay.
3. Filipino Women's Migration to the United States Today
My interviews with Filipina and Filipino migrants in the San Francisco Bay Area
show Filipinas tend to be concentrated in reproductive work positions. While they have a
predominant presence in the domestic work sector all over the world, including Spain,
they do not typically fill this niche in the United States. According to Hondagneu-Sotelo
(2001), there are not many Filipinas who are strictly housekeepers, and they are often
preferred as nannies or elderly carers. According to the 2000 Census, in California alone
9,685 Filipinas work in personal care and service occupations. This figure is
conservative, since it does not include undocumented workers in this sector. Many
Filipino caregivers are college educated and were professionals in their own country.
Given the difficulties finding jobs commensurate to their training, they often become care
providers for the elderly and children. They occupy, according to Hondagneu- Sotelo, a
privileged position within the reproductive labor sector, since they tend to do caregiving
versus housekeeping work and usually earn more than Central American or Mexican
women. This differentiation shows racial distinctions within an already racially
segregated labor market, but does not change the fact Filipino women concentrate in a
low skills, poorly paid, underregulated work sector. While a strong presence of Filipino
women in caregiving positions presents a contrast with their counterparts in Spain, I
consider both occupations to belong to reproductive work and therefore comparable in
terms of legal and work conditions. This comparability will help, I think, to reach a better
understanding on the impact of immigration and labor laws on Filipino women in both
countries.
319 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2005
263
In spite of the growing need for reproductive and health workers in the United
States, there is no program within U.S. immigration policy that regulates the entry of non
U.S. reproductive workers. Despite this absence, given the high rates of Filipino
migration to the U.S. and the remarkable presence of Filipinas in the care giving sector, it
is reasonable to affirm that a transfer ofreproductive workers from the Philippines (and
other countries) into U.S. soil is currently taking place.
My goal here is to elucidate the role that the U.S. government has in this process
through immigration policy or how is immigration policy shaping this transfer. My
research shows that Filipinas are occupying comparable positions in the U.S. and Spanish
labor markets. However, a different conceptualization of immigration law and a different
history of the Philippines vis-a.-vis these two countries, results in different dynamics:
while Spanish immigration law has been organized around the notion of needed labor,
this has not been the case in the U.S. Although family migration is losing ground in U.S.
immigration law, it is still, at least formally, at its core. Most of my interviewees in San
Francisco used this mechanism to enter the country. Although Filipino women often end
up conducting the (remunerated) reproductive tasks U.S. society needs, they do not
usually enter the country officially as laborers but rather asfamily members. This grants
them a more stable legal status than their counterparts in Spain. Family reunification in
the U.S., nevertheless, presents some grave problems, and these often force women to
resort to other strategies to enter the country.
Given the importance of family migration for my interviewees in San Francisco, I
organize my discussion of Filipino women in the United States somewhat differently than
I did in the sections on Spain. Due to the different nature of U.S. and Spanish
immigration law, family support networks have been used differently than in Spain. My
discussion is organized according to the ways my interviewees used these networks. The
organization highlights the differences with the way women in Barcelona used these
networks.
264
3.1. Entering as Relatives: How Long wmlt Take?
Since 1965, the main official entry chatmel for Filipinos into the United States has
been family reunification (De Jesus 2005; Dejong, Davis, and Abad 1986). This has
triggered an accentuated growth of the Filipino community in many areas of the United
States. Although the 1965 Act eliminated nationally and racially discriminatory quotas,
because the number of Asians had been so small up to the 1960s, the proponents of the
Act never expected such a growth in the Asian population in the United States (See
Ancheta 1998; Ong Hing 1993; 2004; Ong and Liu 2000).
Table 6.5 shows the importance of family reunification among the Filipino
reproductive workers I interviewed in the San Francisco Bay Area:
TABLE 6.5. Age and Entry Year and Mode
Consistent with trends scholars and policy-makers have described, 15 out of the 24
women I interviewed entered the United States using family reunification channels. This
proportion is opposite of the one in Spain, where family reunification had a marginal role.
265
This translates into a different use of family networks in the two countries. While
networks in Spain have regularly employed non-formal (sometimes non-familial)
strategies to facilitate family migration, the centrality of family reunification in U.S.
immigration law formalizes the use of family networks. However, this formalization does
not always translate into instant or easy migration into the U.S.
Family visas in the United States, as opposed to Spain, automatically grant access
to permanent residence, and they eventually lead to the option of becoming U.S. citizen.
Permanent residence also means legal equality with U.S. American citizens in accessing
most jobs and, up to the mid 1990s, social services. This is in contrast to Filipino
migration to Spain which, as I have shown, is mostly characterized by labor quotas.
According to my research, however, while family reunification in the U.S., and
permanent residence stemming from it, grants a relatively privileged position to its
beneficiaries, this privilege is often more formal than actual. Filipinas' incorporation into
the U.S. labor market is not unproblematic.
Family petitions have allowed the reunification of nuclear and extended families in
the United States. The fact that U.S. naturalized Filipinos are allowed to petition adult
married children (with their children), as well as siblings, has created a domino effect
whereby, unlike in Spain, Filipino women in the United States tend to have a far greater
number of relatives living in the country than they do in Spain. Tables 6.6 and 6.7 allow
graphic comparison. The presence of numerous family members is common with
interviewees in the United States.320 Conversely, the presence of relatives for Filipino
women in Barcelona is far more limited.
320 Information included in the table on Filipino women in the United States is limited to those who entered
on family reunification, since I want to shed light on its effectiveness in bringing family together in the
United States. The table does not include the presence of in-law relatives which, in most women's cases,
was quite considerable.
TABLE 6.6. Relatives in the United States
Margarita
Pilar
Monica
Blanca
Nieves
Ron
Source: Author's Interviews in
TABLE 6.7. Relatives in Spain
266
267
Family networks among immigrants in the United States become automatically
activated in the moment that the law allows immigrants to petition their nuclear and
extended families. Similar to Spain, besides making migration possible, family
petitioners in the United States often provide support when needed, particularly upon an
immigrant's arrival. This has facilitated adaptation to U.S. society and has acted as a
cushion until the newcomers achieve stability. That was the case of Emilia, who was
petitioned by her brother and migrated to the United States with her husband and two of
her daughters when she was 53 years old. Her other four children could not join them
since they were above 21. During the first few years, Emilia and her family stayed at her
brother's house. This gave them some time to find jobs and become more financially
stable. Eventually her two daughters bought a house together and Emilia and her
husband rented a small apartment. According to Emilia, the only way they managed
eventually to stand on their own feet was by staying with her brother. This allowed them
to save money, and, in exchange, she helped with the household and the care of her
nieces and nephews.321
Similar to Emilia, Blanca, her husband and their two children stayed with Blanca's
brother for a couple of years. In Blanca's case, her family helped her beyond providing
housing. Blanca's daughter is mentally disabled, and she had to get in contact with
several agencies and specialists to ensure her treatment and support. Blanca's brother
would drive them to appointments and accompany them in their conversations with
doctors.322 In addition, other interviewees mentioned that relatives had lent them money
during their period in the United States and helped them findjobs. 323
Family reunification, however, is not without problems. The annual family visa
allocation has grown to over 300,000 visas a year, but the multiplication of family
petitions has collapsed the visa allocation system, creating long waiting lists for some
countries, including the Philippines. This coincides with an insufficient government
321 Interview 31, San Francisco, Emilia, July 2006
322 Interview 14, San Francisco, Blanca, June 2006
323 Interview 32, San Francisco, Eileen, July 2006; Interview 34, San Francisco, Ruth, July 2006
268
allocation of resources to process the enormous amount of applications.324 This issue
repeatedly came up during my interviews with immigrant women. Community advocates
and organizers considered it one of the main concerns in the Filipino community.325 As it
is, Filipino families have to wait for a long time, often decades, to be able to reunify their
families. Table 6.8 summarizes the waiting periods some interviewees faced before their
entry into the United States on family visas. This table includes only those petitioned
under the four family preference categories: 1) unmarried children of U.S. citizens, 2)
spouses and children of legal permanent residents, as well as sons and daughters who are
21 years old or older, 3) married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens, and 4) brothers and
sisters of adult U.S. citizens. I do not include women petitioned by immediate relatives
since these categories are allocated on unlimited basis and result in reunification within
months.
TABLE 6.8. Family Reunification Waiting Periods
llltl"nr'·.. htlterviews in San Francisco from January to August 2006
The table shows that the longest waiting periods correspond to those women
petitioned by one of their siblings326. The backlog takes place largely among adult
324 Interview 46, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, August 2006
325 Interview 10, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, June 2006; Interview 11, San Francisco,
FOCUS, June 2006
326 In Ester's case, it was her husband who was petitioned by his brother. When their husband obtained his
visa, Ester automatically became beneficiary as well.
269
children and siblings of U.S. citizens and spouses and single children of legal permanent
residents.327
My interviewees elaborated on the long waiting periods they experienced. Pilar, for
example, could not even remember the year her mother petitioned her328• However, when
she showed me her files with all her immigration documents, I saw a letter, added here as
Figure 6.1, her mother received in 1995 from the U.S. Embassy in Manila in response to
an inquiry she had made about the status of the petition she had processed for Pilar in
1989.
327 Ironically the waiting period for U.S. citizens' adult children is longer than for their permanent
residents' counterparts.
328 Interview 9, San Francisco, Pilar, April 2006
270
Figure 6.1.
National Visa Center
32 Rochester Avenue
Portsmouth, NH 03801.-2909
January 06, 1995
'£hank you fot your Inqu:i-xy. The immigrant. visa petition you
mentioned in your letter has been entered into the computer system
at the National Visa Center INVC} and assigned the case numberlisted below.
The petition is not: yet current, and the beneficiary should
therefore be cautioned not to make any firm plans, such as disposing
of: property, giVing up jobs, or making travel arrangements at this
time. Non-current petitions are retained at the WC until they
become current. The beneficiary will be notified When further
consideration can be given to processing this petition.
Note: Should you wish to know which prhlcrity dates are currently
being processed, you may call the State· Department's Visa Office at{202} 663 -1541.
Case Number: MNL-1990a:9SJ.1B
Beneficiary's Name:
Preference Category: 1"1
Your Priority Date: September 15, 1989
Foreign State Chargeability: PHILIPPINES
U.S. Embassy/Consulate: AMEMBASSY MANILA
Letter from U.S. Embassy in Manila
As the letter states, Pilar was petitioned in 1989. However, she did not enter the
United States until May 2005. Frustration over backlogs was commonly expressed by
those who, like Pilar, had waited in the Philippines for years. It was also expressed by
Filipino women already in the United States who had petitioned a relative or planned to
do so.
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271
Carmen and her husband arrived in the United States in 1985. Since only two of
their children were still under age, the rest remained back in the Philippines. Carmen
described her exasperation upon her arrival, discovering she first had to wait for five
years to become a U.S. citizen in order to start petition her other children. Three more of
her children joined her in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000. Carmen recently
petitioned her only child who stills remains in the Philippines. The petition will take 16
years total. Since she is now 72, one of her daughters currently living in the U.S. files a
parallel petition in case Carmen dies before her daughter's visa turn comes through.329
Ruth, currently 62 years old, arrived in the United States in 2003 through her
mother's petition. Ruth told me how she still cried thinking about her four children in the
Philippines and her grandchildren. She was disheartened when she told me she had two
years to go to naturalize, at which time she would be able to petition her children, whose
arrival would approximately take 18 years. Since none of her grandchildren will be
minors by then, their respective parents will have to petition them, which will probably
take 18 years. Since Ruth was 62 at the time of our interview, it is very unlikely that she
will ever be able to live with her grandchildren again. By the time they get to the United
States, if they ever do, she would be 98 years 01d.33o
Ruth and Carmen's stories are a heartbreaking testimony to the impact family
reunification backlogs are having on Filipino families. To further illustrate these
backlogs, Figure 6.2 shows the State Department Visa Bulletin for July 2006, which
includes the countries facing the longest waiting periods.331 As shown, waiting periods
for Filipino nationals in 2006 ranged between 7 to 23 years.
329 Interview 25, San Francisco, Cannen, July 2007
330 Interview 34, San Francisco, Ruth, July 2006
331 These statistics were very kindly provided to me by the attorneys at the San Francisco Bay Area Asian
Pacific Islander Legal Organization (APILO), a non-profit organization specialized in provided legal
assistance to low income Asian immigrants.
272
Figure 6.2.
2006 Waiting Periods for Filipinos
The document shows the date in which Filipino petitions being processed in 2006
had been filed. Thus, within the 4th category, the government was processing the petitions
filed in 1983. This means brothers and sisters of adult citizens have to wait 23 years
between the time they are petitioned and the time they can migrate to the United States.
Similarly, in 2006 the government was processing visas belonging to the third category
which had been filed in 1988, which puts the waiting period in 18 years.
273
The long waiting periods aggravate the pain of family separation and, in some
cases, make migration to the United States difficult to achieve at all. During my
participant observation in a legal clinic in Daly City in July 2006, I heard the case of an
elderly Filipino woman whose husband had just died. Grieving, she was extremely
worried as well, since her husband's death also meant that his long ago petition for their
children, still in the Philippines, "had died" as well.332
In sum, while immigration scholars have generally characterized U.S. immigration
policy as among the most liberal ones in the world, a closer examination of its provisions
shows it presents grave difficulties for family migration. While the formal centrality of
family reunification in the law recognizes the right of families to be together and thus
avoids the vision of immigrants as just labor, long backlogs make reuniting Filipino
families in the United States an arduous process. Not only does family reunification
policy limit the possibility to those people with relatives in the United States, but it also
imposes long waiting periods and the pain of long lasting family separation on both
current and potential migrants. The Philippines is not alone in this regard. China and
India also have very long backlogs. According to an interviewee from Filipinos for
Affirmative Action, given the difficulties nationals from these countries face entering the
United States, it is no coincidence that they are also the countries with the largest
undocumented populations.333 Let us further examine this correlation.
3.2. Entering as Tourists
China, India, and the Philippines are the Asian countries with the longest backlogs,
and they are also the countries with the largest undocumented population [because]
folks don't wait to be reunited with their families. They may get a guest worker
visa, or a tourist visa, but they come, they overstay. They lose status, but they
overstay. It is no coincidence that the three countries with the largest backlogs are
the countries with more undocumented.334
332 Field notes, San Francisco, July 2006
333 Interview 46, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, August 2006
334 Interview 46, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, August 2006
274
This testimony from Filipinos for Affirmative Action was validated by the
immigration lawyers and community organizations I interviewed during my fieldwork in
the Bay Area. They further argued that undocumented status is particularly prominent
among Filipino caregivers. This is problematic since, given the rigidities of U.S.
immigration law, caregivers face particularly large challenges to legalizing their situation
once they have fallen out of status?35 According to informants, more often than not,
women enter the country on tourist visas and refuse to leave once their visas expire.
While there is no specific program to facilitate the entry of caregivers, the availability of
care jobs in the United States mobilizes transnational networks that often trigger
women's migration on a tourist visa. Filipino owners of many nursing homes in
California activate networks with relatives and agencies back in the Philippines to trigger
women's migration on tourist visas.
3.2.1. Avoiding Backlogs
Since family reunification can take such a long time for Filipinos, they often decide
to travel on tourist visas to join their families in the United States. Table 6.5 showed that
five out of my 24 interviewees entered the United States on tourist visas. This was the
case of Ron, the only male caregiver who participated in my study. Ron entered the
United States on a tourist visa in 1987. His father, a U.S. Army veteran, had petitioned
him after becoming a U.S. citizen. Ron explained that at that time his economic situation
was unsustainable. The fact that his father' petition was going to take 15 years made him
decide to travel to the United States on a tourist visa and stay after its expiration?36
Noemi's story exhibits many similarities. She was married and had three children when
her husband's father, also a U.S. Army veteran, petitioned his son and his family.
Noemi's husband moved to the United States with the two oldest sons, and she stayed in
the Philippines with the youngest, who was still a baby. She did so because the couple
worried about their ability to support all their children. Noemi's husband planned to
petition Noemi once he found ajob. However, not wanting to wait for years, she and her
335 Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
336 Interview 19, San Francisco, Ron, June 2006
275
son eventually traveled to the U.S. on tourist visas in 1995 and overstayed them.337 Both
Ron and Noemi's testimonies are illustrative of how Filipino men and women circumvent
the law when they perceive it as too rigid, unrealistic, or unreasonable.
Both Noemi and Ron were reluctant to share their stories with me. While they
agreed to be interviewed, both became anxious when the questions focused on their legal
entry mechanism to the United States and their current status. In fact, Noemi refused to
share this information with me, and I guessed she had legalized her status, among other
reasons, when she explained she has been twice in the Philippines since she left in 1995
and she votes in U.S. elections. Their fear is not surprising, since my fieldwork coincided
in time when different proposals for Immigration Reform were taking place in Congress
(2005 and 2006). As the media widely publicized, the main provision of the House Bill
(HR 4437) was to criminalize undocumented immigrants by turning them into federal
felons. The Bill considered any person or organization that provided support to an
undocumented immigrant to also be a felon. This could include any immigrant, social
service, or health organization, as well as families. This provision created a lot of fear and
mistrust within immigrant communities. Many interviewees told me they knew for sure
that there were people within the Filipino community who were making money by
reporting undocumented Filipinos to the immigration services.338
This fear was reflected in my difficulty accessing undocumented immigrants for
interviews. I would usually ask interviewees at the end of the interview if they had any
relatives who worked as caregivers or domestic workers who I could interview. While
their answer was usually affirmative, they would also tell me that their relatives had "no
papers" and were not willing to talk about their situation with a stranger.
Sometimes, while interviewees had previously agreed to conduct an interview with
me, fear would make them cancel. Arnie cancelled our interview the day before we were
337 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noemi, July 2006
338 During my interviews with different immigration attorneys within the Filipino community they assured
me that these rumors were an "urban legend" and totally untrue. However, given the recurrent references to
them throughout my interviews, I see them as symptoms of the climate of fear and paranoia that the House
Bill created among many immigrant communities.
276
to meet. Her employer had explicitly ordered her not to participate in the study. The day
after Arnie's phone call I wrote in my fieldnotes:
The refusal of an interview says a lot, almost as much as the agreement to one.
There is fear. It says a lot about the political climate. This interview makes her
employer nervous. Why should it? And why should the employer have the ability of
making Arnie cancel it? There's fear. There's vulnerability.339
Ironically, Arnie's employer at this time was the immigration lawyer the Philippine
Consulate recommended to help her with her immigration problems ended up illegally
hiring her and enacting coercion on her. Within two months of this conversation, Arnie
fortunately changed employers (and lawyers) and we got to spend quite a bit of time
together. I did eventually interview her. Her case, as well as the other stories outlined
above, illustrates the social context of fear, which made immigrant women reticent to talk
about their life with a stranger. Only by spending lots of time with interviewees and
through tight family and friendship connections did I get to interview Filipino women
who faced or had faced problems with their immigration status.340 The limited number of
undocumented interviews in my study reflects my difficulty to access them rather than
being a symptom of their small numbers in the United States.
3.2.2. Employment-Based Legalization for Caregivers: A Dead End
Filipino women do not have an immigration program to enter as caregivers into the
United States. As a result, they often enter on tourist visas hoping they will adjust their
status. However, employment-based legalization for caregivers is practically impossible
in the United States. Interviewees and informants repeatedly explained during my
fieldwork that for many Filipina caregivers, entering on a tourist visa was their only
chance to migrate to the United States. Unless they returned to the Philippines before
their visa expired, they became undocumented and had few legalization venues. The
339 Field notes, San Francisco, May 2006
340 This difficulty to access interviews with undocumented status certainly had an impact on my sample.
There was not a whole lot that I could do to correct for this bias, resides acknowledging it. However, I tried
to make for the under-representation of undocumented immigrants conducting interviews with immigrants'
advocates and organizers who, although not undocumented themselves, helped me understand some of the
conditions of Filipino undocumented women.
277
decision to stay as undocumented limits labor market opportunities. Low wages, poor
working conditions, and invisibility are often present in this labor. While undocumented
workers in the United States usually hope to legalize eventually their status, those doing
reproductive labor, including care work, are among the ones for whom legalization is the
most difficult.
All Filipino immigration lawyers I interviewed reported having many clients who
were immigrant Filipino caregivers trying to find a way to legalize their status in the U.S.
With few exceptions, all had entered on tourist visas and had fallen out of status. They
were currently taking care of elderly persons. They often told the lawyers their employers
had offered to sponsor them on an employment-based permanent visa. According to the
attorneys, however, once a caregiver has become undocumented, there is practically no
legalization mechanism for them. While many spend thousands of dollars to "fix their
situation," doing so is not legally possible. Attorneys who accept their case are just taking
advantage ofthem.341
According to the lawyers, some women arrive in the United States already having a
job offer a Filipino care home owner in the Bay Area had made them when they were still
in the Philippines, or they come on tourist visas and try to find a job once they are here.
Either way, they work illegally. The only way they have to legalize their situation is
doing so before their tourist visa expires. However, that is extremely difficult.342
The process is usually the following: the worker tries to find an employer to offer
her a position and is willing to sponsor her under an unskilled labor permanent visa. If
she is successful, the employer must then file a labor certification, which is to test the
labor market and prove there are no U.S. workers willing or able to fill the position343 or
"to verify that the immigrant worker will not adversely affect the wages or working
conditions of American workers" (Park and Park 2005:13). However, according to one
341 Interview 15, San Francisco, Immigration Attorney, June 2006; Interview 24, San Francisco,
Immigration Attorney, July 2006; Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
342 As I explain, the employer needs to file for Labor Certification in order to sponsor the worker on an
employment visa. This process takes a while and, by the time it is approved- if it is indeed approved-
usually the tourist visa has already expired.
343 Interview 15, San Francisco, Immigration Attorney, Interview 15
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278
attorney, this is difficult to achieve, since the Department of Labor usually looks at the
U.S. unemployment rates and the qualifications required to do the job and rules anyone
could do it: "[Care giving] is not a specialty, everybody can learn that, it does not take
much... it's not rocket science to be a caregiver.,,344 The interviewee's reflection typifies
the low value placed on care and reproductive work, and it may very well be a reason the
U.S. has not created a program to regulate the entry of caregivers. As a consequence,
women enter on tourist visas and usually fall out of status. The lack of recognition of
reproductive labor as necessary for the U.S. economy makes it extremely difficulty for
undocumented women who conduct this labor to legalize their status.
Despite all the difficulties involved in obtaining labor certification, once in a while
it is approved.345 If this happens, the next step is to file a visa petition, in which the
employer shows they can pay the salary and the candidate is qualified for the job. At this
point the process comes under the jurisdiction of Immigration Services, which has the
discretion to approve or refuse the visa. During a phone conversation with an employee at
the Department of Labor, I was told visas for caregivers are usually refused.346 If the visa
is approved, the third and final step is to wait for the visa quota347 which, according to
different attorneys, could take between 5 and 7 years.348 Visas for unskilled workers are
limited to 10,000 per year for all countries. Until their tum comes up, these women have
no choice but work and reside illegally in the United States. Once their quota number
comes up they need to go to the Philippines to apply for their visa at the American
Embassy in Manila. However, the very minute they leave the United States, due to
punitive provisions introduced by IIRAIRA in 1996, they are barred from entering the
344 Interview 24, San Francisco, Immigration Attorney, July 2006
345 Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
346 Field notes, San Francisco, May 2006
347 The visa quota is the number of visas allocated for a particular category for each year. Since the
applications are many more than the visas available, there are long waiting periods to obtain a visa after the
visa has actually been approved.
348 Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
279
country again for 10 years?49 Not surprisingly, most women are not willing to take this
risk. The advice they obtain from their lawyers is "to stay under the radar.,,35o Due to the
different hurtles along the way the employment-based legalization of undocumented
caregivers is really a cul-de-sac. According to one interviewee:
What happens is that they go through all the steps and the last is not achievable. So
they basically end up waiting for something to happen, some kind of immigration
law to pass that allows them to adjust their status here. They have s~ent all this time
and money but they cannot get their green card. They can just wait. 5]
The only thing they can do is to hide until a new law that allows for the legalization
of undocumented immigrants comes up. This is particularly exasperating considering that
the last legalization program in the United States took place in 1986. Thus, the above-
scenario regularly results in indefinite periods of illegal residence, with the insecurity and
difficulties this implies. Despite all these difficulties, as Paca explained, "most people
come on a tourist visa and then decide to stay hoping that they'll eventually be able to
d· h . ,,352a Just t elr status.
3.2.3. Legalization as Professional Workers
Rather than adjusting their status as caregivers, some interviews who had travelled
on tourist visas tried to legalize through professional visas. While this modality presents
much shorter waiting periods, the stories I present below illustrate how this process is
also wrought with difficulties.
Paca, a thirty year old Filipino woman entered the United States in the summer of
2006 on a multi-entry tourist visa (B2). She is married and has two young kids. Both her
husband and her children stayed in the Northern Philippines while she traveled to the
349 IIRAIRA provided a 3 year long bar for those staying illegally for over six months or more and a 10
year bar for those overstaying for a year or more. The only exceptions are those undocumented immigrants
who had a petition filed for them- either by a family member of by an employer- before April 30th 2001. If
so, they can qualifY for a penalty provision. According to my interviews in legal firms, though, the majority
of Filipino caregivers seeking legalization have never been petitioned before.
350 Field notes, San Francisco, January 2006
351 Interview 15, San Francisco, Immigration Attorney, June 2006
352 Interview 54, San Francisco, Paca, August 2006
280
u.s. Her plan was to stay and work in the United States for the six months she was
allowed to stay legally. Her visa did not authorize her to work. Despite this, due to a
strong family and community network from her native Mindanao that was heavily
concentrated in the care giving sector in South San Francisco, she soon found a job taking
care of a woman in Palo Alto who had Alzheimer's. When I interviewed Paca, she was
not sure whether she would overstay her visa or would return to the Philippines upon its
expiration in December. Paca knew that if she overstayed her visa and fell out of status it
would be difficult to get it back. As a result, she met with an immigration attorney to try
to obtain an HIB visa to work as a professional.353 Paca is a teacher in the Philippines,
and she hoped to get the same job in the U.S. However, she was having a hard time
finding a sponsor and, during a meeting with her attorney, he told her there were no more
professional visas left for 2006 and recommended she go back to the Philippines and try
again in 2007. While professional visas are supposed to be allocated until October of a
given year, in 2006, due to high demand, they ran out in April. This is symptomatic ofthe
increasing use oftemporary employment visas to hire foreign labor. However, for Paca,
given the limited opportunities for her and her family in the Philippines, being able to
work in the United States, regardless of status, may be more important than being able to
obtain a professional job:
I'll be here even if! cannot find ajob as a teacher. I am glad that I am Filipino
because I'd do anything, even ifit has nothing to do with my career. I'd be a
caregiver, I would clean toilets if that is what it takes. You know, doctors are
becoming nurses. For them it's lowering their self-esteem, in some ways it is
demeaning. But I think that it's worth it, and I think they think so too. Especially
when they give you the figures on how much they make here. However, it's hard to
adjust for them, because they have high status in the Philippines and when they
come here they don't get used to being in lower status.354
Arnie was slightly luckier than Paca. She was a college graduate accountant and,
because she was unable to find ajob in the U.S. when she was still in the Philippines, she
353 Ifthe tourist visa has not expired it is possible to adjust status into an employment-based visa.
354 Interview 54, San Francisco, Paca, August 2006
281
entered the country in 1999 on a tourist visa her husband, as a former contract sailor for
an international merchandising company, had. Arnie managed to extend her tourist visa
twice for six extra months each time. During that year she worked as a live-in care giver
in different places all over the Bay Area. As she explained during the interview, her
employers took advantage of the fact that she had no work permit, and she sometimes
was paid as little as $40 a day for l2-hour shifts. Before her tourist visa expired, she
convinced a Filipino friend, the owner of a small business, to sponsor her on an HIB visa
as an accountant. Her friend/employer's petition was similar to the jirmas de favor in the
Filipino community in Barcelona, and although Arnie obtained the visa, her employer
could only offer her a part-time job as an accountant. As a result, she continued to work
as a caregiver under the table, since her visa only authorized her to work as an accountant
for her sponsoring employer. HIB visas can be renewed twice for three years each time.
Arnie is about to run out of renewals, and, unless she finds another employer willing to
sponsor her, she and her husband will soon have to decide whether to go back to the
Philippines or stay in the United States as undocumented workers. She guessed that they
would probably do the latter.
Paca and Arnie's stories show that legal adjustment through professional visas is
one option. This is a process, however, wrought with challenges. Paca was not able to
access a visa and Arnie's adjustment did not translate into a stable status and did not
move her out of the care giving sector. Both of them had to face the dilemma of going
back home empty-handed or staying illegally in the U.S. While I left the field before they
had to make up their minds, I have kept in touch with both of them. Paca went back to the
Philippines before her visa expired and traveled back to the U.S. recently to try again to
find a legal job. Arnie stayed in the U.S. and became undocumented.
3.2.4. Community Networks
Family and community networks acquire importance for Filipino caregivers in the
United States. They help find jobs and sometimes even sponsors for a work visa
resembling Spanishjirmas defavor. However, due the more restrictive nature of U.S.
immigration law as opposed to Spanish law, the former allows for less creative
282
manipulation on the part of immigrant women than Spanish Ley de Extranjeria does.
Similar to Filipino women in Spain, Paca and Arnie used their family and community
networks in order to access jobs in the United States:
I am here for six months and working under the table trying to make a lot of
money. That's something about us, Filipinos. We'll use anything to be able to come
here and work. We have a lot of connections from our hometown, so we get jobs
through the people in our community. Filipinos have a lot of connections, and we'll
give our jobs to people from our hometown.355
Also emphasizing the importance of networks to find jobs, Maribel explained:
[When I arrived] they were looking for a work for me... the whole community,
because actually we are so close knit, people from our town help each other out. My
sister didn't have a job and then all the sudden one of our friends from Cagayan
who has a job and she wants to go out. And then they were, oh, you should ask this
girl, this new girl, because she is from Cagayan toO.356
In the cases just described the nature of network support was to provide information
for possible under the table jobs, and, in Arnie's case, to obtain a U.S. version of afirma
defavor through a Filipino friend. Yet, the ability of networks to support legalization was
more limited in the United States than in Spain. This is due to the more restrictive nature
of U.S. immigration law. While Filipino women in Barcelona have at times returned to
the Philippines to process work visas after residing undocumented in Spain, the bar
IIRAIRA introduced for visa overstayers and other violators of their permits prevents
them from returning to the U.S. in a lO-year period.
Aside from the possibility of meeting a sponsoring employer through a network, in
the U.S. the only thing networks can do for an undocumented Filipina to help her adjust
status is to petition her as a close relative. Many undocumented Filipinos have no direct
family in the U.S. Given the current law, the only legalization mechanism is to marry a
U.S. citizen. Many end up paying huge amounts of money to get married. Amounts range
from $5,000 to $25,000.357 While in Spain the commodification of networks took place
355 Interview 54, San Francisco, Paca, August 2006
356 Interview 53, San Francisco, Maribel, August 2006
357 Interview 1, San Francisco, Rosa, February 2006; Interview 53, San Francisco, Maribel, August 2006
283
through the charge forfirmas defavor, in the U.S. it took the shape of expensive fake
marriages.358 The photo below was taken in the Mission district during my fieldwork in
San Francisco. It shows graffiti on the pavement that says: "TnT, marry me?" TnT is an
abbreviation for Tago nang Tago, which in Tagalog means "always hiding." Tago nang
Tago is a common term in the Filipino American community, and it refers to Filipino
undocumented immigrants.
Figure 6.3
Graffiti about TnTs. Photo taken by Jason Agar
San Francisco, March 30th 2006
Marriage was the way Maribel managed to legalize her status. Maribel was a 25-
year old Filipino caregiver and arrived to the United States on a tourist visa in 2004. Like
Paca, she had planned to work for six months as a caregiver to save some money in order
to return to the Philippines and pay for her final year in college. Few months after her
arrival she became pregnant and decided to stay. Maribel told me she now plans to work
in the U.S. until her daughter reaches college age, and then take her to the Philippines.
After her daughter's birth, she continued to work as a caregiver. When I interviewed her
358 This does not mean, however, that Filipino women only marry U.S. citizens for legal purposes. The
motivations behind a marriage are often complex: it may respond to legal reasons, romantic motivations, or
both. In addition, legalization through marriage is not problem free.
284
she was living in a house with 7 other Filipinos. They were all extended family, and all
but one worked as caregivers under the table. Since she fell out of status, she and her
boyfriend, a U.S. citizen, decided to marry to provide her with a green card. In order to
avoid suspicion from the Immigration Services that this was a "marriage of
convenience," they waited to process her papers until after the baby was born. The fact
that they had had a baby would make their marriage more credible. After a year of
processing paperwork and spending almost $2,000, she got her green card. However, her
green card, and therefore her status, is temporary and conditional on that of her spouse.
Only if she remains married to her husband for two years will she obtain a permanent
green card, which can eventually be turned into U.S. citizenship. This creates a situation
of dependency. Besides Maribel's legal dependence on her husband's status, he also
becomes financially responsible of her. If she needs to access any public services, he will
be charged for them. Maribel's conditional legal status needs to be understood in the
context where, as I explained above, U.S. Immigration policy has followed the trend,
since the 1990s, to shift state responsibility for immigrant persons back to their families.
Thus, the law creates a double dependency bound between the two: legal and financial.
While she was able to use one of the only legal mechanisms to adjust her status, this
mechanism does not grant her independence. This presents some similarities with
Spanish reunification provisions, since the latter limits petitioned relatives' opportunities
in the labor market for the first year. In the Spanish case, however, the petitioned relative
has free access to social services.
Immigrant women's advocates have criticized this legal dependence since, for
example, if women face situations of domestic violence they may not leave in order to
keep their green cards. Legislation such as VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) tries
to correct for this kind of situation. However, some of my interviewees told me stories of
friends who were victims of domestic violence but did not leave their husbands for fear
of losing their green cards.359 While such cases may not be the norm, any entry or
legalization mechanism for immigrant women in the United States should allow for
359 Interview 16, San Francisco, Nieves, June 2006; Interview 55, San Francisco, BABAE, August 2006;
Field notes, San Francisco, July 2006
285
independent and autonomous status from the very start. This is parallel to the problems
Spanish immigration law presents. Either through the dependency Spanish family
reunification promotes or the dependency of workers on employers its work visas create,
Spanish law does not allow for independent and autonomous migration projects. In order
to avoid these situations of dependency, immigration policy in both countries should
allow independent status both to workers and immigrants petitioned through family
reunification. This would legally help them to avoid gender power dynamics stemming
from dependence on their spouse (such as domestic violence) as well as employer's
exploitation stemming from a legal bind between the worker and the employer. Sadly, as
I discuss in the next three sections, this is not currently the case.
3.2.5. Opening the Door to Trafficking
Dependency on employers, stemming from vulnerable immigration status, often has
dramatic consequences for Filipino women. Excessive dependence on employers and
control on the workers' movements may lead into situations of trafficking. This happens
in two legal immigration scenarios. First, when women enter the United States on
temporary work visas. Second, when they migrate on special visas program as diplomats'
domestic workers.
3.2.5.1. Entering as Workers: The Normalization of Irregularity
Garces-Mascarenas and Doomemik (2007) argue that, although undocumented
migrants do not usually fall under the category of trafficked workers, they often face
situations of deception and exploitation that resemble those of migrants legally defined as
victims of trafficking. There are times when even if Filipino women enter the country
legally they also become vulnerable to suffer deception and falling into illegal or
irregular status. In this section I talk about an unskilled employment-based visa program,
the H2B, and by presenting Rosa's story, illustrate how current temporary employment-
based visa programs put immigrant workers in dependent, unstable, and vulnerable legal
conditions, leading thus to the normalization of irregularity.
Rosa found a job through an agency in Manila to work in a vacation resort in the
United States. After obtaining a H2B Visa and spending PhP250,OOO.OO processing her
286
papers, she traveled to the United States in December 2004. H2B Visas are temporary
and do not provide direct access to permanent residency. In addition, they make the
worker's legal stay and work dependent on the bond between the worker and her/his
sponsor/employer. The worker has documented status only as long as she works for the
employer who sponsored her. Upon her arrival, Rosa found out that the job her Philippine
recruitment agency promised her did not exist. She was sent instead to an elderly home in
California run by relatives of the owners of the agency. She and the twelve other
Filipinos in the same home were informed they needed to hire a lawyer to "fix" their
papers. The employers would take care of finding an attorney, whose cost would be
deducted from the workers' salaries. Rosa worked there for two weeks making as little as
$70 a week. Then she left for San Jose to take care of an elderly woman. She found this
job through friends back in the Philippines. This happened in 2005 and, since then, she
has worked as an undocumented caretaker in different places in the San Francisco Bay
Area.
The irony of Rosa's case is that after having fulfilled all requirements of the
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the United States Embassy in
Manila, she became an undocumented worker as soon as she set her foot in the U.S.,
since she never filled the job described on her visa. Although she did not know this back
then, she was a victim of illegal recruitment and the lies the agents in Manila told her to
be able to charge her astronomic recruitment fees:
I thought I was going to stay in there. Because they were saying good things.
