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| In 2021, Hrricane Ida damaged Gulf Coast refineries where hundreds of Filipinos worked. |
A lawsuit brought by Filipino oil workers against a major offshore oil refinery brings attention to the huge role Filipinos are playing in the oil industry.
Filipino offshore workers allege that Grand Isle Shipyards brought them to Louisiana to work as welders and pipefitters but then underpaid them, unreasonably restricted their movements, and otherwise treated them worse than local and US-born workers.
When Hurricane Ida battered the Louisiana Gulf Coast with 150-mile winds in August 2021 thousands of people evacuated but the 10 Filipino workers named in the legal complaint allege the company "abandoned" them in a bunkhouse with little food or medicine.
“I could not think of anything to do but to pray and to pray,” Renato Decena told The Associated Press.
Among other issues cited in court documents, US-born workers could come and go as they pleased, but Filipino workers could not leave the building without risking deportation.
When COVID hit, it is alleged that Filipino workers were quarantined to a boat with limited medical supplies while US-born workers were sent to hotels.
“Not one medicine, not one tablet, not one vitamin. Nobody gave these things to us. We were on our own,” another worker, Rosel Hernandez told the AP.
When Hurricane Ida struck, the lawsuit alleges only Filipino workers were left to ride out the storm while the others evacuated. The litigation is pending and has not yet been set for trial.
The suit seeks class action status, in which case, could include up to 60 other Filipino employees of Grand Island.
The company has denied the allegations and filed a counterclaim accusing the workers of defamation and has not responded to media requests.
According to AP reports, the US District Judge Carl Barbier dismissed the defamation allegations in a Jan. 20 order but said the company could pursue them again once the workers’ lawsuit is concluded.The Filipino refinery workers who were recruited from the Philippines were allowed to come to the US under federally granted visas to the Louisiana-based company.
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NOLA Renato Decena and Rosel Hernandez are part of a lawsuit against Grand Island Shipyward. |
Philippines' overseas workers (OFWs)
The lawsuit shines a light on yet another industry in which Filipinos have been recruited for their job skills.
According to statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration., there are 40,000 Filipinos working in the offshore oil and gas industry in various parts of the world, said former Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr, who first approached refineries in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
About 2,000 of them are in the United States, including in Louisiana, which accounts for 23 percent of total US crude oil production.
“Although Filipinos first set foot in Louisiana as early as the 1700s, it was only in 2005 that workers from the Philippines began making their presence felt in the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico,” Cuisia said.
Overseas employment of Filipino citizens has been a key part of the Philippines’ economy since the government of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, according to nonpartisan research and analysis organization the Migration Policy Institute.
The lawsuit shines a light on yet another industry in which Filipinos have been recruited for their job skills.
According to statistics from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration., there are 40,000 Filipinos working in the offshore oil and gas industry in various parts of the world, said former Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr, who first approached refineries in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
About 2,000 of them are in the United States, including in Louisiana, which accounts for 23 percent of total US crude oil production.
“Although Filipinos first set foot in Louisiana as early as the 1700s, it was only in 2005 that workers from the Philippines began making their presence felt in the offshore oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico,” Cuisia said.
Overseas employment of Filipino citizens has been a key part of the Philippines’ economy since the government of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s, according to nonpartisan research and analysis organization the Migration Policy Institute.
It is well documented that the Philippines is a major source of health professionals worldwide. Teachers from the Philippines is also helping fill in the gap in some US school districts. Skilled workers from the Philippines are employed in the Middle East for construction workers, nurses and domestic workers.
The number of Filipino workers who were employed abroad during the period of April to September 2021 was estimated at 1.83 million.
The Philippines’ worldwide remittances — money sent back to family and friends from Filipino workers employed abroad — totaled more than $36 billion in 2021, or almost 10% of the country's GDP, according to data from the World Bank.
The economic strategy has been criticized because it makes the workers vulnerable to abuse by their employers. he recent rape and killing of Jullebee Cabilis Ranara, a pregnant Filipino worker in Kuwait has shaken the country to its core.
