ACT backs exploited Filipino teachers in Louisiana
MANILA, Philippines - The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) on Monday backed more than 350 Filipino teachers in Louisiana, USA who sued placement agencies for collecting illegal fees and forcing them to sign exploitative contracts.
“We fully support our fellow teachers abroad who are fighting for their democratic rights,” said ACT secretary general France Castro.
“These teachers were forced to work abroad because of the lack of better opportunities for them here in the Philippines, but are being exploited and cheated by placement agencies of their just wages.”
Castro also denounced the agencies which were responsible for exploiting the teachers.
A report by Henni Espinosa of ABS-CBN North America Bureau said more than 350 Filipino teachers hired to work in Louisiana public schools filed a class action against their recruiters, Los Angeles-based Universal Placement International and Manila-based PARS International Placement Agency.
The lawsuit accuses officials of Universal and its sister organization, PARS, of human trafficking, racketeering and fraud.
In 2007, Filipino teachers were hired to work in various school districts in Louisiana. The Filipino teachers said their agency confiscated their passports and visas until they paid $16,000 in placement fees.
They also said they were forced to sign away an additional 10% of their annual income. The Filipino teachers said the recruiters threatened to send them home if they resisted.
ACT called the attention of the Philippine government to address the growing number of teachers opting to work abroad.
“It is due to the lack of adequate compensation that our teachers are being forced to leave our country to teach in classrooms in a foreign land,” Castro said.
“There is also a shortage of teachers here in the Philippines, and yet our teachers would choose to go to different countries for decent wages, even if it means being exploited by greedy placement agencies.”
ACT called on President Benigno Aquino III to assist the Filipino teachers in Louisiana and ensure that justice is served.
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Louisiana Filipino Teacher - The TRUTH behind the lawsuit
Louisiana Filipino Teachers (EBR-East Baton Rouge Parish School). Suing the school you work for and rehearsing the class action law suit with Union officials (AFT/LFT) and lying on their testimony and caught perjuring themselves in the Louisiana Workforce Commission trail is horrific. These few individual have a group call FEF in the Baton Rouge vicinity. The list of people who SUED their school are the following:
MAIRI NUNEG-TANEDO, INGRID CRUZ, ROLANDO PASCUAL, DONNABEL ESCUADRA, TOMASA MARI, JAVE PAJUELAS, IAN CAINGLET.
Please make a note of this. Hundreds of teachers in the same school OPT - OUT yesterday by signing the document of non-participation on the class action lawsuit against their employer. We believe that the teachers who didn't sign the OPT-OUT are in the lawsuit. A list of these filipino teachers who filed the lawsuit, their names are to be sent to other school in the State of Louisiana and other 52 states. We will make sure that the names of these teachers who filed the class action lawsuit are stop in every teaching avenue in the United States. We must guard ourselves and make sure that they don't do the same thing along with UNION, these kind of waste of TAX DOLLARS from our school system.