You're gonna go working there and if you're good, they're gonna petition you,
they're gonna renew your contract. So that's what we're thinking. They are just
gonna renew our contract and we're gonna be in good hands. And then they're
gonna be... we never think that we're gonna be illegal or undocumented.
Similar to Barbara's case in Barcelona, the "right thing to do" would have been to
return automatically to the Philippines. Yet, this would have meant an inability to work in
the United States and the failure to pay the debts her family had acquired to send her
overseas. Instead, she left the nursing home and has spent the past three years working as
a caregiver and babysitter in different private households for low wages and no benefits.
She is constantly scared of being arrested and deported. Although she has sought legal
287
advice in order "to clean the mess" her agency created, several attorneys have advised her
to "stay under the radar;" to continue to work under the table and without contacting U.S.
authorities in order to avoid detention and deportation. Without intending to do so, Rosa
traveled to the United States to join the large ranks of TnTs.
There are three issues worth emphasizing from Rosa's case. First, the owners of the
care home where she landed in California were actually relatives of the owners of the
recruitment agency she used in Manila. This transnational connection between agencies
and businesses, which informants mentioned various times during my fieldwork, sheds
light on the of commodified and commodifying networks that profit from "helping"
Filipino women circumvent the rigidities of U.S. immigration laws. While there are
plenty of agencies who place Filipino women in real jobs, illegal recruitment is not an
isolated phenomenon. Before I met her, Arnie had organized dozens of Filipino
caregivers in the Bay Area to provide mutual support. As a result, she had good
knowledge of the issues they faced. According to her, there are many agencies in the
Philippines with connections to businesses and care homes in the U.S. They charge
between PHP 500,000 and PHP 1,000,000 to recruit people ($10,000 to $20,000).
Sometimes they use their connections with care home owners in the U.S. to apply for
work visas. Other times, the so-called "travel agencies," charge migrants to help them
enter on a tourist visa. They prepare the migrant's papers, open fake bank accounts, and
fake property titles to make sure the U.S. Embassy grants the tourist visa.36o
Without justifying illegal actions Philippine recruitment agencies undertake, it is
important to acknowledge that the rigidities of the U.S. immigration system force
workers and encourage agencies to work around it (see Bhabha 2005). Despite the high
demand for caregivers in the United States on the one hand, and the equally high supply
of unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid women in the Philippines willing to do
this job on the other, there is no legal mechanism in place to match both ends. Rosa did
not intend to violate immigration laws. However, since the job and employer in her visa
did not exist, she, as well as her "batch mates," found themselves jobless and
360 Interview 45, San Francisco, Arnie, August 2006
288
undocumented as soon as she entered the United States. Ignoring her employers' threats
to report her to Immigration Services, she left. Although she was right to escape from
unscrupulous recruiters and employers, she had no legal way to get support from local
authorities and has spent the past three years hiding from them. Because H2B visas bind
the worker to the particular job and employer described on their passport, working for
anyone else was not legally permitted. During the three-month duration of her visa Rosa
lived in legal limbo and, after its expiration, became another "average undocumented"
worker in the country.
Although U.S. immigration law did not directly put Rosa in this situation, it created
the situation by failing to offer realistic migration and legalization options, and
perpetuated it by legally classifying her as a perpetrator as opposed to victim. Casting
people like Rosa as victims is not politically appealing, since it may be perceived as
encouraging undocumented migration. The lack of a labor migration program facilitating
the legal entry of caregivers and domestic workers with the H2B or other unskilled labor
visas granting full rights results in stories like Rosa's. There is a clear demand for
immigrant caregivers. Since there is no immigration program facilitating their entry,
though, care home owners and agencies in the Philippines feign contracts for labor
sectors U.S. immigration law recognizes, such as tourism, to get Filipino women to the
United States. Once they arrive, they are expected to work- illegally- as caregivers.
Difficulties entering the country lead to the normalization of irregularity and fraud. This
shows the lack of political will on the part of the U.S. Congress to the demand for
reproductive workers with the supply of immigrant women through an immigration
program that regulates their entry and grants them full legal and labor rights. Park and
Park (2005) have suggested this lack of political will may respond to the availability of
between nine to twelve million undocumented workers already in the United States
willing to fill these jobs. I agree and add two factors to explain this neglect: the lack of
recognition of the centrality of reproductive work for the entire U.S. economy and the
growing restrictions on low income/unskilled immigration.361
361 The second factor, as I address in Chapter VI, is actually based upon a flawed premise. While there may
be a generalized perception in U.S. society (including the government) that care work is conducted by
289
Besides offering a political solution for the large number of undocumented people
in the United States, providing improved mobility and legal rights is a fundamental factor
if the U.S. Congress wants to promote legal migration and stop a further normalization of
irregularity. According to Davies (2002), this should be done by responding to the real
needs of both migrant women and the labor market. By this I do not just mean bringing in
guest workers through a program like H2B, or temporary convenient labor as Spanish
immigration policy has done. Rather, if receiving countries are going to resort to
immigrant labor to boost their economies and make up for the lack of government social
and welfare services, they should grant these immigrant workers the same rights as local
citizens and workers have, such as the ability to change employers at any time or to
search the support of public authorities without fear of being deported.
3.2.5.2. Entering as Servants: Legalized Trafficking
The last mechanism of entry Filipino reproductive workers follow documented in
my research is through special domestic help visa programs for live-in employees. These
contribute to what I call legalized trafficking, which refers to immigration situations that,
although they are legal, resemble the conditions found in human and labor trafficking.
The Bl, A3, and G5 visas allow diplomats from other countries, officers and employees
ofintemational organizations, and U.S. citizens who reside abroad to bring their domestic
helpers with them when visiting or temporarily residing in the United States.362 These
visas are usually for a limited number of years, and workers enjoy legal status in the
United States for only as long as they work for the employer who sponsored them
(Domestic Workers United and Data Center 2006; Zarembka 2002). These workers are
usually live-ins and their employers often limit their movements. As a result, similarly to
my difficulties to access undocumented immigrants, I could not conduct interviews with
unqualified immigrant workers, a large proportion of my interviewees presented very high educational
background. As I explain in the next chapter, they do not do carework due to low qualifications but rather
due to institutional and social ban'iers to their incorporation into qualified jobs consistent with their
training.
362 Ironically, when the worker is Filipina, this scenario has often been directly facilitated by the Philippine
government, since it directly manages the hire for Filipino domestic workers by foreign government
officials.
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290
any worker that had entered the U.S. on these visas. The information provided in this
section stems from reports published on this issue and interviews I conducted with an
employer (a consular official) and an immigrant women's rights advocate.
One example was a Philippine consular official in San Francisco, who told me he
had brought his domestic workers with him from the Philippines under an A3 Visa. This
visa qualifies the workers as private staff of consular or diplomatic officers. It is usually
valid for two years and binds the legal status of the workers to their employment in their
sponsor's household. According to this particular official, if such domestic worker
"escapes," she automatically loses legal status and is expected by law to go back to the
Philippines. What is particularly interesting about this immigration program is two-fold.
First, the domestic worker is considered private staff and therefore under the jurisdiction
of her employer. Second, if, for whatever reason, the worker decided to change
workplaces, she is automatically considered undocumented and thus required to leave the
United States.
In another case, Maria Luisa, a therapist at a women's shelter in San Francisco
shared with me the case of a Filipino woman who arrived in the United States as a
foreign diplomat's domestic worker:
There was a woman who was working at an Embassy ... and they withheld wages
from lie-iIOi twO years ... She came on idiplornaticvisa, Dutshe was trarficlea in
the sense that she was doing forced labor and she was not paid.
When asked if the employer was prosecuted, Maria Luisa said:
[The authorities] were going to, but they did not ... I cannot really say because it
was confidential. It was an Arab embassy ... I think that there was a political
intervention to stop prosecution because [it could] have become a very high profile
case.
Maria Luisa's statement touches on additional ways these special visa programs are
problematic. The fact that a woman can only maintain her legal status as long as she stays
with the person or family who sponsored her, can potentially contribute to situations of
essentially what is indentured servitude, resembling those found in Saudi Arabia or
Lebanon. A policy that limits the movement and choices of immigrant workers is creating
1-
291
a situation where the employer can exert a disproportionate amount of power over the
worker. The only difference between this case and those of Rosa or Irma Martinez' story
is the definition of legal and illegal. The content, though, is the same. While Irma's
vulnerability stemmed from their status as undocumented and Rosa's from the illegal
recruitment and limited rights H2B visas provide, it is the legal status of women on B1,
A3, and G5 visa programs what puts them in a situation of vulnerability and dependence.
These programs construct immigrant domestic workers as privately linked to the
employer. This parallels the generalized treatment of household labor as something
belonging to the private sphere. Their immigration and labor rights are very limited. The
fact that these employers are diplomatic officers or wealthy business people or both often
makes monitoring the workers' labor conditions even more difficult. Despite their "legal"
entry into the United States, the workers do not have any real protection from employers'
abuse. Walking away from an abusive or exploitative situation is legally seen as
"abandonment," and would tum her, again, into the perpetrator rather than the victim.
Legalized trafficking, as I have defined it, includes situations that, while defined as
legal by U.S. immigration law, resemble immigration and work conditions formally
classified as trafficking. In other words, although the recruitment and mode of entry into
the receiving country are not illegal, the formal relations between employers and migrant
workers-which the-state-creates-p-otentially recreate the vulnerability,- subordinatIon,
and exploitation often found in cases of (illegal) trafficking. The term legalized sheds
light on the responsibility of the state in this process. While illegal immigration refers to
an individual action that violates the law, legalized trafficking comprises situations that,
although contain features of trafficking, are allowed by immigration law. In using this
term, I aim to shift the focus from the individual to the state policymaking and
enforcement levels and shed light on the role of the state in creating situations of
vulnerability and exploitation for immigrant workers.
4. Conclusion
By examining Filipino women's experiences in Barcelona and the San Francisco
Bay Area, in this chapter I explained some of the ways reproductive labor is transferred
292
from the Philippines to Spain and the United States. By using the term "transfer," I intend
to place emphasis on the institutional mechanisms that directly or indirectly allow for the
presence of immigrant women workers labor in the remunerated reproductive labor sector
in these two countries.
I have argued that for the past two decades the Spanish government has been
directly facilitating such transfers, since its immigration policy has, for the most part,
only allowed the entry of those laborers its economy needs. Since the Spanish market has
been in high demand of reproductive workers, Spanish immigration policy has turned
domestic work into one of the main venues to enter the country. While the country opens
its borders to domestic workers, it does so without acknowledging the particularities and
intimacy involved in domestic and care work or without taking migrant's social and
economic realities into consideration. Employers usually want to know who is going to
take care of their children, their parents, or their homes. Spanish immigration law,
however, requires jobs to be offered while workers are still in their home country. Given
this maladjustment between the law and the reality of domestic work, some women in my
study reported they followed legal steps to enter Spain and some of them did not. As the
interviewees revealed, family and friendship networks spanning Spain and the
Philippines have facilitated legal migration. Networks among Filipinas in Barcelona are
cruCial to fulfill an umeaTistic andiigid law as weHas to circumvent it.
Tourist visas do not authorize work in Spain neither do they allow for long term
stay or family reunification. In addition, narrow definitions of "family" and the initial
financial dependency of the petitioned person on his/her sponsor make family migration
difficult.
Is spite of all this, Filipino women in Spain are not adventurous tourists or workers
or spouses. Their identities and material realities are not limited to one of these
categories. With few exceptions, they are all of them and many more. They are brave
travelers, hard workers, and loving family members. Spanish law, however, is based one
the flawed compartmentalization of their experiences and the reduction of these to one of
the dimensions mentioned above. While my research shows family and friendship
networks have had a key role in the Filipino community in Spain to facilitating the
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293
fulfillment of the law in the context of work migration, these have also been used to
circumvent the rigidities the law imposes, and have been important to eventually achieve
legal status. In addition, given the narrowness of family reunification provisions, women
have resorted to networks to bring their loved ones to Spain as workers. This does not
mean, however, immigrants are merely workers. They have their own income generation,
family, and migration agendas, and they use and manipulate the limited legal mechanisms
available to them to fulfill their goals. Many of them encounter structural constraints and
often, if they do not have networks in Spain, fail to achieve legal status or acquire a
formal work contract.
In contrast, the United States, for the most part, does not allow the entry of
immigrant women as reproductive workers per se. Filipino women, instead, enter the
country as family members or tourists. This lack of direct transfer of reproductive labor
through an employment-based immigration program, does not change the fact that there
are a great number of Filipino women conducting reproductive tasks in the U.S. In the
case of those women entering as tourists, I have demonstrated that enormous difficulties
of legalizing status once one's visa expires, and the informality and low status of
reproductive labor, have made it the only work available to them. The lack of recognition
of the importance of reproductive labor for the U.S. economy has translated into serious
difficulties for these women to legalize their-status.
Overall, both Spanish and U.S. immigration laws shape the gender composition of
migration flows. In Spain, the prominent position of domestic work in the law has
triggered a feminization of the flows. The Filipino community in this country has been
markedly feminine since its origins and has concentrated in domestic work. In the United
States, a large demand for health workers since the 1960s, as well as the large number of
women being petitioned through family reunification, has also shaped the gender
composition ofthe Filipino American community which, for the past 40 years, and for
the first time in the history of Filipino migration to the United States, has been comprised
of more women than men.
Due to its generous family reunification provisions, U.S. immigration law is
perceived world wide as being based upon a liberal conceptualization of migration.
294
However, as I have shown in my analysis of Filipino women's experiences in the San
Francisco Bay Area, family migration to the U.S. is not working as well as many may
think, and many women are currently not enjoying the right to be with their loved ones.
As employment-based migration gains ground at the sake of family migration, the entry
of low socio-economic status immigrants is discouraged. The outcome is dramatic,
endless waiting periods, which in some cases last for decades. Tens of thousands of
Filipinos patiently wait their turn as they continue with their lives in the Philippines. But
many others decide to travel to the United States on tourist visas to shorten the separation
time. More often than not, travelling on a tourist visa leads to vulnerable working
conditions and their inability to legalize their status, perhaps ever. Although community
networks act to alleviate their vulnerability by providing information about jobs or
housing, networks do not have much maneuver room, unlike Filipinas in Spain, to
facilitate legalization. Employment-based migration, such as the H2B or Al visas, place
women in situations of dependency on their employers an lead to a normalization of
irregularity or legalized trafficking.
Despite the importance of reproductive work to the U.S. economy and the welfare
of society, there is an absence of immigration legislation to regularize immigrants'
provision of this kind of work and to provide protections for these immigrant workers
----- --- -- -- -- -- - -- ---- --- --- - - - - -
residing in the United States. When special programs are devised to guarantee the entry
of domestic workers, their main goal is to serve upper-class employers in the diplomatic
and business worlds, without ensuring protective measures for workers.
Finally, the rigidity of both Spanish and U.S. immigration law favors the creation of
illegal recruiters in the Philippines and the existence of commodified and commodifying
networks in both receiving countries. This leads to illegal migration, situations of
vulnerability, and additional normalization of irregularity.
295
CHAPTER VII
ENTERING NEW LABOR MARKETS: FILIPINO WOMEN AS THE
ETERNAL REPRODUCTIVE WORKERS
1. Introduction
Immigrant women of color conduct the majority of remunerated reproductive tasks
in both the United States and Spain. The Filipino women who participated in my study
are thus part of larger racially feminized labor markets in both receiving countries. In
Chapters V and VI I discussed different institutional dynamics in Spain and the United
States that help explain Filipino women's entry into the receiving countries and their
particular location in domestic and care work occupations. While it seems Spanish
immigration law directly places them in the sector, this is not the case in the United
States. Indirect forces, such as legal cracks that immigrant women fall into, help explain
their presence in this informal and undervalued labor activity. However, care giving is
also a predominant occupation for women entering on family visas, and Filipino women
in Spain tend to remain in this job far beyond the initial one-year period Spanish
immigration law requires.
In this chapter I discuss additional factors, which, understood in combination with
the institutional dynamics analyzed in previous chapters, illuminate Filipino women's
incorporation and permanence in the reproductive labor sector. The question I raised it,
what other factors, besides immigration policy, contribute to the concentration of
Filipinas in reproductive labor activities? These include racially segregated labor
markets, credential and language, and ideological barriers. These three are interrelated
and often reinforce each other. Finally, I discuss how gender dynamics, both inside and
outside the household, shape women's incorporation into the new labor markets as well.
Filipino women both in Spain and the United seem to have an easier time finding jobs
296
than Filipino men. Their coping mechanisms in the context of class and professional
downgrading also present interesting gender divergences.
2. Marginalization in the Labor Market: The Eternal Reproductive Workers
In order to do so, I draw on several issues Filipino women in both countries raised
during interviews. One of my interview questions inquired about the reasons behind their
decision to become caregivers or domestic workers. While I had initially expected to
obtain information on personal or individual factors, many of the interviewees' responses
pointed to larger macro dynamics that had directly or indirectly placed them in the
reproductive labor sector. In sub-section 2.1. I examine my interviewees' educational
backgrounds and show that these do not explain their location as low paid reproduction
workers. Given this, in the following subsections I discuss some of the factors women
raised in the interviews that explain their concentration in the sector.
2.1. Demotion: A Constant across the Board
Meritocratic discourses in both Spain and the United States explain people's
socioeconomic location in terms of their qualifications, knowledge, and experience
(Grosfogue12003). They emphasize the primacy ofpeople's human and cultural capital
as explanatory factors for their position in the labor market (See Bourdieu and Wacquant
1994). It is the market, and only the market, that regulates minorities' incorporation into
the receiving countries. People in Spain and the U.S. often uncritically adopt this
discourse and assume women doing domestic or care work do not have enough
English/Spanish proficiency and/or formal education, among other things, to conduct
professional jobs.
Sometimes this is the case, and as Ruth, who is a high school graduate, explained
during our interview, "[care giving] is the only job that I can do. I did not go to
college.,,363 Similar to her, Concha explained she became a domestic worker because "I
only have high school and I don't know how to do anything else.,,364 Yet, Rosa, a college
graduate in the Philippines, reported, "I didn't have a choice. That's the only job that I
363 Interview 34, San Francisco, Ruth, July 2006
364 Interview 4, Barcelona, Concha, December 2006
297
could get.,,365 When I asked Teresita why she worked as a domestic worker instead of
practicing as a midwife, she responded she had no choice, because in order to work as a
midwife in Spain she would need to take additional classes, and working as a domestic
worker was thus much easier.366 Immigration scholars in both countries have well
documented that Filipino immigrant reproductive workers have high educational
achievement levels (See Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Parrefias 2001; Ribas-Mateos 1999;
Rodriguez 2005). My research findings are consistent with these authors' conclusions, as
the majority of my interviewees were college and high school graduates.
Tables 7.1 and 7.2 show the relationship between each of my interviewees'
educational backgrounds, the economic activity performed prior to migration, and the job
they currently hold in the receiving country.
365 Interview 1, San Francisco, Rosa, February
366 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006
298
TABLE 7.1. Educational and Professional Backgrounds and Current Jobs in Spain
TABLE 7.2. Educational and Professional Background and Current Job in the U. S.
299
The trends these tables document are very similar. In both Spain and the United
States, ten interviewees were college graduates and a couple of them had completed
graduate school. Four of the interviewees in Barcelona and five of their counterparts in
the U.S. had completed at least some college. In addition, there are five and three high
school graduates in Spain and the United States respectively. Only one woman in
Barcelona and three in San Francisco have less than a high school diploma. In both
countries interviewees' English proficiency was proportional to their educationallevel.367
If we contrast formal education with the jobs interviewees held in the Philippines
two trends appear. Those with middle and lower educational levels were either
"unemployed" housewives or worked in the informal sector, for example street vending
and babysitting. They complained about lack ofjobs and low wages. Among those with
higher education, some occupied low skill jobs in the service economy and in factories
and others many held professional jobs. Women holding college degrees also faced a lack
ofjob opportunities or complained their professional jobs did not translate into good
salaries. While overall formal education in the Philippines resulted in more skilled and
better paid jobs than lower educational levels did, all women mentioned unemployment,
underemployment, and low wages as one of the main reasons for migrating. When I
asked them why they had left the Philippines this was expressed in answers such as "to
have better opportunities," and "to seek greener pastures."
All interviewees agreed their jobs as reproductive workers in Barcelona and San
Francisco provided substantially higher income than their jobs in the Philippines. Despite
the wage difference, their labor location in receiving countries, more often than not
involved a demotion in relation to their educational levels and their jobs in their home
country. There was nothing about the interviewees' job or school history that made them
particularly good candidates for the jobs they conducted at the time of my study. Since
the market (i.e. women's qualification and past labor experiences) does not regulate their
incorporation into the new labor market, what does? What other factors may help explain
367 In fact, with the exception of Daisy in San Francisco and Purisima in Barcelona, I conducted all the
interviews in English or combing English and Spanish. In Purisima and Daisy's case I had the help ofa
Tagalog-English/Spanish translator.
300
their concentration in the reproductive labor sector? To answer this question is necessary
to move away from individual explanations regarding educational background and
individual choices and understand the social dynamics of receiving countries that
contribute to their placement in particular labor sectors.
2.2. Structural Factors: Racially Segregated Labor Markets
Overall, recent immigrants to both Spain and the United States have had a hard time
finding jobs commensurate with their formal training. Minority and immigrant women
have historically done reproductive labor in the United States. Since the time of slavery,
maids or servants of color have been presented as dirty and socially inferior (See also
Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Romero 2003). In California, in addition to the concentration of
U.S. citizens of color in low wage and skill jobs, it is often new and undocumented
immigrants of color who end up doing these jobs, including reproductive labor. Arnie did
not have any doubt about this when she explained that
If you are a new immigrant, care giving is the only source of income
right now. If you are a new immigrant you cannot work in the office,
'f h d 368even 1 you are a teac er, an accountant, a octor, a nurse ...
The current political climate in the United States does not make the racialization of
this sector explicit. Political rhetoric about color blindness and a focus on immigrants'
"foreignness," mask the still prevalent racial hierarchy in the U.S. labor market. In 2006
Whites composed only 49% of the population in California but constituted 79% of the
nurses and 72% of the doctors (See also East Bay Business Times 2008).369 Yet, as Graph
7.1 shows, they only made up 19% of care givers at the San Francisco In-Home Support
Services in 2000. Asians and Pacific Islanders constituted 11 % of the total population of
the state in 2000 but were 39% of the home providers at In-Home Support Services (San
Francisco IHSS Public Authority 2000).
368 Interview 45, San Francisco, Arnie, August 2006
369 Source: Educational Materials kindly provided by staff at the Welcome Back Center in San Francisco
and based on the University of California, San Francisco's Center for the Health Profession' statistics.
301
GRAPH 7.1. San Francisco County IHSS Racial Distribution
Registry Worker Ethnicity Background
020%
Source: (San Francisco IHSS Public Authority 2000)
According to the data of the San Francisco In-Home Support Services, 19% of their
caregivers are White, 39% Asian or Pacific Islanders, 20% are African American, 19%
Latinos, 2% Native American, and an additional 1% do not identify with any of these
ethnic categories. Thus, we see a hyper-concentration of Whites in professional
categories and their under-representation in care giving jobs.
In the case of Spain, regardless of their educational background, non-European
immigrants have been concentrated in the agricultural, construction, and domestic service
sectors for the past three decades. According to different reports on immigration in
Catalunya, Filipino women are, among all immigrant women, the most educated and also
the most concentrated in the domestic work sector (GESES 2007; Pajares 2005; Pe-Pua
2003). This has been so since their initial arrival in Spain. Although immigration has
become prevalent in Spain only in the past couple of decades, its acceleration has
dramatically altered the configuration of Spanish society and its labor market. Similar to
the United States, it is possible to identify jobs that "belong" to immigrant women of
color, and reproductive work is certainly one of them. This distribution is not random. In
the Spanish and U.S. labor markets the racialization and feminization of certain labor
302
activities has an economic function, in that it cheapens labor costs (Acker 2006; Lowe
1999). Racial and gender discourses present certain jobs as less important or lower skilled
and therefore deserving lower salaries. Filipino women encounter this situation upon
arrival and, more often than not, join the low echelon jobs.
2.3. Credential and Language Barriers
We basically prepare people giving them orientation on the transition from the
Philippines to the U.S. Because the situation is that many of the newcomers are
professionals and many offices and schools do not recognize foreign graduates. And
so, foreign graduates most often have to go through school training here in the U.S.
to get accreditation, and many of them, because of lack of familiarity with the high
tech culture in the U.S., just get the entry level positions, even though they are
overqualified for those position. So we do orientation to the newcomer .The reality
is that even though it's an open policy that people are not discriminated against, but
somehow employers prefer people who don't speak with an accent, that were born
here.37o
A common comment among interviewees in Barcelona and San Francisco,
particularly those holding college degrees, was that in most cases authorities in receiving
countries do not recognize their credentials from the Philippines. This coincides with
interviews with Philippine government employees, who explained Filipinos all over the
world struggle to have their Philippine degrees recognized in foreign countries.371
Filipino accent when speaking English or lack of Spanish proficiency also seemed to
explain their difficulties accessing professional jobs.
The main problems in the United States were lack of local experience as well as the
bureaucratic hurdles to obtain degree recognition and licensing. Remi, a 68-year old
Filipino caregiver, arrived to the United States in 1987. By the time of her arrival, she
was 49 and had a college degree and a master's in economics. She had been working as
an accountant in Manila for several years. According to her, she really wanted to continue
to do "office work," but most employers required "local education and experience," so
she could not work as a professional. Her husband, a college professor in the Philippines,
370 Interview 10, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, June 2006
371 Interview 14, Philippines, Government Employee, May 2007
303
did not have his Philippine Ph.D. recognized and had to go through graduate school again
in order to be able to teach in U.S. universities. The fact that her four sons and her
husband were going to school forced her to become her family's breadwinner. According
to Remi, care work was an easy job to do, and it had the advantage of double shifts.
During her initial years in the U.S. she usually worked 16 hours a day. For her, ajob that
would allow her to work as many hours as she wanted was perfect since, "hours equaled
money." This allowed her to support her children and her husband while they were
obtaining "local education" and working part-time.372
Noemi, a 56-year old caregiver, had been a teacher in the Philippines before she
moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. When I asked why she worked as a caregiver
instead of a teacher, she told me her Filipino friends who were teachers had told her she
would need to show her credentials and her transcripts from the Philippines, and her
credentials were not going to be enough, so she would have to go back to school to take
additional units. Noemi really wanted to continue to work as a teacher, but she felt she
could never demonstrate she had the necessary requirements.373 Emilia was 69 and had
also been a teacher in the Philippines. She started to work as a care giver upon her arrival
to the U.S. in 1993 and continued to do so after retirement. Similar to Noemi, she never
worked as a teacher because she needed more college units to do so in the U.S. Emilia's
husband had been a doctor in the Philippines but never managed to get licensed in the
United States, so he became a volunteer in a hospital near their house.374
These three interviewees' stories, along with their husbands', illustrate some of the
challenges immigrants face accessing professional jobs in the U.S. According to a
counselor at City College of San Francisco, there are many professional immigrants who
currently "park cars in car lots, work as housecleaners, maids, and construction workers."
One of the main reasons behind the incongruence between their educational backgrounds
and the jobs they occupy in the United States is their difficulty proving they can do
professional jobs. The first hurdle lies in the requirement in several fields of obtaining
372 Interview 37, San Francisco, Remi, July 2006
373 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noem!, July 2007
374 Interview 31, San Francisco, Emilia, July 31
304
their transcripts from their home country. This process can take months or years. Once
they obtain them and submit them to their professional commission in California, the
commission evaluates them and decides to what extent their completed curriculum is
compatible with the U.S. curriculum. The commission usually requires them to take
additional classes. This involves investments of time and money. Once they manage to
complete all the units, if they do, they need to take the licensing test.375 An immigrants'
work counselor at Filipinos for Affirmative Action stated that many Filipino women fail
the test required to practice as nurses:
It's probably the way the test is set up, some people can't cope with the high
tech that is required, and I haven't, taken the test, you know, but others have
tried and haven't passed it. I don't think that the problem is with the intellect
or intelligence, but there are, I think that there is some things in the test that
favor a high tech background rather than the background that they are used to
. h Ph'l' . 376m t e Ilppmes.
There was also a perception among immigrants and immigrant rights' advocates
that a foreign accent could be at the root of employers' discriminatory practices. Many
employers prefer to hire workers "without an accent," who have been born and raised in
the United States. This coincided with Noemi's view:
There are Filipinos, it's sad to say, who can't speak English fluently, and can
hardly communicate. Those who can, they are hard to understand. That's one
of the problems why, you know, we are looked down, although we are not the
only ones, Also the Mexicans are, you know? [so the employers say,] Why
[should] you have the job if you do not know how to speak English?377
Ironically, Noemi included herself among those "who can't "speak English very
well," though I thought her English was excellent and better than mine. Yet, she did not
seem to blame employers for this and seemed to believe that it was Filipinos'
responsibility to learn to speak English without an accent. Somewhat differently, Emilia
thought that Filipinos' generalized ability to speak at least some basic English, as
375 Interview 29, San Francisco, Welcome Back Center, July 2006
376 Interview 10, San Francisco, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, June 2006
377 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noemi, July 2006
305
opposed to immigrants from other nationalities, put them in a privileged position to find
jobs within the caregiving sector: "[Other nationalities] can't speak English, that's why
Filipinos can easily get jobs. Because the employers can speak with them.,,378
Women in Barcelona could not really use their professional degrees either.
Teresita, a midwife and a college professor in the Philippines, had worked as a nanny
and domestic worker in France and Spain since her arrival to Barcelona in 1997. Teresita
was 40 years old at the time of the interview and explained the reason she never worked
in her field in Spain was that she was required to take additional classes. This was not
really an option for her since "[I]fyou do not work, then you don't have something to
eat, to pay the house and everything. We are here to work.,,379 Adelina, who was 43 years
old, had worked as a domestic worker in Barcelona since her arrival in 1991. This is
different from what she had initially planned, since she had two college degrees from the
University ofIlo Ilo, from the Philippine region of Visayas:
I started to work in order to eventually become a white-collar worker .... But
here I am working como chica. 380 However, I think that there is dignity and
respect in the job. Once you learn to love the job... you like it. With my
employers, we exchange knowledge, sometimes language... they are teaching
me. But I still would like to do something different.38I
The bureaucratic steps non-Spanish nationals need to follow in Spain in order to get
recognition for their degrees are quite similar to those in the United States. These include
degree certificates, transcripts, and curricula from their homes countries. A Commission
at the Ministry of Education reviews the applications and decides the candidate's
educational background compatibility with Spanish curriculum and requirements. It is
often the case that non-Spanish nationals end up taking ten subjects in Spanish
institutions in order to get their degrees recognized. A Philippine government official,
formerly placed in Madrid, summarized the main difficulties Filipino professionals face
in accessing professional jobs in Spain:
378 Interview 31, San Francisco, Emilia, July 2006
379 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006
380 As a maid.
381 Interview 12, Barcelona, Adelina, February 2007
306
[Filipino women] are willing to take whatever job is available for them. But
what Spain can do for instance is to go back to this mutual agreements
between the Philippines and Spain that accord the equivalency of the training
of the educational attainment that we have back home. [I]t should be
recognized by Spain. I hope Spain will [give this a] second thought because
once you solved that problem, then you will not have problem practicing your
profession. The other thing is the language. But Filipinos learn fast. .. 382
According to the interviewee, countries like Spain and the United States should
speed up the bureaucratic process Filipinos need to follow in order to practice their
professions.
While Filipino women in the United States mentioned having an accent as a source
of problems finding a job, Filipino women in Barcelona faced even bigger challenges.
Most Filipinos who have completed high school in the Philippines speak English.
However, they usually do not speak Spanish. Interviewees in Barcelona often mentioned
learning to speak fluent Spanish takes a long time, and that is why they cannot work in a
sector other than the domestic one. In addition, their particular location in Barcelona
makes their relationship with the local language more complicated, since this area of the
country has its own language (Catalan) in addition to Spanish. In Barcelona language
skills are very much connected with incorporation into the labor market. As a matter of
fact, all government jobs and many jobs in the private sector have Catalan proficiency as
one of their requirements. This has consequences for Filipino women who, rather than
having to learn one language, actually have to learn two. Since it is possible to
communicate in Spanish, they usually prioritize it and very seldom manage to speak
Catalan fluently. Different government agencies have acknowledged that the inability to
speak Catalan is one of the factors behind immigrant men's and women's difficulties
accessing more formal and professional jobs.383
What became clear in my interviews with Filipino women in both countries was
that credential and language barriers took place in a context where they did not have time
to take courses to overcome them. While in the Spanish case higher education is usually
382 Interview II, Philippines, Government Official, May 2006
383 Field notes, Barcelona, February 2007
307
public and quite affordable, the same is not true for the United States, so some of them
reported not having enough money to enroll in school. Overall, however, the biggest
barrier to access professional jobs in both locations was the feeling that their priority was
to earn money for themselves and their families. As Remi put it, working as a care giver
"you get hours, even if you don't speak good English.,,384
2.4. Ideological Barriers: "Filipinas are good in the bathroom,for changing diapers,
and have tolerance for bad smells. ,,385
As shown in Chapters II and IV, an analysis of ideological constructions, based
upon class, gender, and race, defining Filipino migrant domestic workers in relation to
the international economy is necessary to achieve an understanding of their displacement
from the Philippines and migration to other countries. What I aim to emphasize in this
section, is the role that these categories play in Filipino women's current location and
relegation to certain labor sectors in the U.S. and Spain. Interviewees in the U.S. and
Barcelona mentioned ideological factors, such as Spanish, U.S. and even Filipino
people's characterizations of Filipino women as ideal reproductive workers, to explain
their location in this labor sector.
According to Collins (Collins 1990), ideology is the process by which certain
qualities are attached to people and how these qualities are used to justify oppression.
When these qualities are connected with racial or cultural features the ideological process
taking place is called racialization. Racialization is the process of naturalization of
cultural differences and/or the attribution of racial meanings to a social relationship,
practice, or group (Ibid.) or the use of cultural differences to legitimate situations that in
reality respond to racial inequalities.
Building upon Grosfoguel's work (2003) I suggest Filipino migration constitutes a
good example of how the borders of exclusion cultural racist discourses articulate are a
384 Interview 37, San Francisco, Remi, July 2007. Finally, community networks have also had a role in the
concentration of Filipinas in reproductive labor in both countries. The strong presence of Filipinos in the
sector facilitates the incorporation of newcomers. Family and community networks acted to provide
information about jobs in the care giving industry. While this allowed newcomers' access to the job market,
it also constraints their presence to particular niches, such as care work.
385 Interview 45, San Francisco, Arnie, August 2006
308
global phenomenon. They are not exclusive to a single country or a single national or
racial group. Cultural racism explains immigration populations' location in the labor
market in terms of their habits, beliefs, cultural values, shortages, and excesses.
According to this discourse, minorities are unemployed or live under the poverty line
because of their cultural values and behavior. Dominant societies explain the
marginalization of groups such as Puerto Ricans in France or African Americans in the
United States as the result of these groups' laziness, criminality, and dirtiness. These
groups are also portrayed as opportunists and parasites. In the context ofmeritocracy and
the prevalent beliefin the "American Dream," they, and only they, are responsible for
their subordinate or marginal location in the labor market. This ideology is based on
gender (overtly masculine aggressiveness) and racial (passive and lazy) discourses with
explicitly negative connotations. Depending on the context, ideological racial discourses
emphasize feminine or masculine traits to accentuate certain shortages or excesses. What
is particularly interesting about Filipino reproductive workers is that many of the
characteristics emphasized to explain their relegation to a marginal sector are supposedly
positive. This coincides with Hondagneu-Sotelo's (2001) analysis of household work in
California. She states that the only times in which racial stereotypes are used positively to
describe immigrant domestic workers is when they have feminine connotations and
express appreciation for submissive or flexible behavior. Through the attribution of these
supposedly inherent characteristics, Filipino women become especially suited to conduct
certain labor needs for transnational capitalism (Kang 2002).
Arnie resented the barriers she encountered to practice her profession and explained
it is mostly immigrant women doing reproductive work. According to her, White people
think this work is very simple. However, she argued, if the job is so easy, why don't
Americans want to do it? Arnie could not understand why there are so many White U.S.
homeless and jobless people when there are so many care giving jobs. Then she resigned
to the fact that care work has become a people of color's job in the U.S.:
American people don't wanna do care giving; they wanna do the White collar jobs;
they wanna be in the hospitals. Not as caregivers. [Caregivers] could wash toilets.
White people do not do that, because it is a domestic work.
309
She also felt there is a generalized view among White Americans that immigrant
women of color are particularly good at this domestic work. According to Arnie, Women
from different countries are perceived as being good for particular niches within the
reproductive labor sector. Filipinas in the U.S. are perceived as being good caregivers:
[E]verybody thinks Filipinas are good caregivers. When [they need] caregivers,
they will ask for a Filipino. But Filipinos are small, other nationals are bigger. I
think that Latinas are good for housekeeping. Filipinas are good in the bathroom,
for changing diapers and all that. We have tolerance for bad smell [laughs] And we
are good speakers, we know how to speak English, so maybe that is the reason,
why.... I tell them to speak slowly... Be simple, speak calm, always smile ... good
attitude ... I am angry too but I have no money!!!
Arnie's portrayal of Filipino women's excellence as caregivers, ironically,
resembled the Philippine government construction of Filipino women as elite
reproductive workers because of their patience and their English proficiency. Her last
sentence acknowledges the frustration she and her co-workers feel. She explains their
compliance, rather than by an inherent ability to care for other people, by their need to
make a living and their inability to access more qualified jobs. Overall, Arnie hints at
ideological characterizations ofFilipino women as ideal caregivers in U.S. society that
determine their location in the U.S. labor market. She also reflects on Filipino women's
adaptation to racial stereotypes in order to make an income in a sector that, according to
her, U.S. society reserves for Filipina (and Latina) immigrants.
Without Arnie's critical approach, Emilia emphasized certain "Filipino traits" to
explain Filipinas' advantage versus other national groups:
Filipinos are good workers. That is why employers are getting more Filipinos,
because they can be trusted, they can speak English mostly, unlike Chinese or
Mexicans ... They are industrious, they work well, and mostly they studied in the
Philippines. There, even if they are poor, the parents are trying their very best to
send them to school, because there are schools which are free up to high school, so
far as you finish high school there you can speak English, at least a little bit.386
386 Interview 31, San Francisco, Emilia, July 2006
310
Filipino women occupy a privileged position in the care giving sector vis it vis their
Latina counterparts. An immigrants' rights attorney in San Francisco explained that in the
particular case of care homes "there seems to be a caste system, where the workers at the
very bottom tend to be Latino. Above them there are often Filipinas. And then the White
people at the top.,,387 A Filipino immigration attorney explained Filipina's gravitation
toward care giving and clients' preference for them as care takers as due to particular
components of Filipino culture:
[Filipino women] think they are really good at that, even the patients say that. There
have been some studies showing that there is something in the culture, in the way
Filipinos grow up respecting the elders, and you need that for being a caregiver. So
there is something there ... as far as the culture is concerned. Filipinos gravitate
towards nursing professions that have to do with a lot of care.388
Similarly, a Philippine consular official in San Francisco explained employers
generally prefer Filipino caregivers versus other nationalities, and this "is a credit to the
kind of work ethic that Filipinas have ... Because we are flexible, and we are easy to get
along with.,,389
This ideological discourse resembles that of the Philippine government and
identifies Filipinas as inherently good care takers and somewhat justifies their location in
this work sector. As Noemi complained during our interview, "Employers and patients
seem to believe Filipinos belong to this kind ofwork.,,39o This discourse racializes
Filipinas by referencing culture traits to explain their location in the care giving sector.
The traits emphasized categorize them as inherently good for servile jobs characterized
by low wages, precarious working conditions, and invisibility.
This view of Filipino women as excelling as reproductive workers also emerged in
my interviews in Barcelona. Teresita and Adelina's testimonies above illustrate that some
387 Interview 39, San Francisco, Employment Law Center, August 2006
388 Interview 24, San Francisco, Immigration Attorney, July 2006
389 Interview 4 I, San Francisco, Philippine Consulate, August 2006. Adrian White, a social psychologist at
Leicester, developed the first "World Map of Happiness," In 2006, Denmark ranked number I, the
Philippines number 17, and the United States number 23.
390 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noem!, July 2007
311
women felt they could be doing more qualified jobs. However, the general perception
among interviewees was that they were lucky they had managed to enter Spain and find a
job there. They were also generally quite proud of the perception Spaniards have of them
as being particularly good domestic workers. This perception, which also parallels the
one the Philippine government made explicit, came up during my interviews with
Spaniards as well. When I asked the immigration coordinator of a local non-profit
organization about the evolution of the Philippine community in Barcelona, she replied
that Filipina workers for few decades have had a "special brand" within the domestic
work sector. According to this interviewee, already in the early 1970s well-off
Barcelonan families used to brag of having an "English servant," who spoke English and
could tutor their kids. While in the previous section I have discussed how lack of Spanish
proficiency limits Filipino women's labor opportunities in Spain, their English
proficiency has historically contributed to ideological constructions of them in Spanish
society as elite domestic workers. Besides speaking English, there were already other
traits that defined Filipino domestic workers:
In those times it was already like this, it was clear, really clear. Besides, Filipinas
work well to put up with being a live-in, which in those times started to be hard to
find. It was only Filipinas who would put up with it, and people from Honduras and
the Dominican Republic that came in the 1980s. 391
When I asked the interviewee whether she thought Filipino women continued to
occupy a "special" place within the domestic work sector, her answer was that Filipinas
have a "special brand" that distinguishes them from other nationalities in the sector:
Filipinos have like a brand, right? In domestic work, the elite people only hire
Filipinos. I remember once, we had a round table with a Filipina, her name was
Julia, a Rumanian woman, a woman from Ecuador, and a woman from Morocco.
Julia spoke the last. The Moroccan woman spoke of her problems with language.
The Rumanian woman explained people did not trust her. The woman from
Ecuador felt mistreated and discriminated .... And then, the Filipino woman said,
'Well, I am happy with my job, because they pay me what I ask, and you all are
kind of discrediting domestic work, and you are lowering the standards. I, on the
391 Interview 10, Barcelona, CARITAS, January 2007. Interview conducted in Spanish. My translation.
312
contrary, work X amount of hours and make X Euros.' In other words, she kind of
had a price because she had a brand. And employers had looked for her because she
was Filipina, because she was responsible, because they knew that she would do a
good job and she was reliable.
The report of the research group GESES392 (2007: 37) corroborates this testimony.
The report explains that hiring a Filipino domestic worker in Barcelona is more an
ostentation act than an effort to reconcile Spanish women's family and labor realities.
The Filipino woman becomes, from upper classes' perception, a luxury servant. This
distinction between Filipino workers and those from other nationalities translates into
salary differences (see Beltnm 2003). As the same interviewee from the non-profit
organization explained:
[1] think that Filipinas make more money as domestic workers than any other
national group here right now. They establish the price; I know that they establish
the price. And people pay it because they know that they are loyal, put up with a lot,
and I think that they are people with values about honesty ... I think... And also
other groups ... It does not mean that they do not have these values, but people have
catalogued them differently ... [other national groups] are more stigmatized.393
One of the indicators of this "special brand," according to the interviewee, is that
Filipino domestic workers end up having a close and personal relationship with the
families they work for. This coincides with other information obtained during my field
work, since the interviewees showed a tendency to work for the same employers for
many years because of their good relationship with them. Informal conversations with
employers also indicated a clear preference toward Filipino domestic workers due to the
latter's kindness and loyalty. These features result in better job opportunities for Filipino
women than women of other nationalities have. Most of my interviewees were aware of
this competitive advantage. Similar to the San Francisco-based Filipino attorney quoted
above, Nelly, a 61 year-old domestic worker who arrived in Spain in the late 1980s,
392 GESES is a Research Group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona focused on reproductive labor.
Their last study, which was on Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona, was funded by the Fundaci6 Jaume
Bofill, the same foundation that funded me to write my dissertation.
393 Interview 10, Barcelona, CARITAS, 2007
313
explained there are certain features of Philippine culture that shape immigrant women's
attitude as domestic workers. Besides emphasizing Filipinos' hard work ethic, she
explained Filipino women create close and respectful with their employers. These
features differentiate Filipinas them from other national groups:
I think [Filipinos] have to finish our work before we can go and have fun or rest.
We first need to take care of our responsibilities. I also think that our relationship
with our senor y senora has to be kind and respectful. We, in our family, are
educated to respect the elderly. Other [national] groups get angry at their senoras.
But, in fact, even if they do something to you, you can always answer kindly or
clarify things ... but we do not get angry, particularly in the way in which they talk
to the senoras. I can't talk like that to my employer. I never. .. at my job there is a
chica from Morocco, and she is really harsh, this is the word, and she has more
quarrels with the senora than us, Filipinas. We absolutely don't [have quarrels].
And usually, the senora feels closer to me, really, our relationship is better.394
It is ironic that Nelly emphasizes Philippine tradition regarding respect to the
elderly to explain her attitude toward her employers since, at 61 years old, Nelly is older
than they are. She explains submissive attitudes toward employers using cultural
arguments, which confound and therefore mask class deference under age difference. It is
also culture what establishes a key distinction between Filipinas and other national
groups and places the former in an advantageous position as high status domestic workers
(See GESES 2007). This results in higher wages than other national groups'. What makes
Filipino domestic workers unique, besides English proficiency, is their hard work ethic
and reliability. As Coral explained:
We are very effective ... you can trust Filipinas, you can leave them alone,
everything is in its place, and they know how to work well. The senoras say it.
Latin American women sometimes do not know how to work. You need to teach
them how to work. Because you do not only need to clean what you see. You need
to clean everything. Up to the ceiling. This is why Spanish women like Filipinas.
Because we work well.395
394 Interview 11, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007. Interview conducted in English. My translation
395 Interview 26, Barcelona, Coral, March 2007
314
Coral's statement point toward the existence of segmentation within segmentation.
In other words in the Spanish labor market, Filipino women's presence in the Spanish
labor market, which is segmented along racial, class, and gender lines, as it is in the
United States, takes place in the reproductive sector which, in tum, presents its own
hierarchies. Different groups, depending on their migration trajectory, legal status, and
characteristics attached to them by ideological discourses, occupy different levels within
the domestic work sector. Filipino women's position within the sector, as well as the
distinction both they and the Spanish population draw between different national groups,
produces and recreates a hierarchization of "otherness," where ideological descriptions of
Filipino women correspond to their social and labor locations. Despite Filipino domestic
workers' "privileged" location in Barcelona, they continue to have difficulty accessing
other job sectors. Despite high educational levels, very few have managed to find jobs
outside the domestic work sector. Although English proficiency gives them prestige, their
initial lack of knowledge of Spanish, and particularly Catalan, make their access to other
occupations, especially professional ones, very difficult. In a nutshell, ideological
discourses in the Philippines, the United States, and Spain portraying Filipino women as
elite reproductive workers due to their hard work ethic, English proficiency, loyalty, and
reliability, intersect to provide the Spanish and U.S. labor markets with the labor they
need. Simultaneously, racially segregated labor markets, and credential and language
barriers impede these workers' entry and promotion in the labor market. While Filipino
domestic workers enjoy the privilege of being on the top of the domestic sector ladder,
they also see the door to other job sectors closed to them.
2.5. Gender dynamics: Who Is the Breadwinner?
Ramon Grosfoguel (2003) states that racist discourses have historically operated to
regulate labor markets. According to him, during periods of economic expansion they
have contributed to the creation of a cheap labor force, while in periods of contraction
they have helped exclude certain populations from the labor market. To add to
Grosfoguel's contribution, I discuss how exclusion from the labor market is also shaped
by- and in tum shapes- gender dynamics. My research shows different degrees of
315
exclusion among Filipino women and men in both Spain and the United States. It also
shows gender differences in terms to the strategies women adopted to cope with
exclusion and discrimination.
Migration and gender scholars have largely discussed whether migration constitutes
an emancipatory gender project for women or if it reproduces gender oppression (See
Escriva 2000; Espiritu 1999; Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Narain Assar 1999; Pessar 1999;
Singer and Gilbertson 2003). Does migration alter oppressive gender dynamics within the
family, does it leave them intact, or does it reinforce them? While there has been no
unanimous response to these questions, authors have expressed consensus that migration
often alters gender relationships both at the micro and the macro levels. This alteration
never takes place in a vacuum. It is always connected to other alterations migrant women
and their families go through, such as legal status, class displacement, and their
relationship vis avis the labor market in the receiving country.
I have discussed an across the board process of demotion for Filipino women
migrating to the United States and Spain. This is very much related to the availability of
labor market opportunities, often institutionally sanctioned, and to ideological discourses
that put "different racial groups in their place." Filipino women are not alone in this
demotion. Their male counterparts also suffer such dislocation and demotion. For
example, Lola, a 43 year old care giver in San Francisco had completed a BS in
Economics in the Philippines. Her husband, who works as a porter at San Francisco
General Hospital, was also a college graduate and had worked as an aeronautical engineer
prior to their departure for the United States.396 Their case was not an isolated one.
Interestingly, my research documents different effects ofthis new reality on men and
women which, in tum, alter gender relationships and survival strategies.
Filipino women enter Spanish and U.S. society often to make a new start. Their
academic and professional merits are often discounted, and accent and language issues, as
well as racial segmentation within receiving countries' labor markets, often result in
descent in their professional and overall class location. Despite their high educational
396 Interview 43, San Francisco, Lola, August 2006
316
backgrounds they usually concentrate in the reproductive labor sectors. This has both
positive and negative aspects. On the one hand this involves women's downgrading and
class dislocation: On the other hand, the availability ofjobs in the reproductive labor
sector allows these women to make very much needed income. However, if evidence
shows that reproductive work is where Filipino women both in Spain and the United
States are landing, what is happening to Filipino men? And how is this affecting the
relationships between Filipino men and women and their family survival strategies?
My study did not include interviews with Filipino immigrant men to Spain and the
u.S.397 However, female interviewees often referred to their husbands' jobs and
circumstances. This shed light on a reality that I had not previously noticed: Filipino
women often embrace their new location, no matter the difficulties and the pain the
downgrading inflicts, in order to succeed in their migratory project. Filipino men,
however, have a harder time finding a job as well as accepting their new labor realities
and class location.
Remi's and Emilia's husbands, a college professor and a doctor in the Philippines
respectively, were unable to practice their professions upon their arrival in the United
States. Remi's husband started graduate school all over again in San Francisco while
doing a part-time service sector job. His goal was eventually to obtain a PhD and find a
tenure-track job at a university. He worked as an adjunct at a community college for a
couple of years, but he never managed to find a stable position within U.S. academia.
Emilia's husband did not even try to validate his Philippine medical degree in the United
States and felt incapable of completing an adjustment period that would have involved
years of classes and residency. He ended up working as a security guard at Walgreens.
Remi became a caregiver to give her husband, according to her the family's breadwinner,
time to study. Emilia started taking care of children and old people to complement her
husband's low income. In both cases, given their partners' inability to embrace the
limited labor opportunities available to them, it was women who, working long shifts as
caregivers, became their families' breadwinners.
397 With the exception of Ron, who I interviewed because he is a care giver in the San Francisco Bay Area.
317
Beverly was only a child when she migrated to the U.S. with her family 1981.
Before the family left the Philippines her father already had a job offer as an engineer in a
San Francisco-based firm. Her mother, a nurse in the Philippines, was initially going to
take care of the kids and eventually take the licensing exam that would allow her to work
as a nurse in California. However, Beverly's father:
Got laid offlike a year or so later. My mom had to work. It was a difficult time.
He could not get another engineering job. My mom did two or three jobs. Not as
a nurse. She did not have the license at that time. So she worked care giving and
medical assisting jobs, things like that. My dad could not get another engineering
job. He worked as an airport mechanic. That was a very big step down, because
my dad was a supervisor in the Philippines and major engineer in a company, he
was very talented... So, to do something that is not what he studied or what he
worked on, it was a very big hit on him. It took a toll on the family, that he could
not get a iob, psychologically, he also started drinking. But my mom was always
working. ~98
A talented engineer, Beverly's father had expected to thrive in the United States,
support his family comfortably, and maintain the middle-class status they had enjoyed in
the Philippines. But after he lost his job, he was not able to find another in accordance
with his abilities and talents. Beverly's mother then started working to support the whole
family, including her husband, who, given his inability to accept his new location and
identity as a non-professional, started drinking heavily and withdrew psychologically.
Carmen and her husband also struggled with his inability to find a job upon their
arrival in the Bay Area in 1985. Carmen never finished high school in the Philippines and
was a housewife before they left. Her husband worked in Manila as a record officer at the
Philippine National Treasury. But when they arrived to the U.S., the only job he could
find was as a server in McDonald's. According to Carmen, during their first two years
her husband would cry everyday, because he could not find a "decent" job. Three years
after their arrival he had to have heart surgery and was unable to work after that. Since
the beginning Carmen worked as a care giver to complement her husband's low income
and eventually became the family's sole breadwinner.
398 Interview 20, San Francisco, Beverly, June 2007
318
These testimonies shed light on a complex reality, in which interviewees' husbands
or fathers failed to find professional or white collar jobs. These stories show a pattern in
which male immigrants subsequently fell into depression, which hindered their ability to
support their families. Simultaneously, women, victims themselves of the institutional
and structural barriers present in the U.S. labor market, were somewhat able to "ignore"
the same difficulties and took whatever jobs were available. In Remi's case, her
husband's desire to continue to work as a college professor put her in a situation where,
regardless of her own high educational and work credentials, she had to take a non-
professional job- caregiving- and worked long hours to support her husband's
incorporation into "professional America." She supported him at the expense of her own
career advancement. In other cases, women worked long shifts as care givers to make up
for their partners' unemployment or inability to accept their new situations.
This gender differential is not unique to the Philippine immigrant community.
During my interview with a job counselor at San Francisco City College, she explained
how, in the context where immigrant professionals often fail to maintain their previous
job status, men tend to have more difficulties than women. She said that overall women
seem more willing to compromise and to change their role.399 Lola's testimony validates
this:
Honestly speaking, when I first became a [caregiver] I cried. Because this is not the
job that I want to do because I never thought that you know... I don't know how to
do this. But I stopped crying and I had to start to learn loving my, you know,
everyday routine. I said, 'oh why should I bother anyway, that's the [only] thing I
can [do] to provide for my kids and, you know, I have to pay my bills and
everything. Instead of [having] fear and complaining, you know, 'I said', life must
go on. I have to do this.4oO
The proportion of interviewees in San Francisco who were married and had
migrated to the U.S. with her husbands was substantially higher than among their
counterparts in Barcelona. Among those who were married, many had husbands who
remained in the Philippines. Two interviewees in Spain, however, described a situation
399 Interview 29, San Francisco, Welcome Back Center, July 2006
400 Interview 43, San Francisco, Lola, August 2006
-------------------------_...._..._--
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similar to the ones interviewees in San Francisco presented. Lili migrated to Spain with
her husband in 1971. Their trip to Barcelona supposedly was their honeymoon, but since
the political climate was worsening in their country and they did not have good job
prospects there, they never returned. Lili took one year of college and her husband
finished a degree in aeronautical engineering. When they arrived to Spain, neither of
them could find jobs that matched their qualifications. While Lili ended up combining her
job as a care giver with English classes, her husband never managed to find a stable job
in Spain. Later, they had three children. Lili worked to support the family and her
husband became increasingly frustrated and abusive. One day Lili decided to leave with
the three children. When I asked Lili about the context of the domestic violence she
experienced, she linked it with her husband's difficulties in the labor market:
The abuse started here. My husband could not find ajob. He had finished his
studies in aeronautical engineering in the Philippines. This is a very expensive
degree, but he could not use it here. He was very frustrated. His parents were
doctors. But here he could not find ajob. I was supporting the whole family. Every
once in a while he would work painting houses. He could have had a job as a
concierge, but he was too proud.401
When I asked her how her experience as a Filipino woman had been different from
Filipino men in Barcelona she responded that Filipinas were obliging, obedient and
placed their families' interests before their own. "Maybe we do not like our job", Lili
said, "but we do not rebel because it is for the benefit of our family."
Raquel also separated from her husband, though fortunately her case did not
include domestic violence. She arrived at Barcelona in 1980 on her own. Her husband
followed one year later. Both ofthem had been teachers in the Philippines for many
years. Yet, while Raquel managed to find ajob as a domestic worker pretty quickly, her
husband never managed to find stable work and spent years hand-embroidering table
clothes and working as a cook. The couple could not handle the pressures stemming from
their economic situation, and they eventually separated. According to Raquel, her
experience is not an isolated one in the Filipino community:
401 Interview I, Barcelona, Lili, October 2006
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Filipino women have done better than men. Women have worked really hard; they
do not need a man. There are very few families with a male bread-winner. Really, it
is we, women, who support men. Some men even have three women and they
support him. Many of them have vices and gamble.402
I do not mean to imply that all Filipino men who migrate abroad neglect their
families or they never work side by side with their female partners. Yet, it was interesting
to run into so many similar testimonies about gender dynamics within the family that
seem to be connected with larger dynamics in the immigrant labor market. Both Filipino
men and women have faced discrimination and lack of labor opportunities. This has
resulted from their precarious locations in segregated labor markets, which are organized
along racial lines. Racial and gender stereotypes seemed to place "automatically" Filipino
women in the care giving sector which, despite the downgrading that this involved, was a
very much needed income generating activity. Filipino men have had a harder time
coping with the class dislocation and the barriers they encounter in the receiving country.
This has often meant an inability to adjust to the new context, neglect of their families,
and sometimes even abuse. Filipino women, themselves victims of the gender and racial
segregation in both the Spanish and the U.S. labor markets, have taken those "jobs done
by women of color" in order to provide for their families. In so doing, they have
sometimes been the victims of backlash from their partners resulting from the latter's
frustration at the lack of power in the family, failure to continue to act as breadwinners,
and downgrading oftheir class position. While this has sometimes resulted in abuse or
double shifts, in other cases it has also created situations where women have been, for the
first time, in charge of the survival of the family. This has been painful and, at the same
time, has opened new opportunities to negotiate their family roles. While in some cases
this has translated into more egalitarian treatment, what interviewees emphasized the
most was how family crises created by the above described dynamics resulted in divorce.
They tended to see this as an empowering and emancipatory experience. This takes place
402 Interview 28, Barcelona, Raquel, April 2008
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within a contradictory and complex set of dynamics that include gender relations in both
the sending and receiving countries and at the micro and macro levels.
3. Conclusion
Filipino women in both Spain and the United States often occupy positions as
reproductive workers regardless, of their formal training and job experience in the
Philippines. While in Barcelona Filipinas are more concentrated in the domestic work
sector, Filipinas in the San Francisco Bay Area tend to be more present in the care giving
sector. This is part of a larger trend in which women have historically done reproductive
work in both Spain and the United States. While in the U.S. race has organized this sector
since the beginning, Spain has undergone this racialization more recently. In both
countries, immigrant women of color have a key presence in reproductive labor.
Difficulties to transfer college degrees and various problems with language in both
receiving countries also help explain their concentration in this reproductive labor and
their difficulties accessing professional jobs.
It is interesting about Filipino women that they, unlike Central American and
Mexican women in California, and Dominican and Ecuadorian women in Spain, seem to
constitute an elite nationality within remunerated reproductive activities. Their higher
educational backgrounds and ideological constructions of Filipino women as excellent
reproductive workers grant them a somewhat privileged position within the sector.
Regardless of their advantaged positions vis if vis other nationalities within the
reproductive work niche, Filipino women still occupy, both in Spain and the United
States, a precarious, low paid, hardly valued, under-regulated labor niche. Finally, an
examination of e women's experiences vis avis men's sheds light on different processes
of incorporation into the new labor markets by gender, as well as changes in the gender
dynamics within migrant families in Spain and the United States. Filipino women seem to
be coping better than Filipino men with their class downgrading. The latter have a
difficult time accepting their new class locations and this often translates into depression,
withdrawal, and even abuse. Women's relative easy access to jobs in the reproductive
labor sector makes it easier for them to access jobs and often turns them into the main
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breadwinner in their households. Gender dynamics in the labor market, which construct
certain jobs as feminine, therefore begin to alter the gender dynamics within families. In
tum, this thrusts Filipino women into a new economic role which, will likely alter other
aspects of family relationships and often result in divorce.
In the past two chapters I have attempted to illuminate some of the institutional,
structural, and ideological factors defining Filipino women's place in the reproductive
work sector. I have also discussed some of the gender dynamics that run parallel with this
incorporation. In Chapter VIII I discuss the form government regulation of reproductive
work, both in Spain and the United States, takes. Once governments contribute to the
transfer of reproductive workers from the Philippines to Spain and the United States, and
once women taken on domestic and care work jobs, how do the two governments
regulate their work there? What does employment law have to do with reproductive work
in both countries?
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CHAPTER VIII
WORKING THE COUNTRY: THE REGULATION OF REPRODUCTIVE
LABOR IN SPAIN AND THE UNITED STATES
1. Introduction
In this chapter I discuss how, once Filipino women find themselves in the
reproductive labor sector, employment regulations shape their work experiences in both
countries. The under-regulation of reproductive labor in both Spain and the United States
echoes the larger trend of decreasing state intervention in labor markets. It also
demonstrates how reproductive labor in both countries, due to gender ideologies, is not
recognized as real work and is often characterized by informal and non-clearly defined
relations. In addition, under-regulation of reproductive labor sheds light on how the states
relates to the private household. These reproduce larger gender, class, and racial
dynamics in society and are symptoms of the role the state plays in reproducing power
relations.
2. On the Private and the Public: Intersecting Forces at the Root of the State
One of the main points of contention among different feminist traditions has been
the debate around the private-public dichotomy. Different conceptualizations and
interpretations of this divide have reflected the diversity of women's experiences. In this
section I explore how different feminist authors have conceptualized the private-public
divide in order to contextualize my analysis of the labor experiences of Filipino domestic
workers and caregivers and how employment law in Spain and the U.S. shape them.
Western feminists have generally defined the "private" as the patriarchal family
home, while the "public" has consisted in everything-outside-of-the-private, and more
specifically, the state and the market (See Mestre 2001). In the Sexual Contract (1988)
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Carole Pateman revisited classical social theorists on citizenship and the state and argued
that the Social Contract was a fiction stemming from the exclusion of women from public
life. According to her, the premise of the Rousseaunian contract was "the relegation of
women to the family, a sphere lacking in rights" (Hobson 2005: 138), and therefore a
contract based upon the exclusion of women from public life. The conceptual divide
between private and public is problematic, according to Pateman (1988), for two reasons.
First, the public realm has been designated as the only theoretically, politically, and
economically relevant one. Conversely, the private realm is seen as separate from the
civil sphere and therefore as politically irrelevant. Second, while both realms are viewed
as separate and independent from each other when, in fact, they are not.
White feminism has generally established that for the collective subordination of
women to end, experiences of oppression in private life must be projected into the public
(Bhattacharjee 1997:308). In other words, the root of oppression is women's definition as
secluded in the private sphere, which sterns from a construction of reality as divided into
two fundamental and hierachized spheres. In order to change this situation, women need
to access the public sphere both to denounce gender dynamics taking place within the
household and to achieve political, social, and economic equality with men. The public is
therefore both an end in itself and a means to denounce private oppression. This
argument runs parallel to discourses suggesting the desirability of women's
commodification. Incorporation into the public realm may have been a desirable project
for many White middle-class women in Europe and the United States. This has been
reflected in their incorporation into the labor market and their refusal to be exclusively in
charge of non-remunerated household tasks. This scenario, however, does not reflect the
experiences of Filipino migrant domestic workers, since their historical and current
location across the private and public realms, as I discuss below, has been different from
most Western middle-class White women.
Black and Third World feminist theorists have denounced some of the assumptions
White middle-class feminist scholars have made (See Graham-Brown 2003). Chandra
Mohanty, for instance, has argued "there is no such thing as private sphere for people of
color except that which they manage to create and protect in an otherwise hostile
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environment" (1988:51). Numerous Black feminists in the U.S. and scholars from former
socialist countries have challenged the notion of the family as a site of oppression for
women. The private sphere for them has actually been a site of resistance, and often
protection, from the intrusion of the State (See Hobson 2005; Mink 1995; Szalai 1991).
The private realm thus has different meanings and realities in different contexts.
African-American feminists, for instance, have pointed out that housewifery as a full-
time job has been both a White and an elite class privilege (Acker 2006:64). Within this
debate, Patricia Hill Collins (1990) has challenged the heterosexual nuclear middle-class
family as the departure point for the delineation of the private-public divide in much
feminist writing. According to her, in such a model the private sphere, identified with the
family (read wife and children) is both subordinated to and dependent on the public
sphere the male breadwinner embodies. According to Hill Collins, African American
women's experiences and those of other women of color have never fit this model. The
family life "ofpoor people challenges these assumptions about nuclear family forms
because poor families do not exhibit the radical split equating private with home and
public with work" (47). African American and working-class families experience the
private-public line more fluidly due to their impoverishment and the resulting necessary
collaboration among family members to guarantee survival. Poor women and women of
color were never forced to stay in the private household. Quite the contrary, they were
forced to leave it. They did not have the benefit of the economic conditions that underlie
the public-private distinction (Hurtado 1989). In this sense, according to Hobson (2005),
Third World, working-class women, and women of color do not necessarily identify with
the public-private dichotomy, and Western feminists' emphasis on the gender division of
labor does not reflect their experiences of economic struggle, which do not necessarily pit
women against men.
One of the contributions I hope to make with my research is to show that, far from
describing discrete and uniformly divided spheres, the private-public duality is in
continuous tension and transformation. While The Sexual Contract talked about the
relegation of women to the private sphere as the indispensable premise for liberal
democracy in Western societies, the last third of the 20th century witnessed a massive
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entry of women into the public sphere, particularly the labor market and, to a lesser
extent, the political arena. This ruptured the old divide. Nonetheless, ideological notions
continue to identitY both paid and unpaid reproductive work as women's responsibility.
This has facilitated the creation of a double shift for many middle-class women. Further,
the visibility of middle-class women's incorporation into the labor market has often
masked the fact that working-class women and women of color have always been part of
the labor market and, in the United States, they have been the ones doing reproductive
tasks for White families.
Economic restructuring in the global South is bringing increasing numbers of
women into the "international workplace" (See Youngs 2000). Their incorporation takes
place across borders and, more often than not, in the reproductive labor sector. Their
migration and labor trajectories are paradigmatic of new forms of patriarchy, since they
alter conventional relations between public and private. The Filipino women who
participated in my study embody these emerging configurations. On the one hand, they
are instrumental in easing the private-public tensions emerging from U.S. and Spanish
middle-class women's involvement in paid labor. On the other hand, besides their
remunerated role in other people's private realm, these women are an invisible motor
driving economic development in the receiving countries and simultaneously an
important source of revenue for their own country (See Youngs 2000:55). The
experiences of these women thus reveal complex and often contradictory relationships vi-
a-vis the private and the public. They simultaneously have a key role in their own family
reproduction and emotional care and in keeping the economy of their country economy
afloat. Once they find themselves in the receiving country, they often become
reproductive workers in someone else's home. This means they enter someone else's
private space, which, though it often becomes their "own living space," is not really their
home and actually is their paid work place. Filipino migrant domestic workers and
caregivers in receiving countries find themselves working and living in a space- their
employer' home- that is both public and private. The state often does not intervene in
their working experiences, since the household is constructed as none of the
government's business (See Phizacklea 1998).
327
The anomalous position of immigrant domestic workers allows us to see the
relationships between the private and the public under a different light. The degree to
which different countries include reproductive work in their labor laws varies
substantially, but even in the most generous countries domestic labor is not equated with
other kinds of often masculine work. The gender and racial dynamics that make
immigrant domestic workers and their work in receiving societies invisible interact with
their immigration status, which both reinforces their invisibility and limits their ability to
access their often limited labor rights.
In receiving countries, the work lives of immigrant reproductive workers are often
constructed as private. This is because their work takes place in a space characterized by
privacy, flexibility, and intimacy. While these characteristics are inherent to family
relations, when they exist in the regulation of a labor relationship, they pose serious
problems. While flexibility and intimacy may make a labor relationship more humane
than the average capitalistic 21st century workshop, they also make it hard for the worker
to draw much needed boundaries between her work and non-work time and space. Her
immigration status as a non-citizen makes it even more difflcult for her to negotiate these
boundaries. As a result, it is often the case that there is no place where the migrant
woman can go to remain absolutely and safely private- both from the state and her
employers.
The private-public divide, thus, needs to be studied contextually and historically. In
the particular case of Filipino domestic workers and caregivers, this private-public duality
is complex, both in the transnational context of their migratory experience and in relation
to their employers in the receiving country. In the Philippines, migrant women are placed
interchangeably in both spheres according to gendered political and social discourses at
the service of the development of the nation. While their experiences as migrant workers-
and therefore national heroes in the Philippines- are constructed as public, they are also
penalized for their failure to take care of their own families, through the use of discourses
that blame them for the social effects of migration on the Philippines. Also, as targets of
foreign employers' gendered forms of abuse, their experiences are often discounted and
depoliticized: the government often blames the woman for the abuse she receives as a
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way to avoid responsibility for its own failure to protect its citizens overseas. In the
destination countries,403 Filipino women also occupy a contradictory position across the
private and public spheres. As non-citizens they are a focus of government action and
regulation, while as domestic workers with limited rights they are relegated to the
household sphere which, though I argue it should be constructed as public because it is
their workplace, remains private and therefore beyond government intervention.
3. The Informality of Household Labor
In order to analyze the interviewees' working conditions in Spain and the United
States I start by emphasizing some traits that characterize domestic and care work versus
other labor activities. As noted in previous chapters, remunerated domestic work in many
Asian and Middle Eastern countries is not considered labor and therefore is excluded
from national employment laws. While this is not the case in Spain and the United States,
reproductive labor in these two countries still enjoys fewer protections than other jobs.
Along with several other authors (See Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001; Lopez Gandia and
Toscani Gimenez 2006; Romero 1999; 2003), I suggest there are three factors behind the
lack of regulation of this activity.
First, reproductive labor takes place within a private household, which is the scene
of intimate and private family relationships and activities. The perception of the
household as a private sphere undermines the existence of formal labor relations and
makes government intervention of such relations quite problematic. Second, reproductive
labor - either paid or unpaid- has historically been considered women's jurisdiction. It is
their natural expression of love and care and, as such, is the complete opposite of the
conceptualization of "work" in terms of nineteenth century models of production. Third,
in relation to its construction as women's inherent jurisdiction, reproductive labor
conducted in the private household has historically lacked economic value and social
recognition. Since it does not produce wealth it is not considered relevant to public life.
Its feminine and private nature makes it appear irrelevant to the "public" and keeps it
403 The analysis will be undeltaken with Spain and the United States as case studies of receiving countries,
but illustrative evidence will be provided about other receiving countries in Asian and in the Middle East.
329
separate from it in the form of under-regulation.
My analysis of Filipino women's role as migrant reproductive workers illustrates
their key roles in the private households where they work as well in the economic
systems of the different countries where they insert themselves: they conduct
reproductive tasks key to the well-being of their employing families; their work frees
their female employers to join the labor market, which favors businesses and the
economy in general; their remittances are key for the maintenance of the Philippine
economy; they are often their families' principal breadwinners. Although reproductive
work has traditionally been rendered as menial, dispensable, and invisible (belonging to
the "private"), Filipino women's experiences as migrant domestic workers show how
crucial migrant reproductive labor is for their own family and their employer's survival,
as well as for the economic growth of their own country and the countries to which they
migrate.
The fact that their labor takes place within the private realm of the household
provides the relation between the worker and the employer with personalism and
flexibility that jobs in public and traditional worksites do not have. Although it is a labor
relationship, the private nature of the social space where it happens makes it difficult to
keep it as strictly labor. As opposed to rational organization, strict work days, and
contractually established criteria, which are present in most labor activities, reproductive
labor taking place in the private household is often characterized by loosely defined tasks
and blurry lines between "employment" and "non-employment" time and space. While
flexibility and intimacy can imbue it with degrees of humanity and personal connection
that are less frequent in factories or offices, they often justify its under-regulation and
underemphasize its remunerated nature.
Feminist scholars studying reproductive work in the United States have generally
seen close personal relations between the worker and the employer as a "key mechanism
for oppression and labor control" (See Hondagneu-Sotelo 2001: 171). Accordingly, the
employer's paternalism (maternalism according to Hondagneu-Sotelo) may blur the
distinction between work and unpaid favors, which often result in expected deference and
gratitude, as well as extra hours on duty. This is best exemplified by employers referring
330
to domestic workers as "another member of the family.,,404 Other authors have argued,
however, that the intimacy that can develop between the employer and the worker can be
empowering for the latter, and can give her some latitude to negotiate a work plan that
meets her own interests and desires (Ibid.I72).
How do these personal and flexible relationships play out for Filipino reproductive
workers in Barcelona and San Francisco? In the next section I present interviewees'
perceptions of their relationship with their employers and show they are not uniform.
Subsequently, I examine women's wages and working hours, and discuss how the
personal relationship involved in the work may intersect with employment regulation of
this activity in Spain and the United States to shape work conditions.
3.1. Just Like Family
All the interviewees in my study seemed to appreciate friendly and caring treatment
on the part of their employers.405 They tended to summarize it with the expression "to be
lucky to find a good family." They usually meant a family that treated them kindly and
humanely. A 1995 newspaper article about Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona
presented "indifference and lack of affection" as Filipinas' main complaint regarding
their working conditions (Maduefio 1995).
Filipino women in Barcelona usually become live-in workers upon their arrival.
Most of them eventually move into full time live-out jobs for the same family or hourly
cleaning for multiple families. Some of them, particularly single women, work as live-ins
for many years, since they value the stability this arrangement provides. In this situation,
it is understandable that kind and amiable treatment is important to them.
When talking about the treatment they received from their employers, some
interviewees emphasized the close relationship they had established with their employers.