Ranara's charred body was found last month, discarded in the desert, says NPR. Kuwaiti media report that an autopsy revealed Ranara, a mother of two, was pregnant at the time of her death. The teenage son of her employer has been arrested as a suspect. An investigation is ongoing and the Philippines has temporarily suspended sending domestic workers to Kuwait, where 250,000 Filipinos reside.
Ranara's tragic story is not unusual for migrant workers. Human rights groups have reported that up to 10,000 migrant workers from South Asia, the Philippines, and other countries die in the Middle East each year, according to the Guardian.
In January of 2018, the Philippines suspended sending workers to Kuwait on Friday, a day after then-President Rodrigo Duterte said abuse by employers there had driven several domestic helpers to suicide. The last straw was the discovery of a Filipino domestic worker's body found in an apartment freezer.
Later in May, the Philippines issued a statement saying a new agreement offered “additional guarantees that we asked our Kuwaiti friends to extend.”
The vague statement lacking details added: “The more than 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait can now be assured of prompt and effective assistance if needed.”
The number of Filipino workers who were employed abroad during the period of April to September 2021 was estimated at 1.83 million.
The Philippines’ worldwide remittances — money sent back to family and friends from Filipino workers employed abroad — totaled more than $36 billion in 2021, or almost 10% of the country's GDP, according to data from the World Bank.
The economic strategy has been criticized because it makes the workers vulnerable to abuse by their employers. he recent rape and killing of Jullebee Cabilis Ranara, a pregnant Filipino worker in Kuwait has shaken the country to its core.
Ranara's charred body was found last month, discarded in the desert, says NPR. Kuwaiti media report that an autopsy revealed Ranara, a mother of two, was pregnant at the time of her death. The teenage son of her employer has been arrested as a suspect. An investigation is ongoing and the Philippines has temporarily suspended sending domestic workers to Kuwait, where 250,000 Filipinos reside.
Ranara's tragic story is not unusual for migrant workers. Human rights groups have reported that up to 10,000 migrant workers from South Asia, the Philippines, and other countries die in the Middle East each year, according to the Guardian.
Later in May, the Philippines issued a statement saying a new agreement offered “additional guarantees that we asked our Kuwaiti friends to extend.”
The vague statement lacking details added: “The more than 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait can now be assured of prompt and effective assistance if needed.”
Strong demand for Filipino workers
Remittances have become such an important part of the Philippine economy that despite the vulnerability to abuse, the Philippines Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople predicted that 2023 will be a busy year for her office.
Ople said the DMW hopes to deploy more workers overseas in 2023, noting that the Philippines fielded 486,673 OFWs from July to November 2022, reports Rappler. She reported that there are emerging markets and pending bilateral labor talks with Romania, Hungary, and Portugal.
Portugal is interested in offering jobs to Filipinos for their tourism sector, while Singapore has also raised interest in hiring more Filipino health workers, she added.
Ople said the DMW hopes to deploy more workers overseas in 2023, noting that the Philippines fielded 486,673 OFWs from July to November 2022, reports Rappler. She reported that there are emerging markets and pending bilateral labor talks with Romania, Hungary, and Portugal.
Portugal is interested in offering jobs to Filipinos for their tourism sector, while Singapore has also raised interest in hiring more Filipino health workers, she added.
The importance of OFWs to the Philippine economy speaks to the dire state of the Philippines, that cannot get investors to create jobs in that country, despite its skilled, well-educated workforce. The Philippines has lagged behind regional peers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in attracting foreign investment, says the US State Department.
Like most other overseas Filipino workers, the reason they sought overseas work is more personal than the geopolitical and worldwide economic trends. Refinery workers Decena and Hernandez said the better-paying jobs in the United States help them provide for their families.
“We have dreams for our family and children,” Hernandez said in an email. “We want them to have a better future.”
“We have dreams for our family and children,” Hernandez said in an email. “We want them to have a better future.”
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