Workers' expulsion reports denied Manila |Our Correspondent | 03-09-2002
The Philippines department of foreign affairs (DFA) yesterday denied reports concerning the alleged deportation of 20 Filipino construction workers employed in a prison complex for extremists inside a U.S. military base in Cuba. "The Anglo-European Placement Service, which is the employment agency responsible for recruiting Filipino construction workers to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, denied news reports that around 20 Filipinos were repatriated due to their attempts to organise a labour union," the DFA said in an official statement yesterday. Earlier, reports said 20 Filipinos labourers, comprising mostly supervisors and foremen, will be sent back to the Philippines for attempting to form a worker's union. The renegade labourers are reportedly demanding better benefits from their employer, Brown and Root International, an Anglo-American construction firm contracted by the U.S. government to construct the prison facility in Guantanamo Bay where captured members of the Al Qaida and Taliban are being held. The reports cited Anglo-European Placement Service (AEPS), which was contracted by Brown and Root to recruit Filipinos for the project, as the source of the story. But an AEPS general manager, Gilbert Arcilla, yesterday denied issuing such a statement. He belied reports of the unceremonious dismissal of Filipino construction workers as he noted that Brown and Root have provided adequate housing and good working conditions for them. "There is no reason for them to form a union," he said. The first batch of Filipino workers numbering 380 left last March on a one-month contract to work in the U.S. military facility. A few from this initial batch extended their stay and the second batch left two weeks ago. The labourers were paid $1,500 per month, Arcilla said.