The intimacy created by living in their employers' household often translated into "just
404 Field notes, San Francisco, March 2006
405 Field notes, San Francisco and Barcelona
331
another family member,,406 treatment. Viviana, for example, often "was invited" to share
space and spend time with her employers:
[My female employer] was Irish... but an Irish-Catalan... she's like a migrant, so
she treats me it's like family, you know? I eat with them. And there are two
children, and They were a very good family, very good to me. I stayed 20 years
with them. But [after so many years], although they were very kind, I started to look
for something different. .. 407
Similarly, Paulita spent ten years working in the same household. She explained she
was happy there, because she was treated her very kindly. She was not expected to work
very much, and she would spend hours with her female employer watching TV and
chatting. She quit her job when her husband came to join her from the Philippines and
she became pregnant with their first child. When Paulita left the house she said:
[I] could not stop crying. Even the kids cried when I was leaving. Up to today, they
call me and they tell me that I am a member of their family. The senora calls me
every week; she always calls to know how I am doing, so I feel sad.... But what am
I supposed to do?408
Coraz6n also expressed appreciation for the amiable treatment she received from
her employers. She emphasized her status as a family member rather than as a "servant":
I'm very grateful because they are so very, very kind to me ... they treat me like
family, they do not treat me as their servant, no, they treat me as family, when I got
there ... when I am there, they always help me, they are very kind ... they are very
kind, so I'm very grateful. My time there is very short, because I work there four
hours, half day, four hours, but the way they treat me, wow, no comment, they are
very kind.409
Coraz6n valued the treatment she received as a family member as opposed to a
"servant" for two reasons. First, while she aimed to emphasize the good treatment she
received, her identification as a member of the family precisely masks her identity as a
406 Field notes, Barcelona, January 2007
407 Interview 22, Barcelona, Viviana, March 2007
408 Interview 20, Barcelona, Paulita, March 2007
409 One of the expressions ofCorazon's employers' kindness was that, besides her salary, every
once in a while they gave her money for transportation or other smalls sums in the form ofpropinas
(tips) or regalos (gifts). Interview 8, Barcelona, Corazon, January 2007
332
worker and a trait both workers and slaves provide to the employer/master: labor power.
Second, the explicitly appreciated small tips and gifts she received from her employers.
These are quite common among Spanish employers of domestic workers. While this
often provides closeness between the two parties, it does not translate into reciprocal and
equal closeness, since it is always the employer who gives the gifts and she does it
whenever she feels like it. Corazon cannot regularly count on that money for her living
expenses, since it is not part of her salary.
Similar to Corazon, Nelly also emphasized her employers' generosity:
[T]hey give me all my needs. I do not buy my... like for example, the gel, the
shampoo, or everything, the bags ... they usually give them to me. So, what more
can I ask? And then my lady employer gives me 100 Euros as my allowance. To
buy the [train] ticket ... but she never tells me what to do with it. It's just for me, so
if I want to buy my food, I can buy or eat what I want. For Christmas, there is a
Christmas bonus.410
As in Corazon's case, Nelly's employers also buy things for her, such as toiletries
and train tickets. They also give her a monthly allowance besides her salary. These
dynamics certainly resemble those among family members, where presents and goods are
provided for free. I could not help but thinking that, as with Corazon, these presents and
the allowance were indication of a relationship between a parent and a child more than
between two adult relatives. Nelly was 61-years old. "Allowance" usually refers to a
small weekly or monthly sum a child receives from her parents. Sometimes parents
expect the child to conduct certain tasks as a condition for receiving it. Allowances are
also used to teach children about responsibility or money management. Parents might
also give less or no money if a child behaves badly. These occasional or regular gifts,
tips, and random sums of money are symptoms of employers' infantilization of the
worker. The question I raise here is, what would happen if the employer included the
economic value of these gifts, allowances, and tips in the worker' monthly salary so the
latter could regularly expect them as part of her income rather than as a result of her
employer's arbitrary kindness. Classical studies on reciprocity, such as that of Marcel
410 Interview 11, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007
333
Mauss', have shown true gifts are always expected to be reciprocated. When the
recipient does not or cannot reciprocate with another gift she automatically becomes
indebted. The only "gift" the worker can offer in exchange is her loyalty, deference, and
hard work. Gift-giving in these cases thus often reflects the unequal power between
employees and employers.
Filipino women in San Francisco also made mentions of kindness they received
from their employers. Ruth for example, said they "treated her really nice". They
sometimes went out of their way to do kind things and appreciate the good work she was
doing taking care of their elderly mother:
Last Monday she took me to the Fisherman's Wharf to celebrate my birthday. That
was the time when she could treat me to something special. We even took some
pictures. I really liked it.4I1
Some interviewees in San Francisco also felt their employers treated them as
family. Emilia characterized the closeness between her and her employers in the
following way:
Some [families] are well off and rich and they don't eat with their maids or
caregivers, but I eat together with them, they treat me as family. They do not treat
me as a caregiver.412
For Emilia, being able to share the table with her employers indicated her belonging
as a family member. Conversely, while inclusion at the dinner table signifies inclusion in
the family circle, different reactions around food and meals, as I discuss in the next
subsection, come to symbolize exclusion and marginalization for the women. Noemi
also expressed satisfaction with the treatment she received from a previous employer, and
used family terms to describe it:
I was really lucky. The woman I worked with was very nice ... I even had some
time off for myself ... It was like a house setting. Like I am her daughter and I am
running the house.4I3
411 Interview 34, San Francisco, Ruth, July 2006
412 Interview 31, San Francisco, Emilia, July 2006
413 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noemi, July 2006
334
In her case, her employer's kind treatment and her sense she was running the house
made her feel like she was a "regular household member." Yet, when I asked her about
the different tasks she conducted at her job, she explained:
It is live-in. You have to stay there for 24 hours. In the morning I get up at
six, I dress her; I make her bed, her room. I escort her to the doctor, clean the
house. I work until, if we take early supper, 5pm and then I cook, and I do the
putting away and the cleaning after dinner. Also, I have to take care to the
garbage and everything, and I have to stay with her in the front room, and
when it is time, around 9pm, I take her to bed ... I was getting 45 dollars a
day, and then later I asked for a increase and they I got 50 a day. I stayed
there for more than three years.414
If we divide 45 dollars by 24 hours equals $1.87 an hour. After Noemi got her
salary increase, she made $2.08 an hour. If we do not count the time she slept, her hourly
salary was of $3.46 and $3.84 after her increase. The fact that she was making a salary far
below California minimum wage, and her non-stop schedule from 6am to 9pm, hardly
resembled a family relationship.
3.2. When Informality Is Not so Pleasant
One of my goals in the previous section was to introduce the fiction required to
define labor relations in domestic work as "family relations." The former are not
reciprocal and the power differences are considerable. It is important to appreciate, as
many interviewees expressed, how family-like, kind treatment on the part ofthe
employers can be crucial in the sense that helped create a humane relationship and
pleasant work environment. However, kind, family-like treatment depends totally on the
discretion ofthe employer. While some employers do establish a friendly and benevolent,
though problematic, relationship with their domestic employees, others do not. In these
cases the informality of the labor relations of domestic work translates into hyper-control
of the worker's movements and behaviour that would not be possible in more formal and
less isolated work settings.
414 Interview 33, San Francisco, Noemi, July 2006
335
Teresita's experience provides an example. She explained that during her first year
in Spain as an undocumented live~in domestic worker, her employer tried to prevent her
from having contact with people outside the household. Teresita thought her employer
was afraid that if she met new people she would eventually quit her job. In fact, one day
she met an Egyptian man who offered her ajob for a higher salary. According to
Teresita:
He was asking me if I can work for him. And then he was calling in our place, you
know, on the telephone. But then I discovered that when [my employer] went out, I
cannot go outside. She locked the door. She locked the telephone and put it in
silence, so when the Egyptian man called, who really wanted to help me, I cannot
receive anything, because the telephone was locked. And even if I had a chance I
cannot go out because the door was locked.415
Marina shared a similar story. Her first employer also used to lock her in the house
when she went out. Marina thought her employer did not trust her and locked her in to
prevent her from stealing things.416 Marina and Teresita's stories begin to remind us of
master-slave relations. They also reveal a treatment of the worker as if she was a child as
occurred in Nelly's situation. Parents give their children allowances and sometimes
ground them for "bad" behaviour. While Marina and Teresita's stories were extreme
cases of strict employer control over workers' movements, they were not the only ones.
Adelina, for instance, said her employer would open her mail and read it. Even after she
complained to him for what she saw a lack of respect, he continued to do it. Her
employer would also give her a hard time when she tried to go out at night:
From 1991 to 2000 I wasflja. But then every night there are some occasions in the
community and I wanted to join and I was asking for permission to go out ...
because I used to be like this in the Philippines, [I used] to be social and to
volunteer. And then they told me 'no, because you are working here, and you are
staying here. You don't need to go out.' They would not let me go out at night.417
By the time of our interview, Adelina had known her employers for over two
decades. She explained that after so many years of knowing each other, their relationship
415 Interview 6, Barcelona, Teresita, December 2006
416 Interview 17, Barcelona, Marina, February 2007
417 Interview 12, Barcelona, Adelina, February 2007
336
felt like "family." She said her employers' refusal to let her go out stemmed from their
worry about her safety. However, she also felt they did not trust her and felt threatened
by the amount of time she spent outside their house. Although her employers insisted
their "protective treatment" stemmed from their view of Adelina "as family," she insisted
she was first of all their employee. "You feel that they care about you but they are your
employer. You are still working and they pay you for that." To express the hypocrisy
behind her employers consideration of her as a family member, she cited a Filipino
friend of hers who once jokingly said: "Yes, yes, we are family members. You know
how people invite relatives to family events? They invite us to special family occasions
as well. The difference is that we have to work and they do not pay us for that!,,418
Finally, Adelina also expressed a different view of eating with her employers from
Viviana, who considered sharing dinner table as "family treatment." Although Adelina's
employers often invited her to sit to eat breakfast with them, she preferred to eat by
herself in the kitchen. When I asked her why, she responded "Sometimes you wanna be
1 Y ... . ,,419a one. our eatmg tIme IS your own tIme.
Similar to testimonies of Filipino women in the Middle East, two of my
interviewees in Barcelona said their employers controlled the food they could eat.
Delfina and Paola remembered how their employers would differentiate between the
food they ate and the food they gave their domestic workers. Delfina recalled that at one
of her jobs she lost a lot of weight and became sick with a stomach ulcer. She
remembered that at that time she was constantly hungry. When I asked whether her
employers gave her food, she responded:
Yes, but very little. At night, only at night. Well, in the morning a little bit. A piece
of bread and a piece of ham, like this [she showed with her fingers that it was very
small], and a glass of milk, that was it... 42o
Delfina complained to her employer that she needed to eat more, but they told her
they gave her enough. At night, her employers would eat steak, but she and the other
418 Field Notes, Barcelona, April 2008.
419 Field Notes, Barcelona, April 2008
420 Interview 16, Barcelona, Delfina, February 2007
337
domestic workers ate vegetables and, every once in a while, chicken. Her female
employer would also lock the fridge to prevent her and the other domestic workers from
taking any food. Pierrette Hondageu-Sotelo's study of Latina domestic workers in
California also shows how workers are usually aware of how food and meals underscore
the boundaries between them and their employers:
The issue of food captures the essence of how Latina live-in domestic workers feel
about their jobs. It symbolizes the extent to which the families they work for draw
the boundaries of exclusion of inclusion, and it marks the degree to which those
families recognize the live-in nanny/housekeepers as human beings who have basic
human needs (2001 :35).
These boundaries of exclusion were erected where Paola worked. The symbolic
and material boundaries her employers established concerned access to food, the
distinction in the location and quality of their living spaces, and expectations that Paola
would conduct her tasks in more "traditional ways" than themselves, which made the
work harder, negatively affected her health, and accentuated her subordinate role. Her
employers never gave her food for breakfast, and she ended up buying cookies to have
something to eat in the mornings. According to Paola, the employers ate meat and she
had the same food as the suegro,421 which was usually lentils or vegetables. For dinner
she ate her own cookies again. The only day in which she had a proper meal was on
Sundays, her day off. She would take a long bus ride to join other Filipinas in their own
apartments and they would cook "big Filipino meals."
Different amounts and kinds of food were not the only distinction Paola's
employers established between themselves and their workers. Despite the fact that there
was a washing machine in the house,
I had to hand-wash all the clothes. The washing machine was only for
decoration. She used it sometimes, but she would not let me use it ... to mop
the floor I had to kneel, she would not let me use a mop or gloves. The
detergent burned my hands, I had allergies ... And my hands were swollen
421 Father in law.
338
and bleeding. When I complained she would start yelling at me and said that I
was a whiner.422
Paola's employers would use food or Paola's tasks to higWight the status and
power differential between them and Paola. The latter's undocumented status and her
isolation made if difficult for her to alter the situation or leave easily. Paola's room was
in an old barn, which was full of her employer's tools and lacked insulation: "it was
really cold at night and really hot in the summer.,,423
Why did Paola stay at this job for over two years? One of the reasons she gave was
that "the children got very close to me, and they would have been very sad if I had
left.,,424 Paola's case exemplifies the "positive" and "negative" sides of personal and
flexible relations in the workplace are, more often than not, simultaneously present.
Despite some cases ofexcellent personal and labor treatment and others of extremely
abusive conditions, situations in which positive and negative appeared simultaneously
were the norm. This demonstrates how power in the informal context of the household
can be benevolently or non-benevolently exercised at the discretion of the employer. In
reproductive labor the employer much more discretion to define the worker's labor
conditions than in most labor sectors. As I discuss in the next section, an under-
regulation of reproductive labor enhances their discretion.
This combination of benevolence and malevolence of personalistic labor relations
was also apparent during my fieldwork in San Francisco. Rosa worked for a year in San
Jose taking care of an 80-year old woman. She lived with her and took care of her 24
hours a day. Her days offwere Saturday and Sunday. On those days she usually took the
train to San Francisco and spent the weekend with her cousins. While her employer's
insistence on treating her as a "family member" translated into affectionate treatment, it
also interfered with Rosa's rights and working conditions. For example, sometimes her
employer would ask her to stay with her until Sunday so she could go with her to
422 Interview 23, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007
423 Interview 23, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007
424 Interview 23, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007
339
"Kingdom Hall.,,425 While for the employer this was a way to spend more time with
Rosa, for Rosa this signified decreasing her time off. Her employer's expectation that
Rosa would prefer to go to Church than spend her time off with her own relatives,
ignores Rosa's position as an employee. Possibly out of affection, it blurs the lines
between work and non-work hours.
Rosa's case resembles some of the stories Filipino women in Barcelona shared.
While I think her experience typifies the problematic juxtaposition of labor and non-
labor relations present in household reproductive work, this juxtaposition was more
marked in Barcelona than in San Francisco. My interviewees in San Francisco did not
complain of as many negative effects of personalistic labor relations as those in
Barcelona.
The first reason for this difference is that, despite the precariousness of care giving
work, its arrangements are usually more formal than is the case with domestic work.
Care giving is perceived as a more skilled job than housekeeping work, which often
translates into a clearer definition of tasks and work conditions. This often means higher
pay. In many of the cases I encountered, though the caregiver lived with her client, she
had been hired through an agency. These agencies tended to set standard work conditions
for all their workers, which obviates employers' power to establish these. This partially
takes the client's discretion away. This does not change the fact that agencies are in
many ways exploitative, but it does attenuate some of the personalistic aspects of the
labor conditions and relationships.
The second set of factors that help explain a higher incidence of personalistic
relations among interviews in Barcelona versus those in San Francisco had to do with my
sampling. As I explained in Chapter VI, I had difficulties interviewing live-in domestic
workers in the Bay Area because of their reclusion in the household and the anti-
immigrant political climate in the area at the time. As a result, the information I gathered
about live-in domestic workers in San Francisco was largely second hand and gathered
through interviews with employers, lawyers, and non-profit organizations. Although
425 Denomination for Jehova's Witnesses temple.
340
interviewees in San Francisco shared much information about their past experiences as
live-in caregivers, at the time of my research, they were mostly live-out caregivers. Some
were working for single families, others had different part-time clients through private
agencies, and a third set had one to several clients through the San Francisco In Home
Support Services Public Authority or Consortium. This mix resulted in less emotional
attachment to employing families and clients compared to interviewees in Barcelona.
Private and public agencies greatly limited clients' (and their relatives') ability to dictate
women's work conditions. Nevertheless, though to a lesser degree than in Barcelona, the
private nature of the work and the workplace also resulted in less formal working
relations and conditions compared to other paid work settings.
I underscore the weight of personalistic relations for Filipino reproductive workers
in Spain and the United States because I see them making labor relations and activities
different from those in other paid work sectors. Despite its location in the private realm,
which is characterized by affective bonds and informality, reproductive labor is of great
importance for the economies of both sending and receiving countries and is
unquestionably real work. However, its personalistic component parallels an under-
regulation of reproductive labor in Spain and the United States, as well as its social and
political perception as marginal and non-relevant. Personalism can introduce humane
treatment and relations in a labor setting, but it also provides employers with wide room
for manoeuvre. It is not necessarily good for workers, since it takes place in a context of
unequal power relations and access to resources. But does this mean personalism
unavoidably has negative consequences for workers? Is personalism the problem? Or is it
an inequitable distribution of power and discretion? How do public institutions respond
to power and discretion inequalities? In the next sections I examine how personalism and
the informality characterizing reproductive labor and the regulation of this work shape
Filipino reproductive workers' wages and work hours. These two components of
working conditions, although analyzed separately, are intimately connected.
341
4. Spain: Good Will as the Premise of Regulation
The historical under-regulation ofdomestic work in Spain has run parallel on the
expectation the law has that employers and employees should be able to agree on
working conditions using their good will and being flexible with each other's needs. This
assumption, as I discuss in this sub-section, is often problematic in labor situations in
which, power inequalities take over good will and often misuse it. The pictures most
interviewees drew of their experiences generally translated into long work days in which
work and non-work time were regularly confused and mixed up.
Household work in Spain has historically remained outside labor law, being
jurisdiction of by civil law (Martinez Veiga 1995). On August 1985, ten years after the
beginning of Spanish democracy, and after domestic workers' organizations, labor
unions, and progressive political parties applied political and social pressure, the first
socialist government in Spanish history promulgated Royal Decree 1424/1985 (RD
1424/1985 hereafter), which regulated, for the first time, labor relations for "Household
Employees" (See Castello 2007; Lopez Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006) According
to RD 1424/1985, household work involves "remunerated services in the family
household realm." These services are defined as those conducted "at or for the home,"
and include the care of the home as a whole or partially, the care of family members,
childcare, gardening, driving cars, and other activities developed as part of domestic
tasks" (Lopez Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006: 17) .
The Royal Decree provided more rights for household workers and including
reproductive workers. Household work, however, has remained a special kind of labor
relation. While technically wage and overtime rights are equal to other workers, the law
is less protective in terms of paid time off, dismissal, and contract renewal. In addition,
as I discuss below, there are many aspects of working conditions law leaves for the
employer and the worker to resolve on their own. More than twenty years after the
creation of RD 1424/1985, domestic workers enjoy fewer labor rights than workers in
other economic sectors (Lopez Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006). Spanish unions have
denounced the regulation of this work as precarious, since it is based on personal
relationships, trust, and work conducted in the intimate space of the family.
342
The low value placed on domestic labor, which translates into the treatment of
household workers as "kind of workers" rather than "actual workers" (Rojo Torrecilla et
al. 2004) runs parallel to its historically feminine character. What makes household work
unique, according to Spanish jurisprudence, is the fact that it takes place within a
"special business realm" (i.e. family household). This involves the worker's insertion
into the "intimate circle of the family" (L6pez Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006). RD
1424/1985 regulates household work on the following two premises: 1) the personal
nature of the contract established between the employer and the employee, and 2) the key
role mutual trust and good faith have in the relationship between the two parties. These
result in labor regulations distinct from those in other economic sectors and characterized
by the following elements:
1) The employer's need for flexibility limits the worker's rights.
2) The existence of constitutional rights in terms of personal and family privacy
limits the application of labor rights.
3) RD 1424/1985, differently from law regulating other labor activities, does not
require the existence of a written contract regulating working conditions. The
personal aspect of the relationship, mutual trust, and the goal not to burden the
employer supposedly explains this exemption. The law legalizes the "informal
economy" as the "natural space" for this kind of work.
Labor unions have argued it does not make sense to create a law such as RD
1424/1985 to regulate a labor relationship, since the law leaves many aspects of the
relationship to the good will and mutual trust of the employer and employee (L6pez
Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006). Good will is left to determine the regulation ofthe
most important aspects of work, such as the duration of the work day, work schedules,
breaks, holidays, contract duration, and wages. This under-regulation resembles civil law
and a private contractual relation rather than a labor contract. It places workers in a
position of weakness. While the reliance of RD 1424/1985 on good will, as I discuss
below, parallels an under-regulation of domestic work, this has different meanings for
employers and employees: While it is staying out ofthe household to respect the
343
employing family's privacy rights, it is neglecting the worker by under-regulating her
labor conditions. What does this under-regulation look like in terms of Filipino domestic
workers' wages and work hours in Barcelona?
4.1. Work Hours: You Never Know. It Always Depends on the Employers...
Article 7.1 ofRD 1424/1985 states the work week of a domestic worker is 40
hours. The schedule will be "freely established by the representative of the family
household (the employer), and the regular working hours should never exceed nine a
day." Those workers who reside in the employer's house are entitled to at least eight
hours of rest between two working days. Those workers who do not live at their
employer's are entitled to ten hours. In addition, live-in domestic workers are entitled to
two non~remuneratedhours a day for meals.
The establishment of a 40-hour work week, as well as the maximum of a nine-hour
work day is identical to the regulation of "standard" labor activities in Spain. Overtime
compensation is also the same as that established in the general "Estatuto de los
Trabajadores." What is different is that, since employers can freely establish the work
schedule and the law does not require himlher to create a written contract describing
work conditions, workers may need to be permanently available to meet the employers'
changing needs. The employer can unilaterally change the schedule, and the worker
cannot object.
The regulation of work time caters to employers' needs and flexibility rather than
workers' rights. Another example is the inclusion of what RD 1424/1985 calls "presence
time." "Presence time" are those hours the employer and the worker agree upon during
which the latter is not strictly working but agrees to be available for emergencies and/or
do light tasks such as opening the door or answering the telephone. This "presence time"
takes place outside of the hours of the work day. RD 1424/1985 does not make explicit
whether these hours should be remunerated, leaving it to employers' discretion. Domestic
work is probably the only labor sector in which law gives employers discretion on
whether they should payor not workers during a period of time in which the latter are in
the work place and make themselves available to employers.
344
The existence of "presence time" endangers the right to overtime pay in the sense
that if the law allows for workers' presence and light work outside of the working day
without necessarily requiring its remuneration, it may indirectly transform over-time
hours into "non-work- merely presence- time." Besides making the implementation of
overtime provisions problematic, the concept of "presence time" adds confusion to the
labor relationship, since some activities included under it (e.g. care, presence, watching a
baby during his/her nap) are typically part of regular work time. Differentiating activities
conducted during "work time" and "presence time," besides the quantity or intensity the
work, means that any work conducted beyond the 8 daily does not need to counted as
labor or be paid, since it can be considered presence time. is that employment law
establishes a 9 hour maximum per day and, any task conducted beyond this limit needs to
either be paid as overtime or to be conceptualized as non-labor. "Presence time" affects
the remuneration the workers receive and the amount of hours they end up working
and/or being available to work. It is also symptomatic of how easily the line between
work and non-work time is crossed. The employer's ability to impose labor obligations
on the worker beyond the legally established work day raises interesting questions about
the definition of "work time" and "time off' and about the worker's ability to use her
"time off' at her will.
This legislative void expects employers and workers to act on good will to define
work time and time off. It expects the worker to adjust to the changing needs of the
employer, and it assumes the employer will not abuse the worker's flexibility. Good will,
however, should never be the premise on which labor law is based. Unequal power
relationships characterize all labor relations. The flexibility the law assumes (and
promotes) has the potential to accentuate the power differential in the context of domestic
work. If the worker decides to extend her work day to do the employer a favor, she
should do it with the employer's recognition that she is "sacrificing" a right, and
therefore expecting a compensation for it, rather than as a result of an expectation of
"good will" that both the employer and the law place upon her, or as Lopez Gandfa and
Toscani Gimenez state:
345
The need for flexibility should not translate into deregulation. Rather, the law
should establish certain limits within which both the household head's needs
and the worker's rights and guarantees are taken into account426 (Lopez
Gandia and Toscani Gimenez 2006:50).
The problems stemming from flexibility and ambiguity are al present in the
regulation of rest time. Article 7.3 ofRD 1424/1985 states that "household workers have
the right to a weekly rest of36 hours." Of these, at least 24 hours must be consecutive
and preferably on Sunday. The two parties will agree on the distribution of the remaining
hours." Besides the fact that workers in Spain have a weekly rest of 48 uninterrupted
hours, which coincides with Saturday and Sunday, the fact that the law leaves the
definition of uninterrupted rest time up to the two parties to negotiate makes again work
conditions dependent on good will. Given the power differential present in domestic
work, good will is actually a euphemism for the employer's good will, which should not
be the cornerstone of the law but an additional factor once the worker' rights have been
clearly regulated. The following are two vignettes exemplifying the diversity of
employers' application of this law.
Nelly, a 61-year old woman from Luzon worked for a lawyer and his family in a
wealthy neighborhood in Barcelona. She started to work for this family in 1991, when
their son was a couple of months old. The child was sixteen at the time of the interview,
and Nelly felt she had raised him. She had worked as a live-in since the beginning and
enjoyed the breaks the law prescribes. When the boy was still young she took care of him
during the day. When he started going to school she would remain alone in the house,
since her employer and his family were at work all day. It was during this time that she
did all the cleaning, shopping, and other household tasks. She ate on her own and took
her breaks in the afternoon. Regarding her weekly rest time, she left her employers'
house on Thursday after lunch and returned on Friday morning. She also had a longer rest
period between Saturday after lunch until Monday morning. She stayed in an apartment
she bought with her sister few years ago. Her work days were strictly eight to nine hours
and her time off equaled the 12 and 36 consecutive hour periods, one of them coinciding
426 Original in Spanish. My translation.
346
with the weekend, which the law recommends.427
Bemarda had not been as lucky as Nelly. Her first job in Spain had been as a live-in
domestic worker for a family residing in Sitges, a coastal town one hour from Barcelona.
Her work day was from 8am to 10pm, and included cleaning, cooking, and taking care of
two children. Her daily break was one hour instead of the two the law prescribes. In terms
of her weekly rest, she took it between Wednesday after lunch and Thursday night. Her
employers ignored the recommendation of the law to make at least part of the rest period
coincide with Sunday. In addition, since she only had about 30 hours off, her employers
failed to provide her with the total of48 hours off that the law prescribes. Bemarda's
long work days, sometimes as long as 14 hours, are symptomatic of how the existence of
"presence time" erased her right to eight to nine hour work days. She was never paid for
. 428
overtIme.
Nelly's and Bemarda's vignettes illustrate some of the possible effects of the
current regulation of household work in Spain. While in Nelly's case it seems her
employers acted on good will and respected Nelly's her rights, Bemarda's employers
failed to respect both the recommendations and the obligations ofRD 124/1985. Cases
such as Bemarda's indicate that the law cannot expect employers always to act out of
good will. Because of this, the law should clearly regulate work conditions and guarantee
workers' rights.
The Spanish legal inclusion of "presence time" and its regulation of rest time are of
special relevance for the theorization of domestic work as located in an "intermediary
position" between the private and the public sphere. The location of the domestic worker
-particularly the live-in- subverts the boundary between both realms (See Caste1l6 2007).
She is present in the house as a worker. The premise of flexibility and good will shaping
the law, however, gives preeminence to the family logic of the private world over the
salary logic of the public one. Since the boundaries between labor power and non labor
are diffused with the existence of "presence time" and ambiguous definitions of rest time,
427 Interview 11, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007
428 Interview 21, San Barcelona, Bemarda, March 2007
347
it is not clear whether the employer is entitled only to a clearly defined amount of the
worker's time- which coincides with the worker's exertion and sale of her labor power-
or if the employer can expect the woman living in her house to become a laborer at any
time, and therefore, profit from her work at any moment and in any quantity.
4.1.1. Endless Work Days: Because When We Say Fija We Mean Fija
I designed a long questionnaire for my interviews with immigrant women and I
asked the same questions to interviewees in San Francisco and Barcelona. One of the
things I learned during that process was that, upon the researcher's entry to the field and
the contact with the research subjects, sometimes there is a need to transform the research
and analysis tools. This certainly happened to me when I started doing fieldwork in
Barcelona429 and, while it may seem a methodological anecdote, it pushed me to think
further about some of my initial conceptualizations and premises.
The last section of my interview questionnaire focused on gathering information on
the women's working conditions and social location in the receiving countries. Its goal
was to contrast the women's actual experiences with employment regulations in Spain
and the United States. One of the questions I asked during the last part of the interview
was "How many hours a day/week do you work?" I initially thought obtaining this
information was key to drawing a picture of the women's work days and weeks. As I
noted above, most of my interviewees in Barcelona were live-ins, and all live-out
interviewees had previously worked as live-ins, so all of them had first-hand experience
with this kind of arrangement.
When I started to conduct interviews I noticed that I never got a straightforward
answer to this question. I was expecting a concrete answer but, for the most part, I got
surprised facial expressions and the simple response of "flja." In Spanish,flja literally
means fixed, and it is the equivalent of the English expression live-in. I would usually
repeat my question in case they had not understood me. I did so thinking I already knew
(because they had told me at the beginning of the interview) they werefljas, and at that
point of the interview I was interested in finding out how many hours they spent working
429 I conducted fieldwork in Barcelona after fieldwork in San Francisco and before traveling to Manila.
348
for their employers, regardless of whether they lived with them. Their responses,
however, remained consistent, "fija." Looking back, I realized that while I thought they
were not understanding me, they were thinking I was not understanding them. For them
their answer was obvious. They were right. They understood my question, but were
trying to tell me their experiences asfijas was not something that could be easily
described using measuring criteria such as the number of hours worked.
Only when I began did I realize that the mismatch between my questions and their
answers went beyond methodology and was symptomatic of a need to re-conceptualize
the notion of domestic work. The hours domestic workers work cannot be counted as
they are in other job sectors because they are never clearly defined to begin with. Work
and non-work time are not clearly separated. Just as an illustration, when I asked Concha,
for example, how many hours she worked, her response was simply '~fija. ,,430 After I
asked the same question in many interviews, Adelina responded energically: "Fija! It
means.fija, that you live there ... " She clearly stated: "When you saY.fija it is from you
wake up in the morning until you go to bed, you know?" and, laughing at my surprise,
she exclaimed "Because when we say fija we meanfija!,,431 During my interview with
Adelina is when I realized I had to rephrase my question, since it did not capture the
women's perception of their working reality. The way they understood and lived their
experiences asfijas comprised something that was not necessarily evoked with the
question I was using. As I discussed above, RD 1424/1985 offers a confusing definition
of work time versus "presence time" and time off. As a result, I started encouraging
interviewees to provide descriptive narratives of their daily and weekly work routines. I
did so in order to understand their perceptions of the organization of their work and non-
work time without imposing my own definitions. In the following sections I discuss some
of their narrative descriptions.
430 Interview 4, Barcelona, Concha, December 2006
431 Interview 12, Barcelona, Adelina, February 2007
349
4.1.2. Daily Breaks
RD 1424/1985 establishes that live-in domestic workers are entitled to at least two
hours off daily for the main meals.432 This time is not computed as work and therefore is
not remunerated. Most interviewees stated their employers respected this break. While
the law expects the worker to have at least two hours off to enjoy their meals, the
women's experiences with this provision varied significantly from one another and from
the law.
Concha's first job in Spain was as afija. She worked in a house with other Filipino
domestic workers. She was in charge of cooking for the whole family, taking care ofthe
three children, and other household tasks including washing clothes, ironing, shopping,
and cleaning the house. When I asked her what time she started working and what time
she stopped, her response was that she began every morning and 8am and finished at
11 pm. I asked if she had any breaks at all during the day. She said she had a one hour
long break between 5 and 6pm. However, she explained laughing, since the two older
girls came back home from school at that time, she would use that hour to take them to
the park. During informal conversations with other Filipino women they told me that
being in charge of children, as was Concha, made their work particularly difficult. In
particular, the need to adjust to the children's schedules, such as their time at school or
babies' naps, made it quite difficult for them to take breaks. Many of them would rest
while the baby was taking a nap. But this was not really a break, since they were still
responsible for the child.
The fact that Concha did not take her legally allowed break to take her meals and
rest afterwards was not unique. My interviews revealed a scenario in which break time
for meals was rarely taken for meals and at meals time. Interviewees often said their
break was from 5pm to 7pm, 4pm to 6pm, or, like Concha, from 5pm to 6pm. The main
reason interviewees said their breaks were on those times was that there was less work
then (dinner in Spain is about 9pm or lOpm). In other words, the employer's meal takes
432 Emphasis added. The law, again, establishes a minimum and leaves it up to the employer to alter the
standard. Despite the existence of "at least," none of the interviewees had more than two hours of daily rest.
.-----~~------- --------- ------
350
preference over the worker's. As a result, many interviewees explained they actually
never stopped working to have their meals, and, as Paulita explained, "We do not have an
hour or two to eat, we only have fifteen minutes. We need to keep working, so we eat
fast, there, standing up in the kitchen.,,433 According to Adelina, this varied across work
sites and depended on each employer's life-style:
If you are only in charge of the baby, after bathing him and feeding him, you
can eat and go to your room. If both the husband and the wife work and come
home at 10pm and they want you to serve them dinner ... [M]any Filipinas
have to be awake until midnight or 1am. And the following day they have to
get up at 7am to give them breakfast!434
Interviewees also had different responses about their night breaks. Bemarda, for
example, explained that although her work day technically ended after dinner, "When the
employers have guests I would finish at 2am or later. They do not pay me extra! [Since] I
amfija they do not pay me anything extra, even if there are guests.,,435 Delfina, on the
contrary, explained that when her employers asked her to stay up until late at night to
help entertain their guests, she would agree to do it with the expectation or understanding
she would be able to take some time off the following morning and, thus, start her work
day a little later.
RD 1424/1985 promotes this flexibility around schedules and breaks. The worker
adapts her living schedule (such as meals and rest time) to the employer's schedule. The
household is a living space for both of them, but the worker organizes her own time
around her employer's needs. While the law expects this flexibility from both parties,
interviewees complained that, while they tried to be accommodating, their employers
often were not. Bemarda, for example, worked from 8am to 4pm. She had a one hour
break until 5pm, and then she worked until 11 pm. One day she fell asleep during her
break time and only few minutes after her break was over her employer was knocking on
her room's door demanding her presence in the kitchen: "I overslept for five minutes and
433 Interview 20, Barcelona, Paulita, March 2007
434 Field Notes, Barcelona, April 2008
435 Interview 21, Barcelona, Bemarda, March 2007
351
he was already knocking!,,436 Bemarda's anecdote is a symptom of the risks involved in
expecting flexible and accommodating behavior based on the good will of both parties in
any labor relationship. How do you legally regulate flexibility and good will? How do
you legally guarantee that good will is present in both sides? In a context where one party
has the upper hand, how do you guarantee that the assumption of good will does not
result in the reality of abuse?
4.1.3. Time away from the House
Article 7.1. of RD 1424/1985 states that once an employee finishes both her work
time and her "presence time" she is free to leave "the family household." However, not
many interviewees spent much daily time away from their employers' house, and their
exits were often limited to their days off.
In early March of 2007 I went to the Philippine consulate in Barcelona to process
my visa to travel to the Philippines to conduct fieldwork. I tried to go early since the
Consulate only opens two hours a day, but by the time I made it to the building, there was
already a long line of approximately 40 people, all of them Filipinos, waiting to process
paperwork, inquire about legal conditions, and renew their passports.437 As the line
became shorter, people in the waiting area, mostlywomen, started asking me if! was
going to the Philippines and we had an animated conversation about my trip and their
places of origin. One young woman sitting in one comer was quiet and seemed worried.
Later on she started talking in Tagalog with another woman sitting next to her and
suddenly started to cry. I realized the young woman hardly spoke any Spanish. Her
companion approached me in a broken Spanish, and told me her friend was very worried
because she had come to the consulate on her afternoon break time and promised her
employer she would be back in the house by 6pm. Now she was worried that her
employer would think she "was just hanging out." The woman then asked me if I would
mind calling her employer to assure her that the woman was still in the Consulate waiting
436 Interview 21, Barcelona, Bernarda, March 2007
437 Since March 2007 the Philippine government, in recognition the rapid growth of the Philippine
population in Barcelona, has changed its status, and the consulate in Barcelona recently obtained regular
status and therefore, is now open during regular office hours.
352
in line. According to her, since I was "Spanish" the employer would believe me. I was
shocked. Both the woman's fear of retaliation and her belief! would have more
credibility than herself since I am Spanish were upsetting. Since she was practically the
last one in line, everyone in the waiting room agreed to let her go in next and it was the
consular staff who made the phone cal1.438 This situation validated Elena's testimony. As
a former live-in domestic worker and current president of one of the Filipino immigrants'
organizations in Barcelona, explained that "many employers do not usually allow the
worker to leave the house.,,439 This happens despite the fact that RD 1424/1985 states that
once the work day and the "presence time" are over, the worker does not have any
obligation to stay in the house. The problem is that the work day is usually not clearly
defined and regulated. Witnessing the episode at the Consulate and remembering Elena's
testimony, I could not help but wondering about the flexibility and good will of the
woman's employers.
