Labor Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz and New Zealand Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety Michel Woodhouse has signed a landmark labor cooperation agreement that strongly implements a no-placement fee for overseas Filipino workers going to New Zealand, clamps down hard on illegal and unscrupulous recruiters and agents, and prosecutes perpetrators of document fraud and other recruitment shenanigans.

In a brief ceremony at New Zealand’s Parliament House, known as the “Beehive”, Baldoz and Minister Woodhouse signed the “Arrangement on the Principles and Controls on the Recruitment and Protection of Filipino Workers in New Zealand”, in the presence of Philippine Ambassador to New Zealand Virginia Benavidez, who was instrumental in hammering out the agreement, and top officials of New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE).