Bishop on calls to restrict air-con for Hong Kong maids: ‘It’s unjust’
OFWs in Hong Kong. FILE PHOTO
MANILA— The Philippine Catholic bishops migration chair criticized a call to restrict the use of air conditioning among Hong Kong domestic workers amidst high summer temperatures.
Bishop Ruperto Santos, head of the Commission for the Pastoral Care on Migrants and Itinerant People, said that limiting air conditioning was “unjust and unfair”.
“With this global warming, not to use aircons is added suffering,” said Santos, who is also the bishop of Balanga diocese in Bataan province.
He said the domestic workers, many of whom come from the Philippines and Indonesia, deserve “fair treatment” by providing them with “decent, humane, and secured workplace”.
The prelate also stressed that such call could ultimately have an adverse effect on the performance of household service workers (HSWs).
“To prohibit the use of aircons, is to lessen too the capability and skills of workers to work better, easier and faster,” Santos said.
A group for employers of maids has earlier suggested said that employers can restrict what domestic helpers can do and cannot do.
This after a viral post of an employer, identified only as Wong, expressed outrage that her maid turned on the air condition without her permission amid the 30-degree Celsius temperature. CBCPNews