Most women reported that since their responsibilities lasted all day long, they
usually left the employer's house only during their weekly breaks. In other words, they
spent more than two thirds of the week in their employer's house either working, briefly
resting, or being "present" and available to work in case their employers needed them.
Their status as workers and non-workers was only distinguishable during the time they
left their employer's home. Besides the weekly breaks, few of them enjoyed break time
during the regular work day.
Even those who had extensive time off during the week, usually stayed in the
employer's house anyway. Viviana, for example, explained there were a couple of days a
week- besides her days off- in which she did not have to work in the evenings. When I
asked her if she went out during that time, she responded "I cannot go out, that's the
problem... " When I asked her why she could not go out, she started laughing and said
she "had to watch the house." She would stay, bored, with nothing to do besides watching
T.V., snacking, and making sure that no one would break in. Thus, even if her employers
438 Field Notes, Barcelona, March 2007
439 Interview 2, Barcelona, Elena, November 2006
353
considered that time as "time off," she was not free to leave the house if she wanted.
Even though she was guarding the house, her time was defined as "just sitting around and
watching T.V.," and she was not paid for those hours.44o Similarly, Paulita explained
there were a couple of days a week when she was done with work at 6pm, and she just
tried to "kill time" until it was time to go to bed. She said she would do little things like
fixing the garbage, washing dishes, or "other non-senses." When I asked her why she did
not go out during that time, her response was "No, because I amfija, I amfija.,,441
Interestingly, Paulita considered those hours as time off. However, she spent them doing
minor house work and understood, since she was fija, she was not supposed to leave the
house.
There may be several factors behind Viviana and Paulita's "choices." Certainly, the
existence of "presence time" in the Spanish regulation of household work helps explain
their presence in the house doing light tasks even if technically their work day is over.
Their location as immigrant workers may also partially explain it. Some women said that
even when they had some hours off during the week, most of their friends were working
in other houses with different hours "off," so it was difficult to find a friend or a relative
to spend some time with. The location of their employers' houses in wealthy residential
neighborhoods, segregated and far away from the city center, may be another reason the
women could not easily spend a short time away from the house. The fact that they were
tired after long work days also meant they felt like staying "home" resting. However,
their "home" was also their employer's home and their own work place. Staying at
"home" resting thus often resulted in additional tasks, since their mere presence
translated into their availability to work in their employers' eyes.442
440 Interview 22, Barcelona, Viviana, March 2007
441 Interview 20, Barcelona, Paulita, March 2007
442 In subsequent sections I discuss that, even ifbeing afzja supposedly means that the worker's only home
is their employer's, Filipino women in Barcelona come up with different strategies to find a place that is
exclusively theirs.
354
4.2. Domestic Workers' Wages: The Law and Reality
RD 1424/1985 states that domestic workers' minimum salary should be the same as
other workers, which in Spain is called Minimum Inter-professional Salary (Salario
Minimo Interprojesional). This salary is calculated monthly and assumes a 40-hour long
week. If the work week is shorter than that, the salary is supposed to be prorated
accordingly. In 2006 the minimum salary for any activity in agriculture, industry, and
services, without distinction of sex or age was fixed in 18.03 Euros ($27.92) a day or
540,90 Euros ($837.74) a month (RD 1613/2005).443 The figures for 2007 were 19,02
($29.45) and 570,60 ($883.73) respectively (RD 1632/2006).444 RA 1424/1985 states this
salary may be increased through individual or collective negotiations. Despite the
equality of the general minimum wage and that for domestic workers, it is worth
emphasizing that the minimum wage in Spain is far below the mean monthly income. In
2007, the mean income was 1686,18 Euros ($2,611.52) in Spain and 1879,15 Euros
($2,910.39) in Catalunya.445 This means the minimum wage is only one third of the
average income in Spain. While the minimum salary of a domestic worker is supposedly
comparable to other service and industrial workers, it is still much less than what skilled
and professional workers make. The Minister of Labor acknowledged this in 2007, when
he declared the minimum salary was not a reasonable minimum threshold for workers in
Spain (Agendas 2007). RD 1424/1985 also states that in cases in which domestic work
includes non-monetary benefits, such as housing and food, the two parties may agree on
an amount to be deducted from the worker's salary. This deduction may be up to 45% of
the total salary. In 2006, the Law allowed employers to deduct up to 244 Euros ($377.90)
a month, which, given the existing minimum wage, would leave the worker's monetary
salary at 297 Euros ($459.90) a month. Although RD 1424/1985 regulates salary
increases, its language is very week. Article 6.3 establishes "the worker is entitled to a
443 http://noticias.juridicas.com/base datos/Laboral/rd 1613-2005.html#al (accessed May 5, 2008).
444 http://www.lexureditorial.com/boe/0612122959.htm (accessed May 5, 2008). I include information on
minimum salary on these two years since my fieldwork and interviews with workers in Spain took place
both in 2006 and 2007.
445 http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2007/09/20/economia/1190291524.html (accessed May 2, 2008).
355
monetary salary increase of a 3% every three years of work for the same employer, with a
maximum of three trienniums." This equals a 1% a year as long as the worker stays with
the same employer. Thus, the law does not guarantee wage increases parallel to inflation
and increase of costs of life.
RD 1424/1985 wage provisions present similar problems to those discussed in
terms of work hours: In subtracting the cost of food and accommodation the law again
only provides general guidelines. It up to the two parties to decide exactly what will be
deducted. The 45% maximum salary deduction is excessively high, but it leaves it up to
the employer to lower the percentage. It seems as ifRD 1424/1985, which regulates
household work after decades of its exclusion from employment law, dares to regulate it
only timidly. Flexibility and personal and informal relations are expected to fill the gaps
that the law has left open.
The result is that my interviewees' monthly wages ranged from 250 to almost 1,000
Euros a month, with the average about 700 to 750 Euros. Live-ins orjijas generally
earned less, since they supposedly saved money staying and eating at their employer's.
Fijas also usually worked more hours than those women working as live-outs or
interinas. Yet, interinas also tended to work long hours, ranging from 8 to 12 per day,
and they did not have meal breaks. The following vignettes are meant to illustrate the
effects that reliance on good will has on the wages ofFilipino domestic workers in
Barcelona.
4.2.1. Making above Minimum Wage
In this subsection I examine some of my interviewees' testimonies on their wages.
With but few exceptions, all interviewees made above the legal minimum wage. The
minimum wage, however, corresponds to an eight hour day, and most of my interviewees
worked many more than eight hours. Filipino domestic workers in Spain, particularly
those working asjijas, work 12 to 14 hours a day. It is then reasonable to argue that a
salary paying for 40 hours a week falls short to remunerate Filipino domestic workers for
all the time they work and/or are present in the employer's house.
356
Nelly started working as a live-in for her current employers in 1992. When she
started her job her employers' son was two months old, and at the time of the interview
he was sixteen. She explained her relationship with her employers was about more than
"just the job" and she never dared to request a particular amount for her salary. When she
started the job her employer set her pay at 542, 20 Euros a month and told her that she
would raise it 30 Euros a year. After Nelly's her first five years of work this happened,
but after that time her salary was never increased again. She does not know why, and she
does not ask "1 never ask, 1never ask, because 1 am contented, 1 am satisfied. Everything
I need, every time, if! request them, 'can I go?' Yes.' They never deduct anything from
my salary." Nelly was making 750 Euros a month at the time of the interview plus a 100
Euros a month allowance her female employer gave her. Despite her employers did not
keep their promise to raise her salary every year, Nelly seemed happy with how things
have worked out. Her employers recently petitioned Nelly's daughter through ajob offer
and are helping pay for her Spanish classes. They have also agreed to let Nelly move out
from their house and stay in her own apartment with her daughter. The flexibility Nelly's
personal relationship with her employers provides her, such as being able to take time off
from work and the favors she has obtained from them, make up for her "salary freeze.,,446
Adelina had worked for a Spanish diplomat in Kuwait in the mid- and late 1980s.
Her salary had been almost $2,000 a month. She eventually moved to Barcelona to work
for the same employers as a live-in. She was unpleasantly surprised when her initial
salary in 1991 was 451 Euros a month.447 As I explained above, Adelina's employers
used to restrict her movements and did not allow her to leave the house after her work
day. In 2000, Adelina decided to move out with friends. Her employers froze her salary
for two years in protest but at the time of our interview she was still working for them as
a live-out from 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday. Her salary was of965 Euros a month, and
the highest of all the women I interviewed. Adelina was one of the few live-out women in
my sample. This is the reason her salary is comparatively so high.
446 Interview 11, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007
447 The minimum salary back then was of 320,04 Euros, RD 8/1991,
http://www.stes.es/adpu/salariominino.htm (accessed on May 11,2008).
357
4.2.2. When One Cannot Find a Good Employer
Not all interviewees made above the minimum salary. Purisima's first job in
Barcelona was as a live-in domestic worker. After seven months of working her employer
died, so she had to look for another job. She then started working for an Indian family as
a live-out. She worked from Monday to Friday six hours a day cooking, cleaning,
washing, and ironing, among other household tasks. She did not have a formal contract
and they were paying her under the table. Her salary for 30 hours of work a week was of
250 Euros a month and she had to pay her own social security. That was in 2005, after the
RD 2388/2004 established 513 Euros as the minimum monthly wage for the year.448
Since she was working 30 hours a week, she was entitled to 385 Euros, still a ridiculously
low amount of money on which to survive in Barcelona. After few months, she quit her
job to start working as a live-in for a Spanish family in the Bonanova, a wealthy
neighborhood in Barcelona. There she also did all kinds of household tasks in addition of
taking care of her employer's three-year old son. She made 600 Euros for 5 and one half
work days a week that would last "since I woke up until I went to bed" (approximately
8am until 10pm) with a two-hour break in the afternoon." One month after she started the
job, she was fired without explanation or previous notice. A few weeks later she got
another job as a live-in. She initially agreed with her employer that her salary would be of
700 Euros. However, after her first month, her employer paid her only 600 Euros. She
complained about it and her employer gave her the difference. However, one month later
she fired her. Through her friends and relatives she eventually found another job as a
live-in. The initial salary for that job was 650 Euros a month. However, after a couple of
months of working there, her employer started being late with his payments or paying her
only half the salary. Four months later, and having only received partial monthly salaries,
Purisima used her paid vacation time to go to the Philippines to visit her family. When
Purisima returned from the Philippines she found out that her employer had hired
someone else, "a Boliviana, because she is cheaper." Without previous notice, Purisima
448 http://www.boe.es/boe/dias/2004!12/31/pdfs/A42764-42765.pdf(accessed May 11,2008).
358
was fired. At the time of our interview, she was unemployed and still trying to get the
money her last employer owed her.449 Purisima explained that upon her arrival to Spain
she had been very motivated to work hard and send money to her family back in the
Philippines. However, she was becoming discouraged by her inability to a find a "good
employer." In her view, once she found someone with "good intentions and good heart"
she could start making more money and not worry about being fired or underpaid.
Besides verbally abusing her, restricting her access to food, making her sleep in the
bam, and imposing long working days, Paola's employers paid her far below the
minimum wage. During those two years, the early 1980s, Paola made 84 Euros, which
was less than half the minimum wage of 171,08 monthly Euros the law (124/1982)450
established. A few years after leaving that job and processing her immigration papers, she
found out that, despite her employers told her that they were paying her social security,
they had not.451
Despite most interviewees were making above the minimum wage, there were
exceptions. Purisima and Paola experiences shed light on the dramatic reality of
employers paying far below the minimum in a context in which the women were
newcomers, did not speak Spanish, had a vulnerable legal status, and were desperate to
work at any rate. Also, Paola and Marina's employers' failure to pay their social security
shows how employers are not always acting on good will.
449 Interview 13, Barcelona, Purisima, February 2007
450 http://www.boe.es/g/es/bases datos/doc.php?coleccion=iberlex&id=1982/0 1748 (accessed May 2,
2008).
451 Interview 24, Barcelona, Paola, March 2007. A similar thing happened with Marina, who was 72 years
old at the time of our interview. When I asked Marina why she had not retired yet, she replied that for many
years her employers, who were among the upper aristocratic families in Barcelona, had failed to make her
social security payments for many years. Consequently, Marina was still working to make enough
contributions in order to get a decent retirement benefit to go back to the Philippines (Interview 16,
Barcelona, Marina, February 2007).
359
4.2.3. A Home Outside the Employers' Home
One reason for their low wages could be that employers were subtracting part of the
45% of their salary to compensate for housing and food expenses. As noted, RD
1424/1985 sets the maximum at 45% and the employer can agree- out of good will- to
deduct a lower percentage.
Scholars and labor unions have challenged employers' ability to subtract up to 45%
of a worker's salary in order to pay for food and housing. The fact that the worker is
supposedly saving money staying with her employers justifies lower salaries amongjijas.
Despite the lower salaries offTjas, Filipino women are heavily concentrated in live-in
domestic work, particularly during their first years in Spain. This supposedly translates
into a stable living situation and in fewer expenses. Interestingly, though, most
interviewees who worked as fTjas were renting an apartment with relatives or friends. A
couple, such as Nelly and Adelina, had actually bought their own apartments, despite the
fact that they slept at their employers' most of the week. The fact that Filipinas usually
have a home outside their employers' home challenges the validity and fairness of the
legally sanctioned salary deduction to pay for food and accommodation. Whether they
bought or rented, the women explained they paid for their own apartment so they could
have a space to rest and relax during their days off and to avoid having to stay at their
employers' during their nights off. Nelly remembered the importance ofpiSOS452 during
her first years in Barcelona:
When I recently arrived here my sister was, I think that... in a 35 square- meter
apartment, there are only two rooms ... the whole flat was like this room and that
room, including the kitchen. Sometimes there were more than ten people in that
small place... but it's only for meeting place for the weekends only, they meet
there, they eat together, so I lived with them for that time, and later on, because
most usually they were interns, fijas ... they sleep at the employers'. My sister and I
eventually bought an apartment, we have the house, my sister and me, [but] we
1 · k 453seep III our wor .
452 Apartments.
453 Interview II, Barcelona, Nelly, January 2007
360
These apartments were packed with Filipinas cooking and eating together during
the weekends and interviewees highly valued them as places to retreat and disconnect.
Viviana was, at the time of the interview, living at her employer's and simultaneously
paying rent in another apartment where two other Filipino women lived. She would stay
in her own place during her nights offs.454 Besides providing privacy, relaxation, and a
meeting point for friends and family, these apartments, as Purisima's case illustrates, also
provide women with housing stability in case that they suddenly lose their jobs. In
addition, having housing is a requirement to petition a relative under family reunification
provIsIOns.
Besides women's ability to create their own space and homes outside their "homes"
at their employers' , having outside housing is relevant to my discussion of the law. Their
position as live-ins does not mean they are not spending money to maintain their own
home. The law assumes that, because they sleep at their employers' for most of the week,
they do not have their own space and, therefore, do not have housing and food expenses.
In other words, it assumes they do not have life outside of the employers' home.
According to Adelina, employers usually know their domestic employee owns or rents a
place and do not usually subtract "housing or food" money from domestic workers'
salaries. But, while the amount is not formally subtracted,fijas make less money than
live-outs and the fact that they live at their employers' explains the salary differential.
The law is indirectly sanctioning lower salaries for fijas, despite their longer work days.
However, they are actually not saving rent money for being live-ins and the law should
not make this assumption. It should not penalize them either for sleeping or living for part
ofthe week at her employer's. Ultimately, they sleep there because employers want
someone who will be available for most of the time.
5. Reproductive Labor in California: Exempted from Employment Law
Hondagneu-Sotelo's (2001) work constitutes one of the most comprehensive
examinations oflabor conditions of reproductive workers in the United States and their
454 Interview 23, Barcelona, Viviana, March 2007
361
regulation by California and federal law. I elaborate on her discussion, particularly
regarding the minimum wage and overtime pay in light of my own research findings.
5.1. Overtime and Wage Provisions
Since the inclusion of domestic work under the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1974,
all workers, including undocumented immigrants, have the right to receive the minimum
wages and overtime pay. Due to the very nature of a federal state, employment law is
written and enacted at different levels. Thus, the current federal minimum wage of $5.15
an hour sets the minimum from which states often depart. In California the minimum
wage is $6.75 an hour,455 a substantial improvement from federal law. But this needs to
be put in perspective. According to a National Low Income Housing Coalition report, in
2006 a minimum wage earner, in order to afford the fair market rent for a 2-bedroom
apartment in the San Francisco Bay Area, would need to work 135 hours a week, 52
weeks per year.456 The average weekly wage in San Francisco County is of$1460 (U.S.
Department of Labor 2007), and the 2006 median yearly income for the state was of
$54,385 (U.S. Census Bureau 2006). Not all states set a higher minimum wage than the
federal government does. Overall, thirty-one states set a minimum wage higher than the
federal one, and nineteen states apply the federal minimum.457
The application of the minimum wage law to reproductive labor is highly
problematic. Domestic workers are not awarded protection under key laws such as the
455 These were both the Federal and California Minimum Wages at the time of fieldwork in 2006. They
have been raised since then.
456 http:www.nlich.org/oor/orr2006/data.cfm?getstate=on&getmsa=on&msa=451 &state=CA
Op457 These are: Alabama - none, Alaska - USD7.l5, Arizona - USD6.75, Arkansas - USD6.25, California
- USD7.50, Colorado - USD6.85, Connecticut - USD7.65, Delaware - USD6.65, District of Columbia -
USD7.00, Florida - USD6.67, Georgia - USD5.15, Hawaii - USD7.25, Idaho - USD5.85, IIIinois-
USD7.50, Indiana - USD5.85, Iowa - USD6.20, Kansas - USD2.65, Kentucky - USD5.85, Louisiana-
none, Maine - USD6.75, Maryland - USD6.l5, Massachusetts - USD7.50, Michigan - USD7.l5, Minnesota
- USD6.15, Mississippi - none, Missouri - USD6.50, Montana - USD6.15, Nebraska - USD5.85, Nevada-
USD6.33, New Hampshire - USD5.85, New Jersey - USD7.l5, New Mexico - USD5.l5, New York-
USD7.15, North Carolina - USD6.15, North Dakota - USD5.85, Ohio - USD6.85, Oklahoma - USD5.85,
Oregon - USD7.80, Pennsylvania - USD6.25, Rhode Island - USD7.40, South Carolina - none, South
Dakota - USD5.85, Tennessee - none, Texas - USD5.85, Utah - USD5.85, Vennont - USD7.53, Virginia-
USD5.85, Washington - USD7.93, West Virginia - USD6.55, Wisconsin - USD6.50 - Wyoming-
USD5.l5. These figures are as of July 2007.
362
national labor relations law, employment discrimination laws, and the federal
occupational safety law. Regarding minimum wage, household or domestic employees
who do personal care work are explicitly excluded from the right to earn minimum wage
and overtime pay under federal law, which is limited to people doing housekeeping as
opposed to strictly care work. In terms of overtime pay, live-in employees are not
covered by overtime time regulations under federal law either, regardless of the nature of
their work. California employment law does provide minimum wage to care workers, but
it does exempt them from overtime pay provisions.458 Caregivers are considered under
California law personal attendants rather than employees. A personal attendant includes
babysitters and means "any person employed by a private householder or by any third
party employer recognized in the health care industry to work in a private household, to
supervise, feed, or dress a child or person who by reason of advanced age, physical
disability or mental deficiency needs supervision" (Division of Labor Standards
Enforcement 2003). Only if the care giver or personal attendant spends at least 20% or
more of her work time doing housekeeping work will she be entitled to overtime pay.459
This exemption has a significant impact on Filipina migrants, since they are
concentrated in care giving positions. According to the 2000 Census, in California alone,
9,685 Filipinas work in personal care and service occupations. This figure is conservative
since it does not include the undocumented workers or women working under the table.
These exemptions also have an important impact on women-as opposed to men-within
the Filipino community, since it is women who are largely concentrated in these
occupations. According to the US Department of Labor, 94.5 percent of childcare
workers are women, as well as 87.6 percent of personal and homecare aids (US
Department of Labor 2005).
The following table, designed by the California Household Workers' Rights
Coalition, summarizes the 2006 status quo of overtime provisions in California:
458 Other states, such as Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, Florida, Montana, and Arizona also exclude
domestic workers and caregivers from overtime provisions.
459 Interview 47, San Francisco, Employment Attorney, August 2006
363
California general overtime provisions in 2006 recognized as overtime hours those
conducted beyond between 8 and 12 hours a day or over 40 hours per week, whichever is
more. In addition, all hours less than or equal to 8 on the i h consecutive day of work are
also considered over-time. This first set of overtime hours must be paid at 1.5 times the
regular hours. Those hours worked above 12 a day and above 8 hours on the i h
consecutive day of work must be paid at 2 times the regular hours. Live-in domestic
workers' overtime only starts, according to the law, after the 9th hour in a work day or 45
hours in a week, whichever is more. In addition, up to 9 hours worked during the 6th and
i h consecutive day of work will be paid at 1.5 the regular wage and over 9 hours on the
6th and i h consecutive days of work at 2 times the regular wage. Personal attendants or
care givers (i.e. nannies, caregivers for the elderly) are exempted from overtime
provisions and all the hours they work, regardless of the number, and the amount of days
consecutively worked, are considered regular hours. Assembly Bill 2536, which was
designed by a California household workers coalition and presented in Sacramento by
Assembly member Cindy Montafiez in 2006, initially aimed to equate live-in domestic
workers and personal attendants' overtime rights to the rest of workers. I participated in
their lobbying and legislative efforts and discuss below its evolution in order to illustrate
the legal treatment of reproductive labor.
Something worth emphasizing from the regulation, which is related to the
comparative effort undertaken in this study, is the somewhat different nature of the
regulation of reproductive labor in Spain and in the United States. Spanish Law does
include domestic work in its minimum wage provisions. I have argued that minimum
wage in Spain has not kept up with life costs increases in the past years. This, rather than
being a problem unique to reproductive labor, needs to be posed in terms of excessively
low wages for the total population. There needs to be a substantial increase of the
minimum wage in Spain and this, obviously, must include domestic work. Minimum
wage in California is among the highest in the country. However, as I have shown, it is
far below the average and median incomes in San Francisco County and the State of
California. Regarding the regulation of reproductive labor, the situation in the United
States is somewhat different from that in Barcelona. First, federal law excludes care
364
givers and live-in domestic employees from the right to minimum wage. California
employment law, although it provides minimum wage to those workers, it does not entitle
them to overtime provisions. Second, while Spanish law makes the definition of over
time (and its retribution) confusing, California law explicitly denies over time benefits to
care workers. As my research results indicate, even when they are legally entitled to
minimum wage, many of them do not get it. In the subsequent sections I discuss the
impact of California employment regulation of overtime on my interviewees in San
Francisco, particularly in terms of wages and work time. I divide my discussion into three
distinct groups of interviewees: live-ins, live-outs, and In-Home Support Services home
.care providers.
5.1.1. Live-In Caregivers: We don't think by hours
Live-in caregivers were the group working the longest hours and receiving the
lowest salaries. The exemption of personal attendants from overtime provisions in
California employment laws partially explains the lower salaries. Their employers, in
addition, often failed to pay them the minimum wage.
Due to her delicate health, Emilia had to stop working as a teaching assistant in
Richmond. Two years after her arrival to the United States, in 1995, Emilia met a Filipino
woman who owned a care giving agency and offered her ajob. Her first job was in
Antioch, so her daughter would drive her from San Pablo on Monday morning and would
pick her up on Friday. She had the weekends off. When I asked her how many hours she
worked, she responded:
We are thinking monthly or weekly, it's not by hours. When I was there I was
working all the time. Since I am sleeping there, they wake me up if they need
anything and I get up in the middle of the night.
She did this job up to 1998 and stopped after her client died. Her salary was, for
the more than three years that she stayed there, $55 a day ($1100 a month). At that time,
California minimum wage was set at $4.25460 an hour. Emilia estimated that, excluding
the times she had to get up during the night, she would usually work 14 hours a day.
460 http://www.dir.ca.gov/lwc/MinimumWageHistory.htm (accessed May 12,2008).
365
Considering that the minimum wage in 1995 was of $4.24 an hour, if she had been paid
for those hours at minimum wage and, as AB 2536 initially proposed, obtaining overtime
pay after the 8th hour worked, Emilia should have been paid $72.1 0 a day ($1442 a
month). Ifwe calculate all the hours she stated to work considering all of them as regular
hours (not overtime), her salary should have been 01'$59.50 a day ($1190 a month). Both
her exclusion from overtime provisions and her employer's failure to pay her the
minimum wage, had an important impact on her salary.
Rosa, the twenty-six-year-old undocumented Filipina care provider introduced
earlier, had quit her job taking care of an eighty-year-old woman in 2005, several months
before I interviewed her. In addition to strict care work, she was expected to clean, wash,
cook, and iron. She regularly had to lift her employer and change her diapers. Her work
days went from early in the morning until her employer fell asleep. She did not have her
own room but rather slept in the same room as the elder lady she assisted. The line
between her personal and work time was continually being crossed. Her employer would
constantly wake up in the middle of the night and Rosa had to get up to help her go to the
bathroom or assist her with other needs. She only had Saturdays and Sundays off, and
even on Sundays her employer pressured Rosa to accompany her to Church, which she
often did. Her salary was of $800 a month, a sum that compensated her at a lower rate
than minimum wage and without consideration of overtime. Considering that Rosa only
had one day off a week and that she estimated working 14 to 15 hours a day (excluding
those times she had to wake in the middle of the night as well), she was being paid
$37,50 a day, which translated in approximately $2,50 an hour or $4,25 dollars an hour
below California minimum wage that year. Another possible reading of her work
situation was that the hours that she spent at her employer's which she was not strictly
working, such as watching TV with the old lady or accompanying her to church, were not
considered real work time. While the Spanish concept of "presence time" is not explicitly
present in U.S. or California employment regulation of care work, I suggest that it is
present de facto in its treatment and perception by employers and society. The absence of
overtime rights may respond to the existing notion that care givers spend many hours
during their work day in which they are not "strictly working," but rather watching a
366
child or accompanying an elder while she watches T.V. While this argument makes sense
in terms of the less physical effort the care giver needs to make when she is not strictly
working, it does not acknowledge two facts: 1) even if she is not actively or physically
working she may still be doing emotional work, which may bring stress to her, and 2)
during that time she cannot be doing anything else or be somewhere else. She is not free
to leave or to stop paying attention to her client and/or employer. Another argument
employers and legislators use, as I discuss below, is that if employers were to pay all the
hours that live-in caregivers are present in the employers' house and include overtime
pay, many people could not afford to pay them. This argument certainly does not make
sense when applied to wealthy families. In the context of middle and lower income
employers, it raises issues on what the responsibility of the state should be to guarantee
the care people need as well as reproductive workers' rights.
Eileen arrived to San Francisco in 2001. Her daughter had been working as a
caregiver for several years and one of her former clients was looking for a live-in care
provider. Eileen stayed at her employer's house from Monday to Friday and, when I
asked her how many hours she worked, similar to interviewee's in Barcelona, she replied:
"we don't count the hours, because it is live-in! Day time and night time!" She took care
of her client's medication- both during the day and at night-, cooked her meals, helped
her eat, and took care of all her needs, including personal hygiene and household
cleaning. Although she stated the lady was very nice, she eventually left the job because
she was only making $150 a week. Her next job was in a private care home owned and
run a Filipino family. According to her, she worked both as a caregiver and a cook and
she was the only worker in a facility housing 15 clients. The 16 months Eileen stayed in
the job were among the most stressful in her life:
[E]ven if [the employers] are Filipinos and we have the same language, they
exploited me. I work in the kitchen, I have to serve them, I am alone ... cooking,
serving, putting the places, taking care of them, going upstairs to take the food to
the clients...
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She worked 6 days a week, and her only time off was from Saturday after lunch until
Sunday 6pm. Her monthly salary during that time, despite the hard work and the
enormous amount of hours was $800461 .
As I explained in the previous chapter, Arnie entered the United States in 1999 on a
tourist visa and during her first year in the country she worked as a caregiver under the
table. During that time she worked with no work authorization at private homes and for
agencies. She usually found the jobs through personal connections as well. Her salaries
ranged from $40 to $75 a day and, when I asked her how many hours she worked, she
replied, "as a live-in it depends on their needs. And at night I cannot sleep. In the
morning, I take a shower and then I shower her. I cook her food, I clean the house, I wash
the clothes." Arnie explained that while at her jobs in private homes with only one client
she felt more isolated, working in a care home was harder because she had sometime 6
clients for herself:
The owner was a Filipino American and my co-worker was Filipina, a tourist like
me (oo.) I had to work all day, all day job, 24 hours! The clients could call you
anytime. You have no recess. You sleep but there is a monitor in the room, and
they call you at any time.462
One explanation for Arnie, Emilia, Eileen, and Rosa's wages below the minimum
may be the fact that they enjoyed lodging and meals at their employers. The California
Department of Industrial relations establishes the costs of meals and lodging may be
deducted from or credited against the minimum wage. Similarly to RD 1424/1984 in
Spain, California Employment law establishes maximum amounts that the employer can
deduct from the worker's salary. These are $31.75 a week for a private room or $26.20 a
week for a shared room. In addition, the following daily amounts may be deducted for
meals: $2.45 for breakfast, $3.35 for lunch, and $4.50 for dinner. For a live-in employee
working 5 days a week, these deductions add to $206 a month in meals and $127 in
lodging. While this sanctioned deduction would actually be a reason for employers to pay
461 Interview 32, San Francisco, Eileen, July 2006
462 Interview 45, San Francisco, Arnie, August 2006
368
low wages, California Employment Law requires the employer and the employee to sign
a voluntary written agreement on the amount to be deducted. None of the interviewees
reported to have signed such an agreement. However, this provision has the potential, like
Spanish law, to deduct great quantities from live-in workers' salaries. Similarly to RD
1424/1985, California law does not acknowledge care workers, most likely, have their
own apartment or house, where, as Emilia and other interviewees explained, they go
during their days off.
5.1.2. Live-Out Shift Care Givers
While many interviewees reported having worked as live-in caregivers during their
first years in the United States, most ofthem eventually moved to live-out, shift care
work. Despite not including overtime pay either, this work modality offers a more
standardized measurement of work time and, therefore, higher hourly pay.
More recently Arnie had been doing live-out care giving jobs in 12 hour shifts.
According to her, this work arrangement included higher wages, since it is hourly paid,
and allowed her to go home to rest. Even if she was still not getting overtime pay, she
was earning above the minimum wage or an average of$10 an hour, which usually
translated into $120 a day.
Maribel explained that in her own experience hourly live-out care work was better
paid. She was part of a community in South San Francisco composed of Filipino men and
women from Mindanao, the Southern part ofthe Philippines. A great amount ofthem
were undocumented and most of them, men and women, worked as caregivers. Before
her first job taking care of a man with Alzheimer's, Maribel had never worked as a
caregiver. At that job, which was Monday to Friday from 6am to 6pm, she made $80
each day or $6.65 an hour, which was a little below the California minimum wage of
$6.75. She did not get overtime pay either. However, as she acquired more experience
and moved to other jobs, her salary progressively increased and, at the time of our
interview, she was earning $17 an hour. While her salary significantly increased since she
started working as a caregiver in 2004, she was still not being paid for overtime.
369
Other interviewees such as Paca or Lola had similar working conditions as Arnie
and Maribel's, although none of them as making as much as $17 an hour. My
interviewees' average pay for live-out shift care work was of$10-12 an hour without
having hours beyond the 8th paid above this amount. The level of formalization in terms
of time organization this scenario presented led into higher wages than live-in workers.
With live-out shift work, given the difficulties to measure care as opposed to other kinds
of work, their employers set a minimum hourly standard. This arrangement benefited the
workers. The live-in arrangements, as Emilia explained during the interview, force the
worker to broadly think about her work in terms of weeks. This fails to acknowledge all
the hours the worker spends "away from her life," and is at her employer or client's
availability. Day or night shifts seemed to address this issue, since what was being paid
was the worker's availability, whether this involved proactive work or "just" custody.
"Presence-time" it la Spanish does not take place in live-out care work in the San
Francisco Bay Area. Hourly pay acknowledges that while the worker is in the workplace
she, regardless of her concrete activities, is working and, therefore, not enjoying her own
free time or her family's company, among other things.
Overall, Filipino women doing live-out care work in the U.S., therefore, enjoyed
better work conditions than her live-in counterparts. Like their counterparts in Spain, they
tended to work on live-in jobs upon their arrival to the United States and tended to
eventually move to live-out jobs. A formalization of the work conditions, particularly the
measuring of work time, raised the standards. In addition, live-out workers got to go
home at the end of their shift and to spend down time or time with their families and
friends. This does not change the fact that they were not being paid overtime rates and,
given the high life costs in the Bay Area, the average of $10-12 that I found is not a lot. If
they managed to make ends meet was because they worked many hours a week,
sometimes up to 60-75. Stories like Maribel's also indicate that there are many
undocumented and documented workers who are making below minimum wage.
370
5.1.3. Caring for the State: In-Home Support Services Providers
There was a group in my sample which did not consist of live-in workers or live-
out shift care givers. They worked for a state-funded in-home care program. Union
organizing within this program has raised conditions and gained health benefits for these
workers. Yet, workers in this program are not paid overtime either. Further, their
situation illustrates the neoliberal government declining support for social services.
Eight of my interviews were working for the San Francisco In Home Support
Services Public Authority and Consortium. This program, which exists all over California
and is organized along counties, provides in-home care to low income seniors and people
with disabilities. As I presented in Chapter VII, there was a high concentration of Asian
and Pacific Islanders, and Filipinas in particular, working in this program in San
Francisco County. The homecare workers usually have clients as their employers.463
However, it is the state ofCalifornia464 who funds the program. SEIU, the union currently
organizing homecare workers all over the state, bargains and negotiates for working
conditions with representatives of each county. Although SEIU has been making
important organizing efforts within this sector all over the state, not all the counties are
organized or have achieved a Collective Bargaining Agreement. San Francisco County
has been organized since 1995, however, and all homecare workers working in this
county in 2006 made $10.65 an hour. Differently from the previous cases, this salary also
included health insurance and social security contributions for their retirement. Given the
formalized recruiting procedures, only Filipino women who had a green card or had
become U.S. citizens could access this work. Overall, according to my interviews with
program managers, the majority of the workforce is composed of women of color, many
of which are immigrant.465 In San Francisco County alone there are about 17,000 clients
receiving this modality of in-home "public care,,466.
463 Field Notes, San Francisco, April 2006
464 And to a lesser extent the federal government and each county.
465 Interview 28, San Francisco, Government Employee, July 2006
466 Interview 27, San Francisco, Government Employee, July 2006
371
According to a union representative, the In-Home Support Services Program
benefits all parties involved. It benefits clients since, despite their disability or
dependency, are able to live in their own home with dignity and do not need to be
institutionalized. It also benefits other low income people, particularly immigrant women,
since it creates employment. Lastly, it benefits the state as well, since providing home
care is six times cheaper for the state than institutionalizing clients.467
The way the program works is that a social or eligibility worker assesses the
client's needs and establishes how many hours of care that person should obtain. The
services offered range from strict care work for clients with severe disabilities to helping
the elderly with some of their household tasks. Therefore, some clients may need as much
as 213 of care a month, which is the maximum allocated, and others are only allocated
few hours a day or a week for in-home support. As a result, a home care provider may be
working full time for the same client or few shifts for different clients. The social worker
decides the length of care workers' shifts, though, and even if the home care provider
considers that the client needs more attention or if she is not able to finish the tasks
assigned to her within her allocated time period, she is not entitled to work more hours
than the amount the social worker establishes. IHSS workers are not allowed to work
and/or be paid overtime either.468 According to my interviewees, however, it was usually
really hard to end the work on time and, although they would ask the social worker to
allocate more hours, they were told in response to do their job faster.
Nieves, a 38 year old single mother of three worked for the IHSS program in San
Francisco County taking care of two elderly women who lived together. They were
mother and daughter. The social worker assigned four hours of care to each, so Nieves
worked eight hours a day Monday to Friday in their house. During the interview, Nieves
explained that "once you have worked your hours you cannot work overtime and,
ironically, you cannot get another job." Nieves described a regular work day at the ladies'
the following way: She started cooking breakfast and giving it to them. She gave them
467 Interview 17, San Francisco SEIU organizer, June 2006
468 Interview 17, San Francisco, Union Representative, June 2006
372
their medication, took them to doctors' appointments, helped out with house cleaning,
cooked the other meals, and helped out with the shopping. Nieves complained that 4
hours for each client were not enough and stated she was not being paid for all the hours
she worked. Emotional attachment with her clients made her stay beyond her schedule
and she estimated that some days she worked "over 12 hours.,,469
Ruth, a 62 year old widow and mother of four, at the time of our interview had been
working for two years as a home care provider of an old lady. Her client's apartment
building was full, according to Ruth, of Filipino women taking care of low income
elderly people. She was in charge of cooking for her client, monitoring her medication, as
well as cleaning the house. The social worker assigned 95 hours a month. This was
Ruth's only job besides some ironing and sewing that she did under the table to make
ends meet. When I asked Ruth if she ever worked beyond the 95 monthly hours allotted
to her, she explained her client could not be left alone and sometimes her daughter would
need someone to stay with her if she had to work late. Since the social worker would not
allot more hours and IHSS does not allow for overtime work, the client's daughter would
ask Ruth to stay longer in those instances. Sometimes she would pay those hours from
her own pocket. According to Ruth, she paid her at $8.50, a lower rate than her regular
$10.65 an hour. Other times, however, the client's daughter would just ask Ruth to stay
longer as a favor, and did not pay her for that time at al1.470
After working as a private live-in caregiver for a couple of years, Eileen eventually
became an IHSS homecare provider. She explained during the interview that besides not
increasing her hours when she stated she could not do all the work within the time she
social worker had allotted to her client, the eligibility worker had recently reduced her
hours from 88 to 78 a month. When she complained about it, the social worker's response
was that she should work faster:
It's not enough. They cut the hours but I still have to do the same things. She
needs a lot of time, she needs a lot of attention, but [the social worker] just tells
me that I need to be a fast worker! I work fast, but really, my job should be full
469 Interview 16, San Francisco, Nieves, June 2006
470 Interview 34, San Francisco, Ruth, July 2006
373
time. I also do cleaning, and cooking, I wash her because she is bedridden and if I
try to bathe her she scratches me... 471
According to Eileen, the hour reduction responded to a budget cut that was
affecting all home care workers in the state: "They are cutting services down. I learned
this is a policy of the governor. They are reducing public services." Eileen's reading of
her reduction of hours was accurate, since the California Assembly and the Governor
have been using social services, including Medi-Cal and IHSS, cuts to reduce state
deficit. This has translated into hour deductions or the exclusion of services such as
cooking, shopping or housecleaning from the program during the past years. A home care
workers' organizer confirmed this trend during our interview. According to him, the
union is constantly watching changes in state budget, since they could severely affect the
financing of the IHSS program:
We have a governor who is not very sympathetic [to workers' rights] and he always
tries to balance the budget when here, in California, we have a deficit of 30 plus
millions. Thus, he always balances the budget cutting at the bottom instead of... I
don't know, there are many ways to balance the budget. There are many people
with lots of money, who make more than $500,000 a year, and these people pay the
same taxes [as the rest]. But there are many options, they could pay a little more to
balance the budget. But for [politicians] the easiest way is to cut and take away
from most vulnerable people, the ones who are in most need. They say: 'let's cut
there, it's the most simple.'472
The interviewee is pointing at the increasingly marked neoliberal character ofthe
govenmlent in California, which parallels governments in other places in the country and
the world. A growing emphasis on fiscal balance and a trend toward reduction in social
expenditure and services have taken place since the 1980s. While the interviewee's
reflection specifically refers to the In-Home Support Services program, it also sheds light
on how the state is failing to "tax" more privileged social groups in order to maintain a
balanced budget. This illuminates the connection between low social spending and lack
of protection of low wage workers such as caregivers. As I discuss in the next section, the
471 Interview 32, San Francisco, Eileen, July 2006
472 Interview 17, San Francisco, Union Organizer, June 2006
374
effects of neoliberal deregulation go beyond public social programs and also reach care
workers and their labor rights.
5.2. AB 2536: Toward an Improvement of Reproductive Workers' Employment
Standards
5.2.1. Drafting the Bill
In 2002, women from Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), People Organize to Win
Employment Rights (POWER), and the Raza Centro Legal Women's Day Labor Program
came together to discuss the main challenges reproductive workers in the San Francisco
Bay Area, mostly immigrant women, faced in their workplace. They created a local
coalition and decided to conduct a research project, involving over 200 interviews with
workers in the sector. Domestic workers and care givers themselves conducted the
interviews in order to assess the existing needs and problems within the sector. They
found out these workers routinely experienced exploitative labor conditions and the
average weekly wage for household workers working 50 hours or more per week was
$200. The local coalition started conversations with CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane
Immigrant Rights) and the Filipino Workers Center, both in Los Angeles. These
conversations led into the formation of the California Household Workers' Rights
Coalition. During their research they realized there were several areas in which
household or reproductive workers in California did not receive protections from
employment regulations, such as overtime, safety and health issues, anti-discrimination,
and workers' compensation rights, among others. They drafted a proposal and
approached Assembly woman Cindy Montanez to introduce it as a bill and attempt to
enact statewide legislative change. Montanez agreed to move the proposal forward but
considered that rather than trying to change all the conditions at once, a bill focusing on
one of the points would be more likely to succeed in Sacramento. After many
discussions, they presented a proposal to equal live-in domestic workers and care givers'
overtime provisions to those of all workers. In addition, they included punitive provisions
375
for employers who did not pay according to the law or paid late. This was how AB 2536
was born.473
The bill went through various Assembly and Senate committees and hearings
during my fieldwork time in San Francisco. As a volunteer at the Filipino Community
Center, I joined the member organizations of the coalition to go to Sacramento at the
different hearings. While I was representing the FCC, the other groups knew about my
research and agreed to have me as an observer of the process. Being able to witness this
legislative effort was extremely informative, since it allowed me to understand the
priorities at place in the context of reviewing current policy, as well as the mobilization
of different political actors and stakeholders. Although I cannot describe the process step
by step, since it was arduous and lengthy, I want to provide some highlights I think are
relevant to my discussion of state regulation of care work.
5.2.2. Evolvement and Defeat
During initial conversations with Assembly members, the coalition was already
forced to make some concessions in order to move the bill forward, such as excluding
live-in domestic workers or any care giver already making $10.13 or 1.5 times California
Minimum wage of$6.75.
One of the main challenges the bill faced was when it reached the Appropriations
Committee, which is the committee in charge of assessing the fiscal impact of policy
reforms. Usually, if the committee assesses that a particular bill is potentially going to
cost the state of California more than $150,000, they put the bill on suspension and it
never makes it to the Assembly floor. Given that the state of California, as mentioned
above, employs thousands of home care providers through its In-Home Support Services
Program, the bill could potentially have a great financial impact on the state. I thought
this dilemma was interesting, since it seemed that such a committee was a "gatekeeper"
in its ability to "kill" any bill they considered too expensive regardless of its social
importance or relevance. Since the state has an allocated budget for the IHSS program,
both state legislators and care recipients within the program argued that if the state had to
473 Interview 5, San Francisco, La Raza Centro Legal, April 2006
376
pay for overtime hours it would need to reduce hours allotted to clients and many of these
would need to be institutionalized.474 Given the situation, the coalition had to agree to
eliminate In-Home Support Services care providers and care givers working for MediCal
beneficiaries from the bill in order to ameliorate the fiscal impact of the bill and obtain
therefore enough votes to make it pass through the Appropriations Committee.
Soon after they did this, however, opposition from both private agencies, care
homes, and senior and disabled people themselves continued to emerge. For the most
part, agency owners' argument was that they could not afford to pay for overtime and, if
AB 2536 passed, they would need to close their business. In addition, groups from the
senior and disabled people communities came forward arguing that many ofthem were
low-income and if they were required by law to pay overtime to their care worker they
would need to simply dismiss her and be institutionalized instead. This raised issues
among some Assembly members who, given the financial cost elderly and disabled
people's institutionalization would bring to the state of Califomia, stated they would vote
NO to AB 2536. 475
There was consensus within the coalition that this could not become an issue
between care workers (mostly immigrant women) and the disabled and the elderly
community, since, according to initiative's leaders, both groups are marginalized and
victims of insufficient state support and resources.476 The goal was to increase care
workers' labor standards, but not at the stake of other marginalized groups. The following
is what one of the coalition's leaders stated few days after a Senate hearing in which
several disabled people testified about the negative impacts that the bill, if passed, would
have on them:
[W]e did not want this to be seen, [we did not want this] issue to be perceived
as an 'us versus them'. And I think that this is what was so frustrating about
Wednesday, since that is exactly what it was, you know? Household workers
on one side and people with disabilities on the other.477
474 Interview 17, San Francisco, Union Representative, June 2006
475 Field Notes, San Francisco, May 2006
476 Interview 22, San Francisco, MUA, June 2006
477 Interview 22, San Francisco, MUA, June 2006
377
Protests from the senior and disabled communities, opposition from Assembly
members who thought this bill would create enormous direct and indirect fiscal burdens
on the state, and the disagreement of private home care and agency owners, made the
coalition change the language of the bill and limit the overtime pay improvement to
nannies or personal attendants in charge of taking care of children versus those caring for
the elderly or disabled clients. They considered they had a long term coalition building
work to do with the elderly and people with disabilities communities before they could
include the caregivers of these populations under overtime provisions. After having been
approved at the Assembly with 59% of the votes and at Senate for 60%, however,
governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB 2536 on September 30, 2006 citing
concerns about the negative impact that care givers' higher wages would have on low-
wage employers and the industry in general (See California Immigrant Policy Center
2006; Krajcer and Johnson 2006).
5.2.3. Relevance of the Bill
The narration of the different challenges and opposition AB 2536 encountered, as
well as its eventual defeat, is relevant to understand some of the reasons behind care
givers' exclusion from certain employment laws, particularly overtime benefits. The
Governor's reason to veto the bill was the financial burden this would create on low-
income clients and the industry in general. He failed to acknowledge, though, that AB
2536 was making state low emphasis on social spending clear. Once the bill made it
through the Appropriations Committee and, after the coalition excluded IHSS workers
from its beneficiaries, the "fiscal burden" argument could not be made anymore, since the
Appropriations Committee had given the bill green light. Then, the Senate floor
witnessed a parade of people with disabilities testifying against the bill and vividly
explaining how much hardship it would bring on them. While their claims where
extremely valid, as the coalition members acknowledged themselves, they masked the
fact that if those folks were institutionalized, this would have an impact on state finances,
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since they would most likely enter public care homes. Further, if those folks could not
afford to pay for their care worker's overtime, maybe it was because they were not
receiving enough support from the state. Thus, the scenario was really about the failure of
the state to provide enough resources for elderly and disabled clients and its refusal to
increase support to these communities and improve work standards of care workers. Yet,
the reason given to veto it was that it harmed already vulnerable people, and the main
opponents to AB 2536 (i.e. agency and care horne owners and the Republican Party)
actually presented themselves as the advocates of the elder and disabled people's rights.
As the above quoted interviewee stated:
[T]here is a strong show of force from the disability community. They say that there
are a lot of people who are not on MediCal or IHSS, but are still poor and they
won't be able to pay overtime, so they will have to be institutionalized. So it looks
like we will have to find a way to exempt all poor people who cannot afford to pay
overtime. I mean, the real question is 'where do you draw the line?' And I think that
the major concern is, these poor household workers are the ones who are really
subsidizing the lack ofresources ofthe health care system. So I think that it is really
disturbing for us to see two oppressed communities pitted against each other:
household workers and the disabled and senior. So, I mean, when the real issue is
lack ofstate resources, we need to find a way to corne together with the disabilities
community and the senior community to make sure this bill does not harm them,
but we also need to develop more long term relationships to advocate for more
resources for, you know, all poor people in general [emphasis added].
The interviewee tackled the issue which is probably one factor behind care
workers' exclusion from overtime provision, but which goes beyond it. AB 2536 posed a
dilemma for the distributive relations and priorities of the state. While care workers were
claiming their right to be remunerated as the rest of workers, agencies and care horne
owners complained this would hurt their business. In addition, policy makers also showed
opposition to a bill that would, directly or indirectly, force the state to free more funds for
the care of the elderly and the disabled and for low wage workers' labor standards. While
low income clients' inability to pay for overtime was supposedly the reason behind the
defeat of AB 2536, the reality is that both agency and care horne owners, as well as the
state itself, benefited from the defeat. This masks the fact that, ultimately, ifthe elderly
and disabled, specifically those who are low income, cannot afford to pay more to their
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care givers is because they are not getting enough support from the state to do. Thus, the
dilemma was posed in terms of conflicting interests of two marginalized groups in terms
of their access to state distribution relations, but it was business and the state itself the
ones which benefited the most from the defeat of AB 2536. While the coalition
acknowledged the importance of making sure AB 2536 would not negatively affect other
marginalized populations, its defeat also meant wealthy clients continued to be exempted
from paying overtime. While these, including agencies, could afford to pay for overtime,
the bill was killed in its totality arguably to defend low income clients' rights. The fact
remains, though, that care work continues to be socially and politically under-valued and,
after the defeat of AB 2536, also underpaid.
Besides reminding us of the historical exclusion of reproductive workers from
employment rights, AB 2536 also makes state priorities and its failure to provide for the
weakest clear or, in other words, it shows its neoliberal nature. As another coalition
member stated:
[T]o say that you are going to try to improve women's rights within this particular
sector, which [has been] historically isolated and marginalized and left out of
labor law in this country ... but then, on top of that, to get them to throw down
money in an era where the status quo is not to ... is for the state not to get involved
in shit? And just to create capital, create opportunities for capitalists to make
money. That's what the status quo is right now, the state fundamentally is there to
manage and to create opportunities for profit to be made. People don't want to
talk about it that way, but people don't talk about the state as having a
responsibility to its people, that's not the status quo anymore. Neo-liberalism is
changing the concept of what is the responsibility of the state toward its people.
And it's profit over people now.478
According to the interviewee, this trend is affecting the more marginalized groups
in society and, therefore, is not racially neutral. The main victims of the most important
social service cuts in the past two decades, such as Welfare Reform in 1996, have been
immigrant communities and U.S. citizens of color. The opposition AB 2536 created, and
the reasons behind its defeat, are not very different. As I explained above, 2006 was an
478 Interview 18, San Francisco, POWER, June 2006
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important year in terms of immigration policy reform, in which both immigrant rights
advocates and opponents engaged in an agitated and politically charged nation-wide
debate. Conservative rhetoric criminalized immigrant populations, identifying them as
potential terrorists and responsible for the depletion of government resources. While
social justice organizations reacted all over the country to contest these accusations and
opposed the most severe anti-immigrants' rights bill proposed ever, their discourse was
often merely reactive and ultimately failed to alter the generalized perception of
immigration as a problem to be solved. Within this context, the California Household
Workers' Rights Coalition refused to engage in arguments that criticized their bill for
being an "immigrants' bill" and stated that AB 2536 was a workers' bill: all reproductive
workers, regardless of their race and/or nationality, should be entitled to overtime rights.
This is true and, given the anti-immigrants political climate, made sense at that moment
as a strategy to frame the issue. It is also true that most workers the defeat of AB 2536
affected negatively were poor immigrant women ofcolor. Ironically, the same was the
case for the clients whose rights were asserted to stop the bill and who, two years after
this story, continue to be victims of limited state resources and support.
6. Toward a Comparative Analysis
6.1. On Flexibility and Neoliberal States
The regulation of reproductive workers' wages and work time in Spain and
California, presents some specificities which seem to stem from the marked gendered
construction of the work: it is inherently women's real and outside of government
jurisdiction. Also, the legal treatment ofthis sector in both countries echoes broader
political-economic processes that have promoted the deregulation oflabor markets and
have limited unskilled workers' - especially those in the services sector- wages,
purchasing power, and life quality. This has been reflected, for example, in the stagnation
of minimum wages for a long time in both Spain and the United States. The under-
regulation that has characterized reproductive work, however, presents unique
characteristics in the trend of deregulation of labor markets that has characterized the
neoliberal economy in the past decades. Besides confirming the weak role governments
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have had in protecting workers' rights, the political treatment of reproductive work can
teach us a lot about the relationships that states establish with the private realm,
particularly the family household.
Flexibility and good will continue to be present in the regulation of reproductive
labor. Spanish legislation of domestic work, particularly with RD 1424/1985, bases the
regulation of this activity upon these premises. The existence of the notion of "presence
time," and the fact that the law leaves upon the employer and workers' good will the
definition of several working conditions, guarantee the informality and flexibility that
characterizes the family sphere. However, it does not acknowledge the power asymmetry
that characterizes this labor relation and it establishes, for example, that her working
conditions will often be defined according to her employer's needs. I have shown how
the work days of Filipino domestic workers in Barcelona, far from responding to the 8
hour daily maximum established in the law, usually goes up to 13 and 14 hours. Their
work time and resulting remuneration are shaped by the employers' expectations- which
the law validates- that the worker will be available for them beyond her legally and even
contractually established work hours. While flexibility is an important component of
family relationships, when applied to a labor relationship like the one under study it
leads, in agreement with Tadiar, into "the inseparability of 'women's work and women's
bodies (273). In other words, the law allows the employer to appropriate the worker's
labor power in distinct ways from other labor sectors. Within domestic work, the
employer buys more than a concrete and clearly defined amount of labor power
(measured in amount of tasks to be conducted in a given amount of time) and purchases
instead abstract-labor time and "the laborer itself as the embodiment of infinite labor-
time." Differently from strict family relations, in the context of this labor relation,
flexibility means the woman's labor power is at the disposal of the employer whenever he
or she may need it. The logic of flexibility perpetuates the construction of women in
disposition to serve the needs of others. This runs parallel to the worker's racialization as
a being for her employer and which can be invaded, intervened, or requested at any time.
The domestic worker performs the labor that guarantees her employer's reproduction.
Her wages, long work days, and difficulties to enjoy her own private life beyond the
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work time and space that define her as a worker, also represent the difference between
her human value and her employers'. The premise of flexibility is not explicitly present
in California regulation of care work but, as my research shows, is implicit in its
exemption of care givers from over time provisions and many employers' expectations.
The lack of overtime rights also places care givers as a second-class type of
workers. Gendered notions of care work as non-productive and belonging to the private
certainly lie behind its under-regulation. Hondagneu-Sotelo has established that what
makes paid reproductive distinct is not being a bad job but rather, the fact that it is
regarded "as something other than employment" (200 1:9). This view of reproductive
work is also shaped by the subordination by race and immigration status of the women
who do the job. Particularly care work involves attachment, intimate knowledge,
deference, and patience, among other feminized and racialized characteristics. This
interaction remains antithetical to the model of manufacturing with which we tend to see
employment. According to Hondagneu-Sotelo, in the context of reproductive, and
particularly care, work, standardization, as well as efficiency and productivity assessment
in terms of labor inputs and outputs remain irrelevant. While I agree with her, I still think
reproductive work has a fundamental commonality with "manufacturing kind of work"
which makes its regulation an urgent task: In both cases the worker is selling her time.
Regardless of the nature of the labor power she sells, when she is in the employer's home
she is working or available to do so. Since this is not questioned in other labor activities,
it should not be overlooked in the context of reproductive labor either. However, the long
working hours of many care givers and their underpayment in the U.S., similarly to the
Spanish context, creates a scenario where their time does not seem to belong to
themselves but to the employers. This resembles, again, social and legal constructions of
reproductive workers along class, gender, and racial lines. As an interviewee from a
migrant workers' rights organization suggested, most of the labor activities which are
currently excluded from employment law are jobs that were historically done by slaves.
While immigrant populations have replaced African American men and women in
reproductive tasks in the U.S., the current racial construction and legal exclusion presents
a continuation with the past. Capitalism has also historically relied on women's (free)
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labor in the home to reproduce the future generation of labor. While poor and working-
class women have worked both inside and outside the home, middle- and upper-class
women used to stay at home working for free or with the help of remunerated minority
women's labor. An increasing incorporation of women into the labor market frees up
numerous reproductive jobs for less privileged women: while this job used to be done, for
the most part, for free, it has become necessary to monetarize it. The low wage and
limited rights that it presents ultimately keep it affordable and benefit the productive
sector of the economy. While the racialization of reproductive labor has been more
recent, the same argument applies.
The under-regulation of reproductive work, as my narration of the development and
eventual defeat of AB 2536 illustrates, also shows the priorities of the state of Califomia
in terms of its distributive relations toward the private sector on the one hand, and its
failure to provide for some of the most marginalized social sectors, such as low-income
disabled and elderly communities on the one hand and immigrant care givers on the
other. The defeat of AB 2536 saves care giving agencies and individual wealthy
employers from having to pay additional money to their care providers. It prevents state
"intrusion" into agencies' business and into the household of the private employer. The
opposition and eventual veto to the bill mean much more than the government taking
sides with business and wealthy employers. It also responds to the unwillingness of state
to provide more support to some of the most vulnerable communities in California. The
argument stating that if care givers were to be paid for over time the amount of people
who would need to be institutionalized at the expense of the state is just one indicator of
this. Similar to Filipina migrant workers subsidizing the meager social expenditures of
the Philippine government through their remittances, Filipino, and other, caregivers in
California, after the defeat of AB 2536, continue to subsidize the low social spending
through their exclusion from certain wage rights.
The fact that the California Household Workers' Rights Coalition excluded In-
Home Support Services workers from the bill to avoid its suspension at the
Appropriations Committee illuminates the relevance saving money has for the state,
regardless whether the expenditure of that money may be socially relevant and necessary.
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The refusal to include the IHSS program in the bill had an impact on its workers, since it
meant they were not going to receive additional work hours or overtime pay. Ultimately,
the defeat of the bill saved money both to the state and the private sector and perpetuated
the already unequal distribution of resources, support, and services. These take place
within larger gender, class, and racial intersecting dynamics: it was precisely immigrant
women of color and low income communities who lost the most. On call at all times and
without remuneration reflecting this time, Filipino domestic and careworkers encounter a
triple standard of sacrifice: the gendered expectation of selflessness similar to norms of
conduct set for housewives, with the additional racialized and classed view of them by
their employers as servants, placing them under a heavy cultural expectation of self-
abnegation (see Fitzpatrick and Kelly 1998). When the worker is undocumented, she
enjoys less leverage to assert her limited rights, or to move into another job, or both, even
if she technically has the same rights as her documented counterparts. In the Spanish
context, Immigration Policy and a weak and often ambiguous regulation of household
work generate the arrival of immigrant women to conduct this work for low wages and
endless work days. Rather than improving its already weak Welfare State, therefore, the
Spanish government, through a hyper-regulation of immigration flows and an under-
regulation of reproductive labor, creates a pool of workers with limited rights.
6.2. The State and the Household
The state in Spain and the United States does not intervene "the private" to inspect
labor violations in the reproductive labor sector. During an interview with a lawyer at the
California Division of labor Standards Enforcement Office she explained that the Bureau
of Field Enforcement usually concentrates on traditionally exploitative industries, such as
garment, agriculture, restaurants, construction, janitorial work, car wash, among others.
The Bureau conducts the inspections to make sure employers follow state employment
law standards. Other inspections are conducted upon a complaint or a lead from a worker.
However, although there is a generalized knowledge that a lot of abuses take place in the
context of domestic work, "[inspectors] are not likely to go to a household, where there is
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just one worker. They go to places where there are many people working.,,479 This was
confirmed by interviewees at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission48o, the
State of California Department of Fair Employment & Housing481, and the San Francisco
Office of Labor Standards Enforcement482. Although caregivers in California are entitled
to minimum wage, as I have shown, they do not always receive it from their employers.
The lack of enforcement, though, which interviewees from enforcement agencies
acknowledged themselves, makes the existence ofrights meaningless483 . The inspection
of private households is seen as inefficient in a context where there are not enough labor
inspectors to address all the employment law violations in the state or, in other words,
when the government does not allocate enough resources to make sure labor law is
respected.
Lack of enforcement goes beyond the inexistence of labor inspections in private
households and includes the difficulties encountered in the administrative cases workers
file against their employers. As one of the leaders ofMUA stated recently, "the workers
often win the cases but they never see a cent.,,484 Besides the ideology that sees
household work as none of government business and not being worth checking, the
emphasis on efficiency quoted above is related to a scenario, again, where in order to
have the technical and human capability to enforce labor rights, government agencies
need to obtain resources. However, according to an organizer of low wage workers in San
Francisco, that this not happening:
[The care giving industry] is so decentralized... how are the rights exercised
and how are the laws enforced? We have to enforce them, it's not like it is in
the card for the local government to fund this kind of accountability, this kind
of enforcement... That is a huge problem with work stuff anyways, all the
479 Interview 50, San Francisco, Government Employee, August 2006
480 Interview 49, San Francisco, Government Employee, August 2006
481 Interview 51, San Francisco, Government Employee, August 2006
482 Interview 4, San Francisco, Government Employee, March 2006
483 Interview 35, San Francisco, La Raza Centro Legal, July 2006
484 E-mail follow up on Interview 22, San Francisco, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, April 2008
~ ~--- ------------
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labor enforcement, you know, is under-funded and defunded. And it is not an
'd 485
aCCl ent.
Lack of enforcement and inspection are also a constant in Spain. While
interviewees in California particularly emphasized the insufficient resources to inspect all
work places, Spanish interviewees focused on the privacy issues inspection of the private
household poses. These stem, along similar lines as RD 1424/1985 in Spain, from the
inviolability of the private sphere. According to union representatives, similarly to
California, labor inspectors in Spain regularly visit certain companies for issues such as
immigration, health and safety, or working conditions. Sometimes the inspection stems
from workers' complaints. Labor inspectors cannot enter the family household, since it is
seen as part of the private realm and, therefore, not a workplace. 486 In this, sense,
"private or civil law prevails over employment rights.,,487
The ambiguous standards ofRD 1424/1985, the exclusion of care work from
overtime provisions in California Employment Law, and overall weak enforcement
mechanisms stemming from insufficient budgets for this task, ultimately benefit the main
historical employers of reproductive labor: the upper classes. In addition, regardless of
policy-makers' intentions, the under-regulation and inexistent monitoring of domestic
workers' labor conditions allows to maintain labor standards low. This is important in a
context of insufficient government support for reproductive tasks, which has forced many
middle class families to externalize or privatize their reproductive needs. Raising
standards for this labor, which would result in higher reproductive labor costs, would,
most likely, make government (ir)responsibility in providing for families clear. This
would lead into a discontent among the working and middle-classes for insufficient
government services for families. The under-regulation of reproductive work, and the
thousands of women who conduct it in precarious and invisible conditions, masks, both
in Spain and California, government lack of support to working families.
485 Interview 18, San Francisco, POWER, June 2006
486 Interview 7, Barcelona, Union Representative, November 2006
487 Interview 9, Barcelona, Union Representative, December 2006
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The analysis of the regulation of reproductive labor makes us challenge the private-
public divide and the meaning of "private" itself. The household may be the private space
of the employer but its public nature for the worker should be legally and socially
acknowledged. By not regulating the household- both as a family and a work space- the
state refuses to intervene it in different ways: 1) it does not support
mothers/daughters/wives in their double shifts or dependent populations through
distributive policies. To make up for this, 2) it supports, though under-regulation,
employing families (women) to hire reproductive laborers for low wages. This means that
3) it does not support immigrant reproductive workers who work and live in it to obtain
decent work standards. The state neglects different social groups- mostly women-
suffering different kinds of oppression in different ways and degrees. This negligence
acts to perpetuate the oppression of the least privileged, since those with more access to
resources can always resort to the (underegulated) market of care labor. In the case of
women who, due to low reproductive labor costs, can afford hiring a domestic or care
worker, the state stays away from the household and it guarantees the perpetuation of its
patriarchal structure and the sexual division of labor accentuated by larger class and
racial societal divisions. In the case of immigrant reproductive laborers, whose transfer
from the Philippines receiving states facilitate, the latter neglect the private household
and with it the racialized and feminized working class that guards, cleans, and feeds it.
The private-public divide is a fallacy in this context. Whether the state neglects the
household (read women) or stays away from it (read relatively privileged women), it is
making a political and, therefore, public decision. The under-regulation ofthe microcosm
of the household reflects larger social forces such as class privilege, racial discrimination,
and gender oppression. And despite official discourses, these should be, and indeed are,
government business.
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CHAPTER IX
CONCLUSION
1. Summary
A historical overview of Philippine-U.S. relations and of the location of the
Philippines in the world system shows that its economy and political system have been,
since its birth as a country, highly dependent on core countries and Western financial
institutions. While historically the Philippines specialized in exporting coconut and sugar,
among other raw materials, in the 1970s President Marcos found a new export product
for the country to ameliorate its perennial economic crisis: people. Philippine labor
migration has since grown exponentially and become increasingly feminized. The growth
in female migration has coincided with a high demand for reproductive workers all over
the world, and currently Filipino women migrate to almost 200 countries to conduct this
work.
As the number of migrant women started to increase significantly in the late 1980s,
migrant workers' organizations and the media started to publicize cases of abuse of
Filipino domestic workers. According to many organizations, given the
institutionalization of migration, the government needed to become more proactive in
protecting workers overseas. The Contemplacion case in 1995 created one of the gravest
legitimacy crises the Philippine government labor export program has ever faced. Flor
Contemplacion, a Filipino domestic worker in Singapore, was convicted of killing her
Filipina co-worker and her employer's son. Despite the existence of insufficient evidence
and the Philippine President's pleads for her life, Contemplacion was hanged. Filipino
migrants all over the world marched in protest against what they saw as an example of
both Filipino migrant women's vulnerability and the inability of the government to
protect its own people. This crisis was the main catalyst behind the creation ofRA 8042.
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RA 8042 was the first comprehensive law a sending country created to regulate
migrant workers' conditions overseas. While some of its provisions, such as repatriation
funds and the creation of "country teams" have been a step toward protecting Filipino
migrants, the challenges of implementing this law soon became obvious. The Philippine
government has continuously struggled to obtain the collaboration of receiving countries
to protect Filipino migrant workers in the form of bilateral or multilateral agreements.
Receiving countries have usually also refused to alter their immigration and labor laws in
order to further protect migrant workers. In addition, insufficient resources to provide
quality services to migrants and corruption among government employees and officials
and recruitment agencies have made protection even more difficult. Migrant workers'
organizations have insisted the main reason behind the continuation of problems has been
the insufficient political will of the Philippine government to allocate more resources for
migrants' protection, to negotiate more aggressively better conditions for migrants with
receiving countries, and to enforce RA 8042 by ending illegal recruitment and other
corrupt practices. All these factors- the weak geopolitical position of the country,
insufficient resources, corruption, and lack of political will-lie behind the continuation of
abuse and exploitation of Filipino women overseas.
The 2006 Lebanon War had an effect similar to Contemplacion's execution eleven
years before. The war revealed the precarious work conditions Filipino domestic workers
had to endure in that country. The Philippine media widely publicized images of Filipino
women jumping off balconies of their employers' homes and denounced, once again, the
abusive treatment migrant women face in countries like Lebanon. Facing another threat
to its hegemony, the government approved the new Household Service Workers Reform
Package that same year.
The goal of this reform has been to increase migrant domestic workers' protection.
Besides improving problems such as salary and recruitment fee regulations, the main
feature of the Reform Package has been the enhancement of women's skills. Since 2007,
Filipino women who want to migrate as domestic workers must go through training and
assessment. If they migrate to particularly dangerous regions, such as the Middle East
and certain Asian countries, they also have to complete a language and cultural
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orientation. These two provisions are meant to increase workers' protection through their
professionalization. The emphasis the Reform Package places on skill acquisition
however, often amounts to blaming Filipino women for the abuse they receive, since,
according to government officials, once women stop making mistakes in their workplaces
employers will have no reason to abuse them.
While skills are always helpful in conducting any job, a protective policy focusing
on enhancing workers' skills does not address the roots of their abuse, which reside in the
gender, class, and gender dynamics occurring in the workplaces, the regulation of their
work, and their status as immigrants. Employers expect Filipino domestic workers to
behave in gendered and racialized subservient ways, and the legal bodies of receiving
countries do not acknowledge domestic labor as "real work" labor. Yet, the government
does not question why employers often feel entitled to abuse arbitrarily Filipino women
or even its own inability to change the legal bodies of receiving countries.
The Reform Package attempts to protect Filipino women by further commodifiying
them. Training, assessment, and orientation increase women's exchange value and
therefore justify the new salary increase to $400. This commodification is conducted
through a racialization and feminization of Filipino women and their consequent
portrayal as elite domestic workers. Thus, parallel to its protective efforts, the Reform
Package is also a marketing strategy to promote the Filipino Brand all over the world.
The long term effects ofthe Reform Package remain to be seen. However, shortly
after its passage, and as a result of the 100% salary increase it enacted, deployment of
Filipino domestic workers started to decline substantially. On the one hand Philippine
recruitment agencies worry about this decline and have predicted it will create an
increase of contract substitution and other illegal practices. On the other hand,
government officials acknowledge that a decline of deployment was one of the
motivations behind the creation of the Package and hope women losing jobs in countries
such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait will be re-deployed to countries like Spain and Japan. In
addition, they hope to redirect Filipino female migration toward higher echelons in the
health care sector. Besides creating more revenue through more remittances, these sectors
are better regulated than domestic work, and the government hopes this reallocation will
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reduce the abuse and exploitation Filipino women have to endure. In other words, the
Reform Package is one way for the Philippine government to "price its women" out of
the domestic work market and move Filipino women into better paid and safer sectors
without offending receiving government with selective bans. While this can be read as a
sign the Philippine government is navigating complex and hierarchical international
relations and unilaterally imposing conditions to protect Filipina migrants, some
questions remain to be answered. It is not clear how the government plans to relocate all
the migrant women who will lose their jobs in the Middle East and Asia; it is not clear
how the government will make sure the new regulations are implemented and enforced in
the receiving countries; it is not clear to what extent the government is enacting change at
the local level so Filipino women can find jobs in their own country and stop migrating.
What is clear is that migration has not resulted in the economic development it once
seemed to promise. Rampant unemployment continues in the Philippines and triggers
further migration. Unless the Philippine political class rethinks its development strategies
and comes up with people-centered policies, it does not seem the need to migrate is going
to end anytime soon. In the meanwhile, migrant women's remittances continue to
substitute underfunded state social services and programs.
Mainstream migration scholars have categorized Spain and the United States as
belonging to two different types of immigration regimes. The United States has been
characterized as having one of the most liberal immigration policies in the world, and
Spain has been portrayed as having a restrictive immigration policy that limits entry to
immigrant workers only. While there are sound historical and conceptual reasons behind
this classification, an examination of immigration policy in these two countries from the
perspective of Filipino women illuminates a different scenario.
While it is true that Spanish regulation of immigration has emphasized the entry of
the laborers the economy needs, its explicit inclusion of domestic work in immigration
law has facilitated the immigration of Filipino women conducting this kind of labor.
Spanish law is full of rigidities, which do not acknowledge the complexity of migrant
women's migration projects. As a result, Filipino women have resorted to family and
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friendship networks in order to both abide by and circumvent the law. In addition, they
have manipulated rigid legal categories in order to facilitate their relatives' migration.
Unlike Spain, the U.S. has not specifically facilitated the entry of immigrant
women to conduct the reproductive tasks the country has such demand for. An initial
examination ofU.S. immigration law shows its emphasis on family reunification and,
indeed, this is the mechanism most women in my study used to enter the country. A more
in-depth analysis of their experiences, however, shows that family reunification in the
United States presents grave problems, such as long backlogs. Filipino women,
consequently, are resorting to other entry mechanisms, such as tourist or temporary work
visas. The use of these channels almost invariably leads to the perpetuation of their
undocumented status, or what I call the "normalization of irregularity." Both documented
and undocumented Filipinas tend to concentrate in the care giving sector. In the case of
undocumented women, once they find a job as caregivers, it is practically impossible to
legalize their status through an employment visa. Contrary to the characterization of the
U.S. immigration regime as a liberal and permissive one, it is precisely its rigidity that
triggers the normalization of irregularity. Given the absence of a program specifically
regulating the entry of reproductive workers and providing them with rights and stable
immigration status, Filipino women who cannot or do not want to follow the family
reunification path often fall through legal cracks and remain in legal and labor vulnerable
situations. The only program the U.S. government has for the immigration of domestic
workers exists to cater the reproductive needs of the business and diplomatic elite. Given
the few rights these immigrant workers have, their migration actually resembles
trafficking scenarios. Since these are sanctioned by the law itself, this program amounts
to legalized trafficking.
The rigidities of immigration law in both countries has forced Filipino women to
look for illegal mechanisms to migrate. In addition, it has also triggered the growth of
networks such as illegal recruiters or agencies that facilitate women's illegal migration
and profit from it. They sometimes lead to cases of illegal trafficking, illegal recruitment,
fraud, and exploitation. Rather than focusing responsibility on migrants or networks
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acting as intermediaries, one of my goals in this study was to highlight the responsibility
states have in creating these scenarios through rigid and unrealistic immigration laws.
Finally, while Spanish immigration law directly facilitates the transfer of
reproductive labor from the Philippines, the U.S. government does not. Yet, this transfer
is taking place in both countries since Filipino women- among other immigrant groups-
have an important presence in the reproductive labor sector both in Barcelona and in San
Francisco. The difference is that Spain explicitly acknowledges its need for this labor,
while the United States relies on its vast undocumented population to conduct it. In
addition, in the U.S. family reunification also brings a foreign labor force into the
reproductive labor sector. There are two additional factors important for understanding
the absence of a program specifically regulating the entry of reproductive workers into
the United States: state gender bias in failing to acknowledge the importance of
reproductive labor for the U.S. economy and society, and the class bias consisting of the
increasing limits placed on the entry of low skill and poor immigrants.
