TUCP, Ecop: Reduced workweek to backfire

Workers and employers are one in opposing a proposal for a four-day work week to conserve electricity in offices and factories.

Both the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines and the Employers Confederation of the Philippines said the proposal put forth by the Energy department would backfire and erode productivity.

The Department of Energy’s failure to have a policy on power security and competitive rates led to this crisis, said Louie Corral, TUCP executive director. “How dare it now tries to impose a labor policy. Why will workers sacrificed to answer for the policy failure and lack of forward planning of the Department of Energy? When did workers become the safety net to ensure high profits for power generation and Meralco?”

Ecop president Edgardo Lacson, for his part,  said that to cut working days to four a week would blunt the country’s competitive edge in the global workplace.

“While the rest of the world continuously work from five to six days a week, it will  be expected that the country will further slide down in the competitiveness ladder,” Lacson said.

Both groups said the compressed workweek would tell on the health of the workers whose efficiency and productivity would suffer due to fatigue caused by the stressful 2-hour extension for 4 nights.

The Philippines bears highest cost of electricity in Asia and the Filipino family in general has exhausted all means to cut cost, Corral said. “Have they lost all decency? Is this their idea of the social contract of our government with its people? Their cavalier treatment of the SONA directive to consult and their easy conclusion of who must pay the price speak volume about what we can expect from the both of you during the DOE leadership,” he added.

He said that while many Filipinos  are sacrificing because of the power crisis, Petilla apparently does not seem to share this sentiment.

‘Instead of time-bound and transparent multi-sectoral consultations, Petilla is very quick to dump the burden on worker while he insensitively undertook negotiations for expensive power barge rentals. Petilla apparently do not understand correct sequencing,’ he said

For his part, TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said that a compressed  week for daily wage earners would mean one day less of wages.

Tanjusay reiterated the call TUCP made with the Nagkaisa labor coalition in April to President Aquino to convene a multi-agency, multi-sectoral task force to generate a national response and work towards solutions-- a clear policy on power supply, price and a coherent strategy out of the crisis.

He said the DOE failed the consumers by not applying a full-options approach which would have nipped the crisis in the bud or minimized its impact.

The DOE, he said, rather contently sleepwalks from crisis-to-crisis applying one band-aid solution after the other but what they really did was surrender the real power policy making to Meralco and to the generation sector actors-- neither wants a secure power supply or a competitive rate. - By Vito Barcelo