As I show, however, immigration policy in both countries is not the only thing
directing Filipino women to the reproductive labor sector. Racially segregated labor
markets and accreditation barriers are two others. Labor markets both in the U.S and
Spain present a segregation in which White citizens tend to concentrate in professional
and well paid jobs while immigrant women of color predominate in the reproductive
labor sector. While Filipino women find similar problems having their academic degrees
recognized in both receiving countries, language plays a different role in each country.
While their English proficiency may facilitate their incorporation into the U.S. job
market, some informants argued that Filipinos are victims of discrimination due to their
accent. It seems, nevertheless, that the fact they do speak English helps them reach the
better paid and considered jobs within reproductive work than, for example, Latina
immigrants. Filipinas encounter a harder reality in this regard in Spain. They usually do
not speak Spanish upon their arrival, and, in the particular case of Barcelona, they
struggle with the difficulties in learning Catalan. This severely limits their job
opportunities. Racialized and gendered ideological constructs of the Filipino woman as
the ideal and elite maid, which correspond to those the Philippine government promotes,
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are an additional factor behind their concentration in the sector and their difficulties
accessing professional positions.
After describing the labor transfer from the Philippines to Spain and the United
States and the way the three governments regulate it, I next examined how the two
receiving governments regulate reproductive labor within their borders. As in most
countries in the world, Spanish and U.S. employment law does not fully recognize
reproductive labor as "real work." While Spanish law is characterized by guaranteeing
the informality of the labor relationship, employment law in California, similar to federal
law, explicitly excludes care work from overtime provisions. The under-regulation of
reproductive labor in both countries makes three things clear. First, both governments
tend toward deregulation and privatization of the sector. This is demonstrated through a
neglect of workers , rights and social services and programs that benefit them. Second,
reproductive labor continues to be seen as women's work, non-productive, and therefore
irrelevant. Third, the regulation of reproductive labor in both countries illuminates a
complex, and somewhat contradictory, relationship between the state and the private
household, in which the former simultaneously protects and neglects the latter. The state
protects the intimacy, flexibility, and economic interests of the household (i.e.
employers), while it neglects the rights of the workers living and laboring in it. Similarly
to the role Filipino women' remittances have in making up for state retrenchment in the
Philippines, it is the flexibility, precariousness, and, particularly in the U.S., low cost of
reproductive labor what allows working Spanish and U.S. families, as well as other
collectives, to hire immigrant women to make up for the lack of reproductive support
they receive from their respective states. At this point a key dimension ofthe
international transfer of reproductive labor comes full circle. It becomes clear that
Filipino women's work subsidizes both sending and receiving states. And it is precisely
for this reason that an examination of globalization from the perspectives of migrant
reproductive workers is my departure point. It is women like the ones in my study who,
in far more ways than are acknowledged, are running the global economy. Without them
everything would fall apart. And it is their transfer and exploitation that allows
neoliberalism to however precariously survive.
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2. Research Answers
In this study I have looked at globalization focusing specifically on the South-North
transfer of reproductive labor and the way three states, the Philippines, Spain, and the
U.S., regulate this transfer. I have also discussed the effects this regulation has on
Filipino women. I examined the regulation of the transfer of reproductive labor for two
reasons. First, reproductive labor, despite its invisibility, makes globalization possible.
Second, the state has a key role in shaping globalization and the international transaction
of reproductive work.
The main questions guiding my analysis have been the following: how do states
regulate the South-North transfer of reproductive labor? In particular, how do the
Philippines, Spain, and the United States contribute to or shape this transfer through their
migration and labor laws? And how do Spain and the United States regulate the
immigration and reproductive labor of Filipino women?
The Philippine government contributes both indirectly and directly to the migration
of Filipino women who end up taking jobs as domestic and care workers all over the
word. The implementation of neoliberal policed has perpetuated a cycle of poverty and
unemployment which, in tum, have triggered female migration. The Philippine
government has also directly regulated migration through the creation of a complex
bureaucratic apparatus in charge of it. The two main features of this regulation have been
protection and promotion. While the government has conducted aggressive marketing to
locate Filipino women in the international labor market, public criticism in the country
has obliged it to provide protection to Filipinas overseas in order to maintain political
hegemony. Overall, although the Philippine government has been a pioneer in the
creation of protective policies for migrant workers, these have not addressed race, gender,
and class dynamics as the main reasons for abuse. The achievement ofprotection faces
numerous challenges and, despite the economic benefits stemming from migration in the
form of remittances and the important role Filipino women fulfill as reproductive workers
in almost 200 countries, they continue to face serious exploitation and abuses. The
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Philippine government, thus, has put a mechanism in place that promotes women's
migration but simultaneously has failed to keep them safe. Given the strong opposition
this failure has triggered in Philippine civil society, it remains to be seen what the next
steps the Philippine government will take in its regulation of labor migration will be.
Filipino women are heavily concentrated in the reproductive labor sector in both
Spain and the United States. While they work mainly as domestic workers in the former,
they tend to occupy jobs as caregivers in the latter. What is common to both countries is
that they heavily depend on immigrant women- including Filipinas- to conduct various
reproductive tasks. Immigration policy has had an important role in this transfer of
reproductive laborers into both locations, although my research shows some differences
between both immigration systems.
Spanish immigration law, markedly focused on the kind of labor the Spanish
economy needs, contributes directly to the immigration of Filipino women who work as
domestic workers in the receiving country. The law prioritizes domestic labor in its award
of work visas. This creates an opportunity for Filipino women, who usually have friends
or relatives already working in Spain, to migrate to that country as domestic workers.
Given the rigidities of immigration law, as well as weak family reunification provision,
family and friendship networks have become crucial to provide access to job offers that
ultimately make migration possible.
U.S. immigration law does not encourage the immigration of reproductive workers
and, in fact, has discouraged the entry of low skill and income immigrants in the past two
decades. Since 1965 U.S. immigration law has prioritized the entry of family members.
Family immigration was in fact the most common entry mechanism among my
interviewees in the San Francisco Bay Area. Family immigration, however, has presented
many problems for the Filipino community in the past years, the main one being long
backlogs. As a result, Filipino women often resort to tourist or temporary work visas to
enter the United States. When they do this, caregiving is often the only work sector
opened to them. Regardless of their entry mode, Filipino women in the San Francisco
Bay Area were highly concentrated in this sector. Those enjoying permanent residence or
U.S. citizenship tend to have better work conditions while undocumented immigrants or
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those on work visas suffer more precariousness and exploitation. Although, unlike Spain,
the United States does not have a specific program regulating the entry of reproductive
workers, family reunification is bringing a lot of women from the Philippines who end up
working as such. In addition, growing problems and rigidities of U.S. immigration law
provoke Filipino women's resort to temporary labor or undocumented immigration,
which, more often than not, places them in informal and unstable sectors such as
careglvmg.
I have argued that the transfer of reproductive workers from the Philippines to
Spain and the United States is related to weak government support to working women,
families, and citizens in general in both locations. Given the current existence of a "care
void" in both countries, many families resort to hiring an immigrant woman to conduct
reproductive labor in their homes. Both Spanish and U.S. employment policy under-
regulate reproductive labor. Spanish law sanctions a blurry labor relationship between
employers and domestic workers in which the former can legally impose on the latter
long working days for low wages. Employment law in California exempts caregivers
from overtime provisions. This results, particularly for live-in caregivers, in long and
under-paid work hours. In both cases under-regulation keeps the cost of reproductive
labor low and therefore relatively affordable for those social groups who do not obtain
support from their governments. Thus, while under-regulation responds to government
gender bias and, especially in the United States, to a historical racialization of
reproductive labor, I argue that it also has an economic function. It is part or a larger
trend of deregulation of labor markets and privatization of services and ameliorates state
neglect by making private reproductive services affordable to the middle classes.
3. Future Directions
I do not want to end without suggesting new directions into which I would like to
take my research. While Part III is a comparison of U.S. and Spanish immigration law, on
the one hand, and labor law on the other, I think it is necessary to analyze how these two
bodies oflaw intersect and what consequences this has on Filipino women. For example,
while in the United States federal employment law states that all workers, including the
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undocumented, have the same labor rights, immigration law often supersedes labor law.
This means that undocumented workers are often deported after authorities find out about
their undocumented status when they file an employment claim. Most undocumented
U.S. immigrants do not access the rights the law provides them on paper. The fact that all
workers have the same rights is, in reality, a legal fiction. The same happens in Spain but
in reverse. RD 1424/1985 does not require employers to create a written contract to
describe working conditions and to prove the existence of the labor relationship.
However, Spanish immigration law requires the submission of a work contract to renew
work and residence permits and even to petition relatives. Many immigrant domestic
workers, therefore, cannot access their right to bring their families because they do not
have a written work contract. Family reunification, thus, constitutes for them a legal
fiction. I found multiple cases of both during my research, and I would like to direct
future research and analysis into this direction.
It would also be interesting to expand the comparative scope ofthis research. A
comparison is needed between the Philippines and other sending countries in order to
understand clearly world trends in the regulation of labor export. Also, adding other
receiving countries, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, would shed additional light
on different modalities of reproductive labor transfer and would help us learn more about
Filipino women all over the world.
Finally, I would like to develop further the linkage between policy and the
experiences of migrant women, particularly in the Philippines. As I discuss in the
methods appendix, most of my interviews there were with government officials. Given
that the Reform Package was designed only few months before my trip to the Philippines,
I intend to return in the next two years and conduct additional research on the effects this
has had for Filipino migrant domestic workers. Unlike my current discussion of
Philippine migration policy, I would like the stories obtained from interviews with
migrant domestic workers to provide the guiding themes to analyze the effects of the
Household Service Workers Reform Package on them. Their explanation of their
experiences as domestic workers overseas provides the scenario to be connected with
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policies such as the Reform Package in order to elucidate, keeping in mind the goal of the
policy, to what extent this is being effective.
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APPENDIX A
RESEARCH METHODS
1. Introduction
This dissertation relies on the complementary use of documentary research,
participant observation, and in-depth interviews. My non-probability sample for the in-
depth interviews was drawn from several populations- Filipino women in Barcelona (20)
and the San Francisco Bay Area (22); government employees (10); representatives from
non-profit organizations and unions (17); and immigration and employment attorneys in
both cities (7). In addition, I conducted interviews in the Philippines with government
officials and employees (14), returned migrant workers (5), and migrant workers rights'
organizations (7). Overall, the total number of interviews I used for this study was 88. I
also had multiple informal conversations with many informants. The information I
gathered from these conversations became part of my field notes. I first conducted
fieldwork in the San Francisco Bay Area from November 2005 to August 2006.
Subsequently I did so in Barcelona from September 2006 to March of2007, and, in April
2007, I travelled to the Philippines, where I gathered data until June of the same year. My
participant observation activities included migrant worker organizations meetings and
activities, rallies, government trainings, public hearings, migrants' conferences and
gatherings, and parties, among many others.
Each research method teaches us different things about our object of study. While
in-depth interviews tell us what informants say they do, participant observation shows us
what they actually do or, at least, what they are willing to do in front of us. Document
analysis helps us examine relatively and variously objective versions of a particular
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reality (i.e. the particular content of a law or the reconstruction of an event). The value
behind methodological triangulation is that, by using multiple methods, we strategically
approach our object from different perspectives or access points. The three research
methods I used in my research allowed me to approach immigration and employment
legislation from different levels (i.e. women's views of migration, newspaper articles,
legal texts, position of migrant workers' organizations, etc) that complement each other.
I began research in both San Francisco and Barcelona with a few in-depth
interviews with migrant Filipino women. I designed an interview questionnaire
(Appendix B) and used the same in both sites. These interviews were geared toward
identifying the main issues women face both before their departure from the Philippines
and in the receiving countries. The questionnaire was divided into three parts. The first
part focused on their life in the Philippines and the steps they had to take to migrate. The
questions in the second part inquired about the women's conditions and challenges upon
arrival in the receiving countries. The third part focused on their labor conditions.
Once I identified the main issues from these initial interviews, I proceeded to
interview government employees I thought could help me develop the emergent themes
discovered in the interviews with migrant women. My interviews with non-profit
organizations and union representatives served to contextualize the information I was
obtaining both from women and government employees. Interviews with employment
and immigration attorneys were particularly useful to understanding how the law, as my
main object of study, applied to and shaped the experiences of Filipino women. These
interviews also complement the information I gathered through my analysis of diverse
documents.
My research is located in Dorothy Smith's tradition of institutional ethnography.
Institutional ethnography takes people's everyday life experiences as a departure point to
understand and unmask the power relations within institutions and their consequences for
people's lives (Smith 2005). Although I insert my research in Smith's tradition, I do not
consider it a strict or orthodox institutional ethnography. While immigrant women and
their experiences constituted my departure point, they were so in a broad sense. My
research was inductive, since I approached the field expecting to discover different ways
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in which gender, class, and race dynamics shape immigration and employment law. I did
not start by analyzing a concrete institutional process or a particular law. My goal was to
get a sense of how immigration and employment regulations shape the migration of
women from the Philippines and their labor conditions in the receiving countries. The
comparative nature of my research added difficulties. Instead of focusing on a concrete
issue, document, or section ofthe law, which could have disrupted the comparative goal,
I took a general approach to both case studies to obtain an understanding of how the
transfer of reproductive labor from underdeveloped countries and its regulation take place
in both contexts. While this is different from Smith's (1987) concrete analysis of the
school system, for example, the spirit of my research remains faithful to her goal of
untangling the power relations taking place at the institutional level, which shape
people's everyday life experiences. Rather than problematizing people's experiences, my
goal was to problematize the institutions, and therefore, power itself.
2. Data Gathering in Barcelona and San Francisco
2.1. Interviews with Women
I accessed Filipino women for the interviews through various non-profit
organizations and unions both in San Francisco and Barcelona. In San Francisco these
were the Filipino Community Center (FCC), Filipinos for Affirmative Action (FAA),
SEIU, and the In Home Support Services Consortium (IHSS). I relied on snowball
sampling, asking each interviewee at the end of our interview if they knew of anyone
who might participate in my study. Securing access was initially very difficult. In the
beginning of my research process I found it extremely difficult to find women willing to
be part of the study. I volunteered at the FCC for five months, establishing contacts
within the immigrant rights' movement before I could obtain solid enough contacts to
give me access to interviewees. As I mentioned in Chapter VI, this difficulty stemmed
from the political climate in 2006, when, as a result of different attempts at immigration
reform, immigrant communities were criminalized in the media and the political arena.
Many immigrant people, therefore, particularly the undocumented, were afraid of
speaking about their situation with strangers.
403
In Barcelona I accessed most of my interviewees through the Centro Filipino, an
organization that provides legal, cultural, and other kinds of services to the Filipino
community in the city. I also interviewed three women I met through personal contacts.
The access in this city was much easier than in San Francisco. My guess is that, besides
existing climate of fear, and therefore mistrust, existing in the United States, Filipino
women in Barcelona were overall more active in the Centro Filipino than my
interviewees in San Francisco were in the FCC. Once I became close to one of the Centro
leaders it was easy for me to access interviewees. While in San Francisco I joined a
Filipino activist group- the FCC- and was very active with them, it soon became clear
that the FCC, mostly composed of young Filipino American progressive activists, was
also struggling to access the San Francisco Filipino community and gain their trust. The
Centro Filipino in Barcelona, in contrast, was composed of the very Filipino women I
aimed to interview. Therefore in Barcelona I achieved a much greater integration into the
community. Women in the Barcelona community welcomed me and were not reluctant to
be part of my study. In addition, the director of the Centro was very supportive of my
research from the beginning, and every time I visited the Centro she would ask women to
talk to me. Since she was one of the most respected leaders in the community, the fact
that the invitation to participate in the study came from her was decisive. My immersion
in the Filipino community in Barcelona was much easier and happened quicker than it
had in San Francisco. From the beginning, I obtained invitations to parties, meetings, and
celebrations, and people were willing and happy to be part of the study.
Interviews were voluntary, semi-structured, open-ended, and confidentiality was
offered to all respondents. The names used to identify them in this study are all pseudo-
names. This was particularly important in this research, since I was concerned about the
women's legal vulnerability. In both countries, but particularly in the United States, there
has been a political backlash against immigrants, and society has increasingly seen
immigration as a "problem." Guaranteeing confidentiality was a way to help women feel
safe when sharing their stories. It was also a way to protect them from any potential
negative consequences that could result from their identification.
404
The interviews I conducted were face-to~face. In San Francisco, besides two
interviews located at the Filipino Community Center and two in my own apartment, the
rest took place at the women's homes. To make it easier for the interviewees, I usually
offered to meet them at their homes throughout the Bay Area. This also helped overcome
some of the resistance I found among Filipino women in San Francisco to being part of
the study, Despite some initial fears, interviewees were generally very cordial and opened
up rather quickly. They usually offered me food. After the first few interviews, and
knowing how important food is in Filipino culture, I would cook a Spanish dish to bring
with me and thank them for their time. At the end of my research I wrote letters to all of
them thanking them for sharing their stories and opening up to me. Some of them replied
and we have continued exchanging letters since then. A few other women also continue
to email me and we "chat" on-line regularly. In Barcelona, I conducted three interviews
in cafes, one at the interviewee's house, and all the rest took place in the Centro Filipino.
My frequent presence at the Centro and participation in its social events helped me
develop long term relationships with some of the women. They invited me to visit them
when I went to the Philippines, and I continue to visit some of them in their homes or
meet with them socially independently from this research.
2.2. Interviews with Government Employees, Non-Profit Organizations, and
Attorneys
I began the interview process by focusing solely on interviewing Filipino women.
However, after I had gathered sufficient data to expand the interview sample, my
interviews with them took place simultaneously with interviews with government
employees, non-profit organizations, and both immigration and employment attorneys.
My interview questionnaires with each of these groups varied according to the particular
work they were doing.
Interviews with migrant workers' or non-profit organizations helped me make
sense of the social and political context in which women were located. I selected them
following two criteria: They needed to be working with Filipino immigrant women
and/or addressing issues relevant to my study, such as employment or immigration law.
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These interviewees shared with me some of the main challenges the Filipino community
and immigrant people in general faced. They were also extremely helpful in leading me
to additional interviewees. My interviews with representatives from non-profit
organizations also became a link between the "micro" and "macro." In line with
institutional ethnography, they helped me see how connections between women's
experiences and the state were being politicized. An important part of my analysis of U.S.
employment law stems from my interviews, and also participant observation, with the
California Household Workers' Rights Coalition, while some of my discussion of
Spanish labor law is inspired by the analysis of Comisiones Obreras' (a Spanish union).
The goal of my interviews with U.S. and Spanish government employees was to
discern how immigration and employment law was enacted and to make sense of some of
the motivations behind this enactment. While the interviews with Filipino women
provided me with information about the challenges Filipino reproductive workers face in
Spain and the United States, interviews with government employees shed light on how
the legal scenario in which these migrant women are inserted is structured. This data-
gathering strategy ran parallel to my analysis of the law itself, which I discuss below. My
interviews with government officials and employees in San Francisco were limited to
people in employment and discrimination law administrative agencies and members of
the In Home Support Services program. I repeatedly tried, via e-mail and phone, to
contact representatives both at the Department of Labor and ICE (Immigration and
Customs Enforcement) and Homeland Security, but after numerous attempts, I never
received a response. I was hoping to obtain their perspective on the formulation and
enforcement of immigration law, but their position on these issues is necessarily absent
from my study. This constitutes one of the weaknesses of my study. In Barcelona, I
formally interviewed three government employees in charge of work and family
immigration. I also engaged in informal conversations with four local politicians and
labor officials.
My interviews with employment and immigration attorneys were crucial to helping
understand the application of the law. Some of the attorneys worked at non-profit
organizations and others privately practiced for profit. They knew how the law was
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impacting immigrant populations. Different attorneys had been in charge of dozens of
cases and knew what the trends, the biases, and the main problems with the laws and their
implementation were. For example, while according to u.s. immigration law an
undocumented person could legalize their situation through a work visa petition, lawyers
knew that, given the different requirements of the process, this hardly ever happened.
These interviews were also very useful in helping me interpret the law, which can be
difficult for someone who has not studied or practiced it. As a matter of fact, lawyers
became my main allies in the theoretical portions of this work.
2.3. Primary and Secondary Data Analysis in Barcelona and San Francisco
After the initial interviews with Filipino women in both the United States and
Spain, I read both immigration and employment law and selected the parts referring to
situations mentioned during the interviews. I analyzed them simultaneously with my in-
depth interviews and my participant observation. Combining the three methods was like
putting a puzzle together, since sometimes information I obtained in interviews would
force me to re-examine legal documents and vice versa. This ran parallel to my study of
other scholars' interpretation of the law. Other documents I utilized included newsletters
from non-profit organizations, press releases, newspaper articles, on-line documents, and
publications from the non-profits and unions I mentioned above. I also obtained
important statistical information from the Spanish and the U.S. Census. Due to limited
scholarship on Filipino migration to Spain, I spent few weeks in the Barcelona historical
archives reviewing newspaper articles since the 1960s that would shed light on Filipinos'
arrival in the city and the relationship between Spain and the Philippines. I was fortunate
to have a research assistant for that week, Angel Ezquerra, my father, who helped me go
through dozens of newspaper issues and find some interesting articles regarding the
Filipino community in Barcelona.
2.4. Participant Observation
Participant observation in San Francisco included informal conversations with
informants, attendance at rallies, conferences within the Filipino community, organizing
meetings at the Filipino Community Center, legal workshops, legal clinics, press releases,
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and lobbying trips to Sacramento. Most of these activities were part of my work as a
volunteer at the Filipino Community Center. While I initially saw this part of my research
as a way to obtain contextual information, some of the activities ended up providing
more. My presence as a volunteer at legal clinics and workshops, for example, helped me
get acquainted with immigration law and the different problems people in the Filipino
community were encountering. My lobbying trips to Sacramento with the California
Household Workers' Rights Coalition allowed me to witness some key moments in a
crucial attempt to change discriminatory employment law. For example, I was present in
meetings with policy makers who, though acknowledging that changing discriminatory
employment practices against caregivers was necessary, would not support reform since
it would cost the state "too much" money.
My participant observation activities in Barcelona were of a similar nature, though
less intense and not as frequent. While I collaborated at the Centro Filipino, I never
became a full time volunteer. However, I attended several of their activities, legal
workshops, and meetings. I did not regularly attend meetings at the Centro, however,
because they were conducted in Tagalog. The higher intensity of my participant
observation activities in San Francisco was due to the fact that 2006 was a key year in
terms of immigration debate and reform. There were several rallies during my time there
and many informative and organizing events were constantly taking place. During my
fieldwork in Spain, things were quite quiet in terms of immigration politics. There were
more rallies and political discussion in 2008, an election year and the time I was writing
my dissertation. While I attended some ofthe rallies and followed the discussion in the
newspapers, TV, and radio, this did not translate into an intensive data gathering process.
3. Data Gathering in the Philippines
Conducting fieldwork in the Philippines was a real challenge. While I spent almost
three months in the country, only two of these involved active research. During this time
I conducted 25 in-depth interviews and did some participant observation and considerable
document analysis. I was privileged enough, due to some ofthe funding I received to
support my research, I could hire a research assistant. Emily Roque was a recent
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sociology graduate at Ateneo de Manila University and was of incredible help during my
time in Manila. She accompanied me to meetings, helped me become familiar with
Manila's crazy public transportation system, took me to the hospital when I was sick,
translated, transcribed interviews, conducted a couple of interviews herself, and put up
with my stress and often lousy mood. My research in the Philippines would just not have
been possible without her.
While chapters about the receiving countries are mostly based on information
gathered through in-depth interviews with Filipino women, most of my interviews in the
Philippines were with government officials and employees and, to a less extent,
representatives from migrant workers' organizations. Thus, Chapters II, III, and IV do not
directly constitute an analysis of the state from migrant women's perspective or
institutional ethnography. Given the limited time I spent in the Philippines and the
difficulty of to interviewing migrant women during that time, I mostly used the
testimonies from migrant workers' organizations' representatives, many of them former
migrants, to identify the main issues deserving attention and study.
3.1. Interviews
As explained above, in Barcelona and San Francisco my entry points were
interviews with Filipino migrant reproductive workers. However, my main research
targets in the Philippines were government officials and employees. While I also
interviewed representatives from non-profit organizations, recruitment agency owners,
and returned migrants, more than half of my interviews were with people working within
the Philippine migration machinery. I initially researched the Philippine Overseas
Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration websites
and contacted their administrators. This was not an easy task. Research in the Philippines
required a degree of formality that I did not need in Spain or the United States. While in
these two countries an informal contact or even an email or phone call could usually get
me an interview, in the Philippines I had to follow a more elaborate protocol. I wrote
endless letters and faxes to numerous government officials using the University of
Oregon letterhead to introduce myself and my research. I would usually need to call each
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office before sending the fax to ask them to tum the fax machine on. After sending it, I
would call again to confirm they had received it. Then I would wait a few days, and, if
they had not called me, I would call again to follow up. Regarding letters, I soon learned
that it was more efficient for me to take a taxi to deliver a letter by hand than putting it on
the mail. I did this several times.
Government informants had different reactions to my calls and letters. Government
officials were usually kind but distant. Government employees were easier to access,
though I suspect that on more than one occasion they had to ask for permission of their
supervisors before they could talk to me. Overall, though, they always got back to me and
agreed to be part of my study.
The process with non-profit organizations was similar, although their fax machines
were even less efficient than those at the government offices. It sometimes took me a few
weeks before I could successfully send a fax. Their initial reactions to my contacts were a
mix of sympathy and skepticism. Political life in the Philippines has been full of
repression and violence for decades and, though the country is a formal democracy,
censorship and threats are still used to quiet dissenting voices. I soon learned that
working on migrant rights in the Philippines may be a life threatening activity and this
certainly explained initial mistrust. This is also the reason I do not to mention the name of
the organizations when citing them in the dissertation and use the generic name of
"migrant workers' organization." These interviews were among the most enriching in all
my research. Some of those groups have been working on migrant workers' rights for
many years and are immensely committed. Their analysis of Philippine migration went
far beyond mere regulation of migration flows and included the political-economic
context in which migration occurs. As I explain below, I ended up doing volunteer work
for one of the organizations and became acquainted with a couple of others by
interviewing several people within the groups. The few interviews I conducted with
returned migrants were made possible by my contact with these organizations.
Given the variety of each interviewee's tasks, I tailored my questionnaires to each
occasion. Regarding government officials and employees, I asked specific questions
about the particular tasks they did in their job. Some questions were common to all of
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them, such as their view on the Household Service Workers Reform Package or their
opinions about Filipino migrant women's competitive advantages. The same was the case
for migrant workers' organizations, although the questionnaires for this population were
more similar to each other.
Clifford Geertz (1996) argues the conclusions we make from our research are often
stories of stories or, in other words, our interpretation of someone else's interpretation of
reality. While I do believe it is possible to establish knowledge from qualitative methods,
I faced some challenges when interpreting the data I obtained during my fieldwork,
particularly from the in-depth interviews. The divergence between different interviewees
was clearest in the Philippines. I identified different degrees of validity in the
interviewees' responses. Returned, often distressed, migrant workers described their
experiences working overseas. They often shared very tragic stories, implicitly
challenging government discourse that the protection mechanisms in place are working. It
is important to clarify that they never expressed a political agenda aiming to debunk the
labor migration program. While they often expressed their discontent at the lack of help
received from Philippine Embassies, they did not say the government program was
fundamentally problematic. Although my study constitutes a story of stories a fa Geertz,
it is no coincidence that my departing point lies in the stories coming from the migrants
themselves. Since migrant women are the ones suffering the effects oflabor migration in
their own bodies and lives the effects of labor migration, they possess the most authority
to teach about how migration is working. My ultimate evidence of how things are lies
with them.
Unlike migrant women I interviewed, interviewees at the migrant worker
organizations did have an articulated political discourse in regards the government labor
migration program. While most of the organizations provided different services to
returned migrants, they were also politically invested, to different degrees, in the goal of
my research in unmasking the political-economic contradictions of the Philippine labor
export program. Pressuring the government to enact substantial changes in that program
and denouncing its political responsibility in the perennial economic crisis of the country
were some of their main tasks. These political tasks led them to respond to my questions
411
in accordance with their organization's political agenda. They focused on the failure of
the Philippine government and even other non-govermnent organizations in providing
satisfactory protection to migrant workers. While migrants' responses tended to be
descriptive, those of non-profits were more interpretative. This was definitely helpful, but
it sometimes felt as if they were more interested in fighting their war with the
government though my research than in actually telling me the truth or even answering
my questions. Yet, to be fair, their interpretative versions still came from direct
experiences and contact with migrant workers themselves. The information gathered
from my interviews with migrant organizations members and leaders served initially to
contextualize the main issues a mobilized civil society has being raising, as well as to
understand government and migrants' responses' to particular situations.
The interviews with government officials and employees added further complexity
to the tension between description and interpretation. My interviews with government
officials often, though not always, resembled the promotion brochures the marketing
department made for different agencies involved in labor migration. While the main goal
of interviewing people working in the government was to contrast actual policy with their
own interpretations of it, officials went on and on explaining the wonders of the labor
migration program. Initially I would leave their offices at the end of the interview feeling
they had spent two hours lying to me. As I continued conducting interviews I started to
wonder whether they were lying or just reporting the only reality they could see from
their physical and social locations, which was the coherent legal propositions designed in
their offices. Whichever, I became convinced that their role during our interviews was to
tell me how things should be according to government policies. However, it was their
distance from the ground that made them mix how things should work (e.g. in terms of
protection) with how they did work. The main effect was to mask the impact their
inability to protect migrant workers had on the latter's well-being. The only time a
government official candidly expressed his views on immigration, was when the tape
recorder was off.
Government officials' jobs are to make the labor export program work. They design
the policies aiming to enhance migrant workers' protection but are also invested in
412
maintaining government hegemony. They are constantly thinking about how things
should be in terms of protection, and they constantly conveyed this during the interviews.
The problem was they often substituted the "should be" with "are." This may seem a
minor grammatical distinction, but it is actually a rhetoric shift that avoids responsibility
and often moves it from the government to migrant workers, employers, or receiving
governments. The effect of such a rhetorical shift is to mystify reality and mask some of
the inherent problems in the labor migration program.
There were a few cases in which government officials refused or were reluctant to
provide the documents I requested. For example, though I explicitly asked to have more
concrete data on migrant domestic workers' demographics, they never gave this data to
me. Other times, rather than giving me easily available data, they created unnecessarily
difficult bureaucratic hurdles that eventually stopped me from accessing the documents. I
remember one particular case at the POEA library in which the librarian was particularly
hostile when I requested technically publicly available documents. I read this as a "save
facing" strategy and resistance to show the most problematic sides of the labor migration
program to a foreign researcher.
Conversely, I felt the information government employees provided in the
interviews resembled more that of migrant women than government officials' in the sense
that they provided faithful descriptions of the hardships taking places in Embassies and
Consulates. First, they had the first-hand knowledge of how things were actually
working, since they had often been in overseas posts and worked directly with migrant
workers. Second, they were not invested in the image of the government I could show in
my dissertation. In fact, stemming from the certainty that thousands of Filipinos abroad
were suffering abuses and exploitation, their own frustrations often came across during
the interviews. Although their job was to protect them, they were constantly struggling
with the obstacles limited political will, limited resources, and corruption placed on their
jobs. While government officials presented a very politically invested image of reality
and migrant workers constituted the proof the reality was unreal, government employees
were not so politically invested in the outcome of my study. They witnessed migrant
workers' experiences and provided helpful information based on first-hand knowledge.
413
While I gave migrant workers pseudonyms, I referred to the rest of the Philippine
interviewees using four generic titles: government employee, government official,
migrant workers' organization, and private recruitment agency. Unlike the denominations
I used for informants in Barcelona and San Francisco, for those in the Philippines I did
not specify the name of their organization or department in order to avoid identification.
This created some controversy during my research. I became friends with some of my
informants, and they eventually would ask who my next interviewee would be. I
repeatedly and politely tried to explain I had to be very careful regarding my
interviewees' identity. I also tried, unsuccessfully, to explain that university regulations
and U.S. federal law imposed strict rules on the management of interviewees' identities.
Interviewees from non-profit organizations often saw my refusal to share other
interviewees' identities as a sign of mistrust. While they thought I was sympathetic to
their organization's goals, they suspected the reason why I was not revealing the
identities of other participants was that I was "playing a double game" or pretending I
agreed with them when in actuality I was in favor of the government. This was stressful
for me, since I did not want to break anyone's trust, it and required some diplomacy and
tact on my part.
3.2. Participant Observation
My participant observation in the Philippines was quite limited. I sat once a week
for few hours at the POEA lobby to observe the dynamics taking place in the building.
My main goal was to get a sense ofthe different steps migrants needed to follow with this
administration in order to migrate. I attended few Pre-Departure Orientation Seminars
and Pre-Employment Orientation Seminars in the POEA building. Emily Roque joined
me in these trainings and was in charge of taking most of the notes and translating them. I
attended a big labor rally on May 1st, during which I talked to some labor representatives.
It was particularly interesting to notice the presence of some migrant workers'
organizations and the alliances they establish with local labor groups. I also attended an
Asian Migrant Domestic Workers Conference in Manila, which was very useful for
learning more about the challenges this population faced allover the continent. After one
of my interviews with the owner of a private recruitment agency I was invited to attend
414
the assessment process the new Reform Packaged required of migrant domestic workers,
which took place in the facilities of the agency.
3.3. Document Analysis
I analyzed three kinds of primary data in the Philippines: newspapers, government
documents, and migrant workers organization documents.
First, I researched media archives looking for newspaper articles addressing the
Lebanon Crisis and the resulting Supermaid Program and Household Service Workers
Reform Package. The two newspapers I researched were The Philippines Daily Inquirer
and The Manila Times. For this part of the research I obtained crucial help from my
assistant Emily Roque. She conducted an electronic search using key words such as
Lebanon; Reform Package; Supermaid; OWWA; Department of Labor; and POEA. The
goal of this search was to document the events that had led up to the creation of the
Household Service Workers Reform Package. Since these had taken place less than a
year before I got to Manila, they had yet to be included in any scholarly article or book.
Consequently, I had to refer to primary documents to understand the events between the
War in Lebanon in July 2006 and the 3/07 enactment of the Reform Package. While
Emily collected all the articles she found using the above mentioned keywords, I
selected, read, and analyzed them. The information provided in Chapter IV, in which I
relate the War and the creation of the Reform Package stem from this document analysis.
One highlight of my analysis of newspaper articles was that they often id not
mention controversial information. For example, in Chapter III I cite an interviewee from
a migrant workers' organization stating that former Labor Secretary Patricia Santo Tomas
had made an agreement with Saudi authorities to lower Filipino domestic workers' wages
by 25% in exchange for Saudi investment in the Philippines. While this agreement
between Santo Tomas was raised in few interviews with migrant workers' organizations,
I was unable to document it in the media or even with interviews with government
officials. The same happened with several sensitive issues that came up during my
fieldwork, such as fraudulent expenditure of public money and corrupt connections
between politicians and recruitment agency owners. Since this absence of certain
415
sensitive issues in the media became a pattern during my research, I interpreted it as a
lack of government transparency and even media censorship in a context where migration
is such a politically relevant and controversial issue and media censorship has been
recurrent in the past. While I introduce some controversial cases as stemming from
conversations with migrant workers' organizations and migrant workers, I was not able to
corroborate them through newspaper articles or legal cases.
Second, I also used government statistics, brochures, information on bilateral
agreements, and other documents, such as information booklets the government publishes
for future migrants. These documents came from POEA, OWWA, the Department of
Labor and Employment, FDA, and TESDA. I usually obtained them after conducting
interviews with employees or officials in these agencies. These documents have been
particularly useful in making up some of the tables in Part II of the dissertation. I also
include an appendix at the end of the dissertation with a summary of all the bilateral
agreements the Philippine government had signed up to 2006. Finally, I examined
migrant workers organizations newsletters, reports, and, in one instance, several records
of legal cases of returned migrants. This last group of documents greatly complemented
the information I gathered thorough my interviews with returned migrants.
4. Social Location
My own social position undoubtedly had an important impact on my research. As
my research location changed three times, so did the relationship between my social
location and that of my informants. During my time as a participant observer and
volunteer at the Filipino Community Center (FCC), in San Francisco, for instance, I was
often reminded in different ways that I was "the only White person in the room." Friends
I eventually made told me their initial fear had been that the only reason I was there was
because of my own research and career rather than trying to support the community. The
fact that I am not Filipina made it hard for them to understand my presence and they
initially did not believe that I was also committed to enhance the rights of Filipino
immigrants, and immigrants in general, in the United States. While activists at the FCC
416
initially mistrusted me, they ultimately involved me in Center activities and supported me
in accessing potential interviewees.
Filipino women in the Bay Area exhibited mistrust in a different way. Generally, at
the beginning of the interview I made an effort to tell them I was not a U.S. citizen and
my own family was also far away... They were often sympathetic to that, and always
treated me very warmly. They often gave me presents and invited me to eat in their
homes. But there were two main factors that reminded me of the distance between them
and me. One was the fact that I do not speak Tagalog fluently, and therefore conducted
the interviews in English. I know that they often felt limited in their ability to explain
themselves to me. This undoubtedly had an impact on the infonnation they shared with
me, particularly sensitive information, such as gender violence. My constant efforts to
use Tagalog words and my interest in learning their language often made them feel more
relaxed since they saw I was making an effort to build a bridge between them and me.
They realized I struggle with language proficiency myself and that put their difficulties
with English in perspective. This certainly helped highlight the commonality of some of
our experiences and establish rapport.
My Whiteness was a second factor creating distance between Filipino women and
me. Although Filipina interviewees frequently commented on "how beautiful my White
face was," and expressed warmth toward me, I always felt that the fact that I am a White
Spaniard was relevant to them. Besides warmth, they treated me with respected and
sometimes with deference. This was despite most of them were much older than I was.
But there were very few instances in which I felt interviewees saw me as an equal. Being
White made me an outsider. This constituted both an advantage and a disadvantage.
While I am sure I missed many nuances that only language and cultural proficiency could
have helped me understand, some Filipino friends told me they felt the fact I was an
outsider was a positive thing. According to them, I was questioning things that they,
having grown up in the community, had never questioned before. For example, one of
them told me that listening about my research she realized her Filipina aunt had spent
many years "trafficking" and exploiting Filipinos by bringing them to the U.S. on tourist
visas and keeping their passports from them. When she was little she always thought her
417
aunt was doing them a favor by helping them migrate and pursue a better life, but now
she realized Filipinos often took advantage of each other. In addition, the fact I was
someone Filipino interviewees perceived as having more cultural and social capital than
they did, often made them share some hard stories with me in the hopes I could help
them. Some women, for instance, asked me if I could help them get a job or a visa. One
of them even asked me for money. I always kindly declined and reemphasized my
research as the reason for our conversations.
My relationships with Filipino women in Barcelona were smoother. I initially
thought the research process would be harder in Barcelona since, while in the U.S. I was
also an immigrant, in Spain I was part of the White majority with Spanish citizenship.
Yet, I felt much more accepted in the community in Spain. In part, explaining to the
members of the Centro Filipino members that I had been working with the Philippine
community in California, that I had a Filipino partner for a few years, and that I was
travelling to the Philippines within several months, may have contributed to their warm
welcome. As a matter of fact, my trip to the Philippines coincided with the vacations of
few of my interviewees in Barcelona, and I had the privilege of staying with their
families and traveling around the country with them. As a result, I can currently eat for
free in some Filipino restaurants in Barcelona and maintain really good relationships with
several community members. The main difficulty I encountered in Barcelona was that,
since most interviews took place in the Centro Filipino, sometimes it was difficult to
obtain privacy since the Centro was always crowded with Filipino men and women. As a
result, my interviews in Barcelona were constantly interrupted and even a couple of them
were conducted in a room where there were other people.
Finally, my social location shaped my fieldwork in the Philippines in two
fundamental ways. First, my presence as a White, Spanish, female researcher from a U.S.
university had an impact on how interviewees and informants perceived me. Being White
in the Philippines opens a lot of doors for you. While I do not mean this literally,
sometimes it did happen literally. One day I went to POEA with Emily, my research
assistant. As I explained in Part II, hundreds of people line up at the building every day
and patiently wait their tum to process their migration papers. Security personnel often
418
guarded the doors into each floor to make sure people entered gradually. As a result,
there are always people waiting in the stairways. Beginning with my first time in POEA,
and due to my ignorance of this process,488 I would confidently walk into the offices and
no security guard ever stopped me. One day Emily came with me. As I entered the door
and walked toward one of the offices, I realized she was not with me. I looked back and
saw the security guard had stopped her and would not let her in. I went back to the
entrance and explained to him that I was a researcher and had an appointment with so-
and-so and Emily was my assistant. He apologized, smiled timidly, and let Emily in. Not
only had the guard taken my word and, without further checking, let Emily in, but also,
unlike Emily (a Filipino woman), I was never stopped or asked any questions at all.
For the most part, I think, my Whiteness helped me in my research in other ways as
well. Migrant workers' organizations in the Philippines welcome Westerners as
volunteers or researchers, since they are interested in letting the world know of some of
the injustices happening in their country. They also think that, since the Philippine
government is always so interested in looking good to "the rest of the world," my
presence as a White Spaniard would ensure, for example, that labor hearings were cleaner
and fairer. Overall, after the initial skepticism that my presence created, which made
sense in a context where migrant workers' rights activists risk their physical integrity due
to government repression, I felt migrant workers and their organizations welcomed and
trusted me. They hoped my research would be publicized and would sway public opinion
toward their cause. I hope that as I continue to publish and disseminate my work in
different for a, I will be able to keep up with their expectations. They treated me warmly
and I can confidently say that I made really good friends during my months in the
Philippines. I know they will be part of my life for a long time. One way in which I tried
to both break the ice and to show "I cared" through my blog. Right before I travelled to
the Philippines I decided to write a blog to be in touch with my friends and family back in
the U.S. and Spain. In the blog I reflected on my experiences and my perceptions of the
political reality in the country. After few weeks I gave my informants the address to the
488 Probably due to my White arrogance as well.
419
blog and they started reading it. I think this was decisive since it made them realize I was
"transparent" and I was not on "the government side." The address to the blog is:
http://sandrafilipinas.blogspot.com/
Being a White Spaniard studying at a U.S. university also gave me credibility with
government officials and employees. Several of the officials I interviewed had previously
worked in the Embassy in Madrid, so it was easy to break the ice while talking about
Spain and the Filipino community there. As I mentioned above, all government
interviewees I contacted either agreed to be part of the study or referred me to someone
they thought would be more helpful to me. I had the feeling sometimes, though, that
having a Spanish researcher investigating their labor program made them defensive, and
all their responses were geared toward demonstrating the efficiency and other good
qualities of government regulation of labor migration.
During my interviews with government officials they often tried to impress me with
their knowledge of Spanish culture, literature. The common history between our two
countries was always a theme in the interviews, and I felt they showed respect for my
belonging to the "mother land." At the same time, though, I was usually very intimidated
by the class difference between us. There was coldness in their kindness I was never able
to define. I often thought it was probably because they saw me as a mere student while
they were some of the most important government officials in the country. I also
wondered to what extent they saw me and my research as a threat.
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APPENDIXB
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR INTERVIEWS WITH FILIPINO WOMEN
.:. Mini Oral History and General Views
Before I begin with specific questions I would like you to tell me a little bit about your
life:
1) Who and how many people live in your household now? Did anyone in
your household stay behind (in the Philippines)?
2) How old are you?
3) What is your educational level?
4) What is your occupation and that of other family members?
(partner/spouse, siblings, parents)
5) Do you have other relatives living in the u.s. or in other countries?
.:. Experience with Sending State
Now let's talk about your experiences with the government of the Philippines.
1) Where are you from in the Philippines?
2) How did you decide to come to the United States/Spain?
3) When did you leave your country? Did you live in other countries before
you came to the United States/Spain?
4) What did you do for a living before you decided to leave? How was it?
Did it allow you to take care of your family?
5) What kind of public/social services did you have access to back in the
Philippines? What about your family?
421
6) Once you decided to leave the Philippines, tell me all the things (i.e.
paperwork, selling property, contacting relatives overseas) that you did in order to
migrate?
7) Did you work with any (migration) agency and/or institution in your
home country? If yes, tell me a little bit about that process. Who did you talk to?
What was the goal of the contact? Was it a public or a private agency?
8) If you left as a temporary migrant worker, can you describe the terms of
your contract with agency/institution? For example, did you have to pay any fees?
Did your contract ensure any protections while working overseas?
9) Did you go through any training with the agency/institution in order to
migrate?
10) Did they offer different options in terms of the jobs you could do
overseas? If yes, what were those options?
II)Did your government (or any related agency) make any promises to you
when you decided to leave?
12) Do you currently have any contact with agencies/institutions from your
home country?
13) What are your rights as a Filipina outside of your country? Or in other
words, what services by the Philippine government do you currently have access
to?
14) What were your expectations upon your arrival? How did you envision
your life here?
15) How is your relationship with your family back home? Do you send
them money? What is that money for?
16) Do you envision yourself staying here forever or will you eventually go
back?
.:. Conditions ofEntry
1) How long have you lived in this country?
422
2) Did you migrate independently or did you join a family member
residing here? Tell me more about it.
3) Did you face any challenges to enter this country?
4) How long have you been here for?
5) Describe your (immigration) status during the first couple of years here.
•:. Experience with Receiving State
Now let's focus on your situation in this country (SpainlUS) and your experiences
with the government.
1) What are the terms/conditions of your current (immigration) status?
2) Can you go back and forth between the Philippines and Spain/the US as
you wish?
3) Do you depend on your spouse's status?
4) Do you have ajob? What is it? What are the job conditions?
5) What tasks do you do? How many hours do you work? Are you part of a
union?
6) What kinds of challenges do people from your occupation face in this
country?
7) Have you always worked? Have you always had a work pemlit? Have
you always worked legally? If not, describe conditions of illegal work.
8) Do you make enough money to support your family? Ifnot, how do you
do it? Do you get paid for overtime? Do you think that you get paid for all the
hours that you work?
9) Do you send a percentage of your salary to your family back in the
Philippines? How much is that?
10) Why did you become a care provider/domestic worker?
11) Have you ever been a victim of harassment within the workplace?
12) Have you ever been victim of sexual harassment within the workplace?
13) Does your immigration status allow you to change jobs/employers as
you wish?
423
14) Do you see yourself as being an independent and autonomous woman?
15) How much do you make an hour?
16) Does your employer pay your social security?
17) Are you part of any organization? Union? Community Center?
18) Are you married? Do you feel safe in your marriage?
19) What state/federal/county agencies are you in contact with?
20) What is it like to "deal" with these agencies?
21) What kinds of services do you have access to? (i.e. childcare, elderly
care, food stamps)
22) Do you ever feel fear? Are you scared of the police coming to your
house and sending you home? Do you feel vulnerable?
23) Do you feel safe in this country?
24) Do you ever feel sad about being away from home? What are some of
the saddest things?
25) Can you think of ways in which your migratory experience has been
different from the men's in your family or other men that you know?
26) Can you think of ways in which your migratory experience has been
different from people from other countries'?
27) How do you think immigrants from the Philippines are perceived and
treated in the US/Spain?
28) Have you ever felt that you were being a victim of racism? How so? Did
you ever feel that this racism came from government officials or workers?
29) What do you miss the most about being in your own country?
30) Tell me what has been the most challenging and most rewarding about
being an immigrant.
CHIRLA
CMA
CFO
DFA
DOLE
EU
FAMA
FAA
FCC
GCC
GPB
ICE
IHSS
ILO
IIRAlRA
IRCA
MOA
MOU
MUA
NSB
OEDB
OFW
OWWA
PASEI
PDOS
POEA
POWER
RA 8042
TnT
TESDA
VAWA
APPENDIXC
ABREVIATIONS
Coalition for Humane Immigrants Rights
Center for Migrant Advocacy
Commission of Filipinos Overseas
Department of Foreign Affairs
Department of Labor and Employment
European Union
Federated Association of Manpower Agencies
Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Filipino Community Center
Gulf Cooperation Council
Government Placement Branch
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
In Home Support Services Consortium
International Labor Organization
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility
Immigration Reform and Control Act
Memorandum of Agreement
Memorandum of Understanding
Mujeres Unidas y Activas
National Seamen Board
Overseas Employment Development Board
Overseas Filipino Worker
Overseas Workers Welfare Administration
Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc
Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar
Philippines Overseas Employment Administration
People Organize to Win Employment Rights
Republic Act 8042 or Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos
Act
Tago nang Tago (always hiding)
Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
Violence Against Women Act
424
425
APPENDIXD
BILATERAL AGREEMENTS
Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) of the Republic of the Philippines and the Department of
Manpower and Transmigration of the Republic of Indonesia Concerning Migrant
Workers
Date of Signing
Status:
Agreement
Highlights:
18 January 2003
Entered into force on 12 June 2003
Provides the framework within which detailed
proposals for cooperation in the promotion and protection
of the welfare and rights of migrant workers are to be
considered between Indonesia and the Philippines.
Priorities for joint initiative and cooperation:
Promotion and protection of welfare and rights of migrant
workers;
Training and certification of migrant workers; and
Provision of legal aids for the protection of rights of
migrant workers.
Forms of cooperation envisaged under the MOD include:
Exchange of experts and staff of relevant government
institutions;
Exchange of information, material, programs and systems
in relevant fields;
Exchange of experience in all cooperating fields through
meetings and networking system;
Development ofjoint efforts to promote and project the
welfare and rights of migrant workers;
Development ofjoint efforts to provide legal aid for the
protection of the rights of migrant workers;
Development of collaborative training, joint research and
development;
Cooperation with labor-sending countries and host
governments on the promotion and protection of migrant
,------ - - -----------
426
workers welfare and rights; and
Other forms of cooperation agreed upon.
A Steering Committee composed of senior officials of both
Parties shall be established to review the operation of the
MOD. Joint Working Groups in receiving countries,
formed through the respective embassies or labor offices,
shall be formed as needed to promote and project the
welfare and rights of their migrant workers.
Memorandum of understanding on Technical Cooperation on Labor and
Employment between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the
Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic
Date
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
27 July 2005
For ratification
The Philippine government through DOLE will provide
technical assistance to the Lao PDR's Ministry of
Labour and Social Welfare (MOLSW) on labor
capability building programs.
The specific areas for cooperation will be on the
following:
Labor administration;
Labor migration;
Employment promotion;
Occupational safety and health; and
Gender equality.
The Lao PDR government will arrange for the
sourcing of funds from donor agencies, UN system
organizations, and other international organizations, for
the implementation of the projects under this MOD.
427
Memorandum of Understanding between the Philippines and Papua New Guinea
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
14 March 1979
Expired
The MOD presented the details, terms and conditions
and protocol on the deployment of Filipino Workers in
Papua New Guinea's State Services (public sector) as
Non-Citizen Contact Employees.
It contains the procedures on recruitment: selection by
the Overseas Employment Development Boar (OEDB)
of qualified Filipino workers, interview by the Papua
New Guinea's Public Services Commission (PSC),
issuance of passport and other documents, and fees to be
paid to the OEDB by PSC (processing fee and worker's
welfare fund contributions, plus airfare of accepted
Filipino workers).
It also provides for the least amount of salary that a
worker can remit per month (at least 30% of gross
monthly salary), and the repatriation of the worker's
remains in case of death to be shouldered by the PSC.
The preservation and protection of Filipino workers'
rights and welfare were also guaranteed by the PSC in
this agreement.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of
Korea and the Department of Labor and Employment of the Philippines on the
Sending of Workers to the Republic of Korea
Date of signing; 23 April 2004
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Renewed on 20 October 2006
The MOD enabled the Philippines to participate in the
Employment Permit System (EPS) of Korea, affording
Filipinos in Korea to have rights and privileges equal to
their Korean counterparts. It meant better protection and
higher wages for Filipinos working in Korea.
428
Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labor and
Employment of the Philippines and the Ministry of Labor of the Republic of Korea
on the Sending and Receiving of Workers to the republic of Korea under the
Employment Permit System
Date of Signing: 20 October 2006
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Active
The MOU enables the Philippines to continue to
participate in the EPS of Korea, which enables foreign
workers in Korea to have rights and privileges equal to
their Korean counterparts.
Under the system, deployment of foreign workers to
Korea is done through a government-to-government
recruitment, without the involvement of private
recruitment agencies.
The POEA is designated as sending agency while the
Human resource development Service of Korea is
designated as receiving agency, for the implementation
of the agreement.
Job seekers are required to pass the Korean Language
Proficiency test and health examinations to qualify for
deployment under the EPS.
The MOU will ensure, among others, that workers will
be charged only the actual expenses in job application;
master visa issuance; preliminary education for Korea-
bound OFWs; advanced flight reservation to avoid
postponement; support and active cooperation between
the two countries; improvement of existing
computerized contract cancellation on the part of
employer of OFW.
Memorandum of Understanding on Special Hiring Program for Taiwan between the
Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei and the Taipei Economic and
Cultural Office in the Philippines
Date of Signing: 12 January 2001
Entry into Force: Enters into force upon signing
Validity & Termination:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
429
Valid for 2 years subject to extension by mutual
agreement by Parties
Renewed on 20 March 2003
The MOU affords an alternative direct hiring facility for
OFWs.
Memorandum of Understanding on Special Hiring Program for Taiwan between the
Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei and the Taipei Economic and
Cultural Office in the Philippines
Date of Signing: 20 March 2003
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Renewed on 30 March 2006
A renewal agreement of the MOU of the same title
signed on 12 January 2001, which offers an alternative
direct-hiring facility of OFWs to Taiwan.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office
in the Philippines and the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan on the
Special Hiring Program
Date of Signing: 30 March 2006
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Active
The MOU affords an alternative direct hiring facility for
OFWs .It is the third agreement which was originally
signed on 12 January 2001. The first renewal was
signed on 20 March 2003.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic f the
Philippines and the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain on Technical Education
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
14 December 2003
For Ratification
The MOU covers the framework for the technical
430
education cooperation activities between RP and
Bahrain on human resource development, skills training,
people Exchange and technology transfer.
The technical education cooperation will be carried out
through the following;
Joint conferences, symposia, workshops, and
exhibitions for students, workers, trainers and training
center management;
Joint research and technical studies in aid of
implementing the identified cooperation areas;
Joint training programs for workers, trainers and
training center/school management:
Professional exchanges in technical areas to allow the
conduct of training programs, studies, observation and
consultation;
Exchange of professionals in the area of training center
management;
Exchange and dissemination of research studies, and
other similar informative materials;
Academia assistance for workers, students and teachers
in the form of scholarships/fellowships;
Exchange of technology packages between private
enterprises and training institutes including all necessary
assistance for the implementation of Technologies;
Mutual recognition of skills and qualifications in areas
to be identified and priorized by the Parties; and
Such other forms of technical education cooperation as
may be agreed upon by the two Parties.
Memorandum of Agreement Relating to Mobilization of Manpower between the
Republic of Iraq and the Republic of the Philippines
Date of Signing: 25 November 1982
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Expired
Promoted and strengthened areas of cooperation in the
field of labor, employment and manpower development;
Provision on the exchange of technical expertise and
relevant studies to enhance employment promotion and
431
labor administration;
Provided for the details, conditions and protocols
concerning the employment and mobilization of one
Party's workers to the other:
Requirement of medical and skills certificates;
Employment contracts in both English and Arabic
languages, copies of which should be provided to the
employer, both Ministries of Labor, and the worker;
Workers to enjoy the duties and privileges accorded to
nationals of the receiving country.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Minister of Labor and Employment of
the Republic of the Philippines and the Minister of Labor the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
5 November 1981
Expired
Promote and strengthen areas of cooperation in the field
of labor, employment and manpower development;
Employ Filipino workers in the public and private
sectors;
Enhance welfare and well-being of workers and
protection of worker's rights;
Periodic review on the implementation of the MOD and
exchange of such review to improve the implementation
of the MOD;
Exchange of information on relevant studies and
researches, technical expertise to enhance employment
promotion and labor administration;
Recommend the conclusion of a Bilateral Labor
Agreement that will employ appropriate protocols and
procedures regarding the employment of nationals in
either country, in particular, and on manpower
development and labor administration in general.
432
Agreement on Manpower between the Government of the Republic of the
Philippines and the Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Date of Signing: 3 November 1988
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Expired
Outlined general procedures on recruitment such as
advertising ofjob openings; standard contract
provisions, free travel expenses for hired workers, and
workers' rights in the other country.
Rights and privileges afforded to foreign workers were
the same with the local workers in accordance with the
provisions ofthe Labor and Social Security laws in the
concerned country.
POEA and the Ministry of Labor in Jordan acted as the
intermediaries in case of disputes in the employment
contract.
Provided for the formation of ajoint committee made
up of concerned agencies from both countries, and
tasked to provide necessary coordination for the
implementation of the agreement, handled disputes
arising out of this agreement, and proposed amendments
to this agreement.
Memorandum of Understanding on Labor and Manpower Development between
the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Government of the State
of Kuwait
Date of Signing:
Ratification Status
Validity & Termination:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
14 September 1997
Ratified on 27 October 1997
Valid for 4 years and automatically renewed for same
period unless one of the parties express in writing the
desire to terminate the Agreement
Ratified on 27 October 1997 and entered into force on
21 May 1998 Expired
Aims to strengthen the existing bonds of friendship
433
between them and support the bilateral cooperative
relations based on equality and mutual benefit.
Supports the cooperation and enhances coordination in
the field of labor and manpower development.
The two parties have agreed to provide necessary and
relevant facilities for the fulfillment and promotion of
the cooperation.
Provides for the facilitation of the mobilization and
deployment of manpower between the two countries
within the framework of the existing and applicable
laws, rules and regulations of the concerned countries.
Provides for exchange visits and undertakes
consultations to share knowledge and experience on job
creation and generation.
Ensures that the Basic conditions of employment that
are applicable to both the employee and the employer
are set out in a mutually agreed individual employment
contract which conforms with the relevant laws, rules
and regulations of both counties. This would in effect
help protect and promote the welfare of workers of the
two countries.
Provides for the creation of a Joint Committee tasked to
ensure the implementation of this Memorandum and to
propose revisions on the agreement and resolve
difficulties in its implementation.
RP-Liberia Memorandum of Understanding on Employment of Seafarers
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
10 Augusts 1985
Expired
Philippine authorities ensured the competence and
qualification of Filipino seafarers through a system of
education, training, licensing, and certification. In
particular, the POEA set up an effective system of
authenticating documents and of certifying to the
qualifications and positions of Filipino seafarers, which
434
assisted the Liberian authorities in the issuance of
equivalent documents essential to the employment of
Filipino seafarers onboard Liberian flag vessels.
The establishment of an information exchange program
was called for between the POEA and the Bureau of
Maritime Affairs in Liberia to ensure fast and effective
flow of information on matters of mutual concern and
interest.
There was also a provision on the pursuance ofjoint
undertakings for the protection and enhancement of
seafarers' welfare and training.
The development of legal arrangements for adjudicating
criminal offenses, which may be committed by Filipino
seafarers onboard Liberian flag vessels, was also
provided.
Agenda for Cooperation in the Field of Labor, Employment and Manpower
Development between the Republic of the Philippines and the Socialist People's
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Date of Signing: 18 October 1979
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Expired
Promoted and strengthened areas of cooperation in the
field of labor and employment;
Availed Filipino expertise either individually or on
corporations for the implementation of Libyan
development projects;
Enhanced welfare and protected the rights of
participating Filipino workers;
Exchanged labor information, studies and researches,
technical expertise to enhance labor administration.
435
Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the Republic of the
Philippines and the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Date of Signing: 17 July 2006
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Ratified on 11 December 2006
Envisions joint cooperation in the following areas:
Exchange of expertise and visits in the fields of
manpower and employment;
Exchange of information, programs and systems in the
relevant fields;
Exchange of expertise in all fields of manpower and
employment through the joint meetings and the
internet;
Exchange of points of view and ideas on the proper
direction of manpower and fighting unemployment
between the parties;
Promotion ofjoint efforts to enhance employment,
particularly in the fields of medical professions and
ancillary medical professions and construction, and
consolidate the relation, and employment
circumstances;
Development ofjoint cooperation in the fields of
training of instructors; and
Other forms cooperation which may be proponed in the
future.
A technical committee of competent officials from the
Department of Labor and Employment and the General
People's Committee of Manpower, Training and
Employment which will meet annually or as the parties
agreed.
The technical committee will monitor the MOD's
implementation and is tasked to:
Assess and revise the MOD when necessary;
Control the procedures of exchanging expertise and
technical labor; and
Discuss and settle any disputes that may arise due to the
implementation of the agreement.
436
Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the Government of the State
of Qatar Concerning Filipino Manpower Employment in the State of Qatar
Date of Signing: 10 March 1997
Entry into Force:
Validity & Termination:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Enters into force alter exchange of instrument of
ratification or similar procedure by the Parties.
Valid for 3 years and thereafter renewed automatically for
further periods, unless either party notifies the other party
in writing the desire to terminate the agreement at least 6
months prior to intended termination date.
Ratified by the Senate on 4 March 1999. Expired
This agreement formalizes / legalizes the deployment of
Filipino workers in Qatar.
It outlines the deployment procedures for the employment
of Filipino workers in Qatar, as well as the provisions for a
standard employment contract.
A total of six (6) articles out of fifteen (15) in this
agreement deal with the employment contract alone, more
than in any other agreement the Department has, having
provisions such as how many copies shall be accomplished
and in what languages, accommodation and medical
treatment, contract amendments, expiration, verification
procedures and dispute settlement in cases of different
interpretations of the contract.
It provides for the payment of travel expenses incurred by
the Filipino worker by the Qatari employer, and the
allowable salary remittance to the Philippines in
accordance to financial regulations of Qatar.
It also involves the establishment of a Joint Committee
comprised of three (3) representatives from each
government which will meet once every two years and
will: 1) coordinate the two governments in the
implementation of this agreement;2) formulate a model
employment contract for approval of both governments; 3)
interpret the provisions of this agreement in the event of
any difference related thereto and resolve any difficulty
437
which may arise from its implementation; and 4) submit
recommendations for review or amendment of all or any of
the articles in this agreement or part thereof, whenever it is
necessary.
Memorandum of Understanding for Cooperation in the Field of Technical
Vocational Education and Training between the Government of the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
Date of Signing: 1 October 2005
Entry into Force:
Validity & Termination:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
After 30 days as of the date of the later written notification
by both parties through diplomatic channels indicating that
their intemallegal requirements of its entry into force have
been complied with.
Shall remain in force until a written notice of termination is
served by either party. The termination date shall be six
months after such written notice.
For ratification
The two parties shall endeavor to sustain and develop
cooperation in the areas of technical education and
vocational training (TVET),which will include but no
limited to the following:
Hosting ofjoint conferences, symposia, workshops and
exhibitions for trainees, employees, trainers and
technology institute managers;
Conduct joint researches and technical studies which
would help in enhancing TVET carrying out the identified
cooperation activities agreed upon by both parties;
Provide joint training programs for employees, trainers
and technology institute managers;
Professional exchanges in technical areas to allow
implementation of the training programs, conduct studies
and consultations;
Exchange of professionals in the area of technology
institute management;
Exchange and disseminate researches, studies and other
related information materials;
Provide assistance to trainees and trainers in the form of
scholarships/fellowships as per available opportunities;
438
Encourage exchange of technology programs between
private enterprises and technology institutes including all
necessary assistance for the implementation of the said
technical programs;
Mutual recognition of skills and qualifications in areas to
be identified and prioritized by the Parties; and
Such other forms of technical education cooperation as
may be agreed upon by the two Parties in the future.
Implementation of the MOU shall be in coordination with
the Joint Commission Meeting formed by virtue of the RP-
KSA Agreement on Economic, Trade, Investment and
Technical Cooperation.
Agreement between Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the
Directorate of Labour in Norway on Transnational Co-operation for Recruiting
Professionals from the Health Sector to Positions in Norway
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
26 June 2001
Expired
Under this arrangement, Filipino wishing to be employed
in Norway as health professionals must apply to the POEA,
while employers in Norway wishing to hire health workers
in the Philippines must course their request through
Norway's Directorate of Labour.
The agreement stated the general requirements for Filipino
health professionals who wish to be employed in Norway:
must have diploma or certificate of successful training in
health practice, certificate of good standing as professional
in the health sector, specialist authorization in case of a
specialist, and be entitled to necessary travel documents
and be prepared to take up positions as health personnel in
Norway.
Information on available positions in the health sector in
Norway can be found in the Internet. The directorate shall
also provide POEA with relevant information to be
distributed to interested candidates.
The agreement also required the Directorate to organize
and administer intensive Norwegian language courses in
439
the Philippines for successful candidates under this
agreement, and to pay the paEA's processing fees and
contributions to the worker's welfare fund. The language
training shall be administered in the Philippines and all
costs including allowance of the language trainees shall be
shouldered by Aetat. In the course of the language training
the paEA shall ensure that successful candidates start
processing the necessary documentations and apply for
both authorization to practice and work permit in Norway.
Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation for the Management of the
Migratory Flows between the Ministry of Labor and Social Affaire of the Kingdom
of Spain and the Ministry of Labor an Employment of the Republic of the
Philippines
Date of Signing: 29 June 2006
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
Active
In 2006 Spain will hire on a pilot basis Filipino workers
under the "generic" for the Healthcare Sector in Spain.
The experiences in the pilot implementation will form the
basis for establishing a long-term stable collaboration for
the management of migratory flows of qualified workers
from the Philippines to Spain.
No fees will be collected from the job applicants during the
pre-hiring process.
paEA and Spain's Directorate General ofImmigration are
named as implementing agencies.
Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the
Swiss Federal Council on the Exchange of Professional and Technical Trainees
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
9 July 2002
Ratified by the Philippine Government on 28 January 2003
and entered into force on 10 June 2003
This agreement applies to the exchange of Swiss and
Filipinos as trainees who will be trained and employed in
440
their own profession in the other country in professional
and technical occupations for purposes of promoting
professional development, cultural exposure and language
skills development.
Minimum age for trainees is 18 years while the maximum
is 35 years.
The necessary temporary immigration and employment
permits shall be granted with a term of validity of 18
months maximum.
A quota not exceeding 50 trainees per calendar year for
each country is permitted.
The rights and responsibilities of the trainee and employer,
which include salary, living, health and accident insurance,
taxes, working allowances, among other things, shall be in
accordance with the domestic law in force in the host
country.
Persons who wish to be admitted as trainees shall be
primarily responsible for finding employment for
themselves in the country of the other party; provided that
the authorities in charge of implementing the agreement
help trainees to find employment through appropriate
channels and measures.
Recruitment Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Date of Signing: 8 January 2002
Status: Active
Agreement Highlights: This recruitment agreement of the POEA with the National
Health Services O~HS) of the UK's Department of Health
(DH) focuses on the employment of Filipino health
professionals in UK.
Under the agreement, the POEA shall advertise the positions
available in UK and shall be responsible for selecting
candidates for interview ensuring that those candidates have
the proper qualifications (such as nursing diploma an license).
441
Only 10 interviews per interview panel can be conducted per
day are allowed in this agreement, to be conducted by the NHS
Employer.
The DH will provide an electronic spreadsheet to log
applicants which the POEA shall accomplish and e-mail back
toDH.
The DH will be responsible for advertising costs which will
arise and shall also conduct pre-employment seminars prior to
the interview.
The POEA shall ensure that successful applicants will undergo
Basic medical examinations and that the applicants shall have
their proper documents with them before they leave for UK.
Work permit applications shall be processed by the NHS
Employer for the successful applicant, while the applicants
themselves shall apply for UK entry visa.
The cost of one economy class ticket to London is shouldered
by the NHS employer for the successful applicant.
Other provisions of the agreement include the exchange
programme for personnel of POEA to visit London to enhance
client relations and workers' monitoring onsite, sanctions
against successful applicants who do not take up employment,
repatriation of employee's body in case of death, and fees and
contributions to be paid to POEA by the NHS employer.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Republic of the Philippines and the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on Health Care
Cooperation
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
30 July 2003
Ratified on 9 March 2004
The Philippines and UK shall undertake a recruitment
Project, to be carried out as follows,
To continue the recruitment Project with a view to
sustainable recruitment and employment of nurses and
442
other healthcare professionals from the Philippines;
To intensify bilateral exchanges of policy thinking with
regard to nursing workforce development and best practice
in the delivery of healthcare;
To involve professional staff and healthcare managers in
the project particularly in relation to education and
training of Filipino nurses and other healthcare
professionals, with a view for a Mutual Recognition
Arrangement in nursing and other healthcare professions
between the parties; and
To draw up an action agenda to implement this project,
especially with respect to addressing any gaps in the entire
process of recruitment of nurses and other healthcare
professionals.
Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labor and
Employment of the Republic of the Philippines and the Commonwealth of Northern
Mariana Islands
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
14 September 1994
Amended on 18 December 2000
This MOD was an embodiment of the Commonwealth of
Northern Mariana Islands' (CNMI) interest to hire Filipino
workers for gainful employment in CNMI.
The MOD guaranteed the CNMI's observance of
applicable laws for the protection of Filipino workers and
DOLE's assurance of deploying only qualified Filipino
workers.
It also stated the establishment of a CNMI-Philippines
Liaison Office to foster close working relations with the
DOLE to ensure that laws from both countries are
complied with, and the DOLE to build a Filipino Workers
Development Center attached to the Philippine Consulate
office in the CNMI to promote and ensure the welfare and
protection ofFilipino Overseas Contract Workers.
The MOD provides that all Filipino workers who wish to
443
be employed in CNMI must first be processed by the
POEA, and all documented Filipino workers already in
CNMI will be encouraged to be members of OWWA.
Amended Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labor and
Employment of the Republic of the Philippines and the Department of Labor an
immigration of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
Date of Signing: 18 December 2000
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
The MOD is under review by both Parties for further
amendment.
This amended MOD reiterated the same provisions under
the previous MOD signed on 14 September 1994 in
Manila.
In addition, it called for the formation of a Joint
Consultative Committee by the parties to promulgate its
implementing guidelines, discuss issues and concerns and
provide recommendations for the MOD's improvement.
It also provided for the enforcement duration of this
agreement (l year renewable automatically), which was
accidentally omitted in the original agreement.
Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the
Government of the United State of America Relating to the Recruitment and
Employment of Philippines Citizens by the United States Military Forces and
Contactors of the Military and Civilian Agencies of the United States Government
in Certain Areas of the Pacific and Southeast Asia
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
28 December 1968
Expired
The agreement established procedures and conditions for
the recruitment of Filipino citizens for offshore
employment by the DS Military Forces in certain areas of
the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
444
Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of
America of Employees' Compensation and Medical Care Programs
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
10 March 1982
Expired
Extends the Philippines Medical Care Program and the
Employees' Compensation Program to all Philippine
national direct-hire employees of the US Forces in the
Philippines, replacing the coverage for such Philippine
national employees of the U.S. Forces granted by 5 U.S.
Code, Section 8137 (the Federal Employees'
Compensation Act).
Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Labour and
Employment of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and Her Majesty
the Queen in the Right of the Province of Saskatchewan as represented by the
Minister Responsible for Immigration and the Minister of Advanced Education and
Employment (AEE) Concerning Cooperation in the Fields of Labour, Employment
and Human resource Development
Date of Signing:
Status:
Agreement Highlights:
18 December 2006
Entered into force on 18 December 2006
The MOU will enable skilled Filipino Workers to be hired
in or immigrate to Saskatchewan, Canada under the
Saskatchewan Immigration Nominee Program (SINP),
where employers can nominate potential workers from
other countries for faster processing of visa to Canada.
The AEE will ensure that only qualified employers can
participate in the program, while the DOLE will ensure
that only qualified sending/recruitment agencies can send
workers to Canada under the MOU. The sending agencies
in turn are to ensure that only qualified workers are
deployed to Canada.
The Philippines Consulate General in Toronto will monitor
all OFWs recruited under the SINP whit a view of ensuring
their protection and welfare in Canada.
445
A "mutual development of human resources" fund is to be
set up, from contributions and donations from employers
hiring workers through this MOO, which will be used to
improve the education and training of youth in the
Philippines.
A Joint Consultative Committee composed of 2
representatives from each country to review the
implementation of the MOO.
446
APPENDIXE
RATIFICATIONS OF THE U.N. CONVENTION ON THE PROTECTION
OF THE RIGHTS OF ALL MIGRANT WORKERS AND THE MEMBERS OF
THEIR FAMILIES
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families
New York, 18 December 1990
Entry into Force: 1 July 2003, in accordance with article 7(1)
Registration: 1 July 2003, NO.39481.
Participants Signature, Ratification,
Succession to Accession (a)
signature (d) Succession (d)
Albania 15 Jun 2007 a
Argentina 10 Aug 2004 23 Feb 2007
Azerbaijan 11 Jan 1999 a
Belize 14 Nov 2001 a
Bolivia 16 Oct 2000 a
Bosnia and Herzegovina 13 Dec 1996 a
Burkina Faso 16 Nov 2001 26 Nov 2003
Cape Verde 16 Sep 1997 a
Chile 24 Sep 1993 21 Mar 2005
Colombia 24 May 1995 a
Ecuador 5 Feb 2002 a
Egypt 19 Feb 1993 a
El Salvador 13 Sep 2002 14 Mar 2003
Ghana 7 Sep 2000 7 Sep 2000
Guatemala 7 Sep 2000 14 Mar 2003
Guinea 7 Sep 2000 a
Honduras 9 Aug 2005 a
Kyrgyzstan 29 Sep 2003 a
Lesotho 24 Sep 2004 16 sep 2005
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 18 Jun 2004 a
Mali
Mauritania
Mexico
Morocco
Nicaragua
Peru
Philippines
Senegal
Seychelles
Sri Lanka
Syrian Arab Republic
Tajikistan
Timor-Leste
Turkey
Uganda
Uruguay
22 May 1991
15 Aug 1991
22 Sep 2004
15 Nov 1993
7 Sep 2000
13 Jan 1999
5 Jun 2003 a
24 Jan 2007 a
8 Mar 1999
21 Jun 1993
26 Oct 2005 a
14 Sep 2005
5 Jul1995
9 Jun 1999 a
15 Dec 1994 a
11 Mar 1996 a
2 Jun 2005 a
8 Jan 2002
30 Jan 2004 a
27 Sep 2004
14 Nov 1995 a
15 Feb 2001 a
447
448
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