Labor sets protests vs security of tenure bill junking; refiling next

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LABOR groups will mount a mass demonstration on Monday to signal the start of a series of protest expected to culminate in a big indignation rally over the junking of the security of tenure (SOT) bill last week.

Partido Manggagawa (PM) said the first wave of protests will be held in Metro Manila and Cebu to show the outrage of workers over President Duterte’s decision to veto the bill, which took nearly two decades to go through the legislative mill before getting bicameral approval, only to be scuttled at the last minute as business groups mounted a last-ditch lobby against it.

“The security of tenure bill is the latest victim of killing under the Duterte regime. Workers vow to continue the fight to end ‘Endo,‘” declared Wilson Fortaleza, spokesman of Partido Manggagawa, referring to Duterte’s 2016 campaign promise to “end Endo [end of contract],” the catch-all term for illegal contractualization.

Dubbed the “Black Monday Protest,” the noise barrage in Metro Manila will be attended by members of PM, Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) and Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), at the Boy Scout Circle in Quezon City at 5 p.m.

Sentro Secretary-General Joshua Mata said the militant labor group will also hold a small protest action in Mendiola, Manila, in the morning.

The Cebu protest will be held at the Gate 1 of the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City, also at 5 p.m. “After these events, labor groups will be meeting to discuss the big indignation rally,” Mata said.

During these demonstrations, Fortaleza said they will hold Duterte accountable for “killing” the SOT bill in favor of business interests.
Local and foreign business groups had campaigned against the SOT as crafted by the 17th Congress, despite observations the final version—the Senate bill as adopted by the House of Representatives—was “watered down.”

According to an exclusive BusinessMirror report, a briefing paper sent to Duterte by some employers estimated that in manufacturing alone, business will have to shell out P49 billion annually as additional cost to comply with the measure if it is signed into law.

“Workers will not forget this betrayal by Duterte of his promise to end Endo. He is parroting the lame capitalist alibi that businesses will die if workers are made regular. Duterte’s promise to end Endo is dead,” Fortaleza said.

Refiling next

The protests also aim to drum up public support for their renewed attempt to have the SOT bill refiled in the 18th Congress.

According to labor leaders, several lawmakers have already committed to file the SOT bill, including Senators Joel Villanueva and Risa Hontiveros, and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Party-list Representative Raymond Mendoza.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto prodded Malacañang at the weekend to convene a tripartite summit before it submits to Congress its version of another SOT bill, to avert another veto.

This, even as Villanueva ruled out a congressional override option to reverse the Palace veto.

“Override is an option but I don’t think it’s a viable solution,” Villanueva said over the weekend, adding that “some lawmakers are not comfortable with it.

Villanueva, however, confirmed his readiness to refile the vetoed measure.

“We will refile the bill because it is the right thing to do,” Villanueva vowed.

Palace told: Write own version

For his part, Recto signaled determination to push passage of the bill. “But this time, the Executive Branch should write its own version and send it to Congress with an attached presidential certification as to its urgency,” Recto said, adding: “If it has changed its mind, then the version it now wants must be in black and white, so nothing will be lost in translation.”

Recto explained this is needed because the Palace veto message did not cite the specific provisions that triggered the veto.

“Let the burden of proposition fall on them this time,” the Senate President Pro Tempore said. “But this will be for the information of Congress only, and should not mean that it must be the one passed en toto.”

Better still, Recto recommended that Malacañang convene a tripartite summit on endo, with business, labor and the government in a frank exchange of views.

“Last, this episode underscores once again the need to strengthen its liaison work with Congress. I sympathize with Senator Villanueva who had worked hard on this bill…This was not an easy bill to write. Joel made sure that it was a balanced one. It was a tightrope act under stormy conditions.

Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri recalled it was Duterte who reminded lawmakers about the Security of Tenure bill in his State of the Nation Address in 2018, only to veto it.

“The Cabinet should get their act together as it would make us legislators look stupid and embarrass the President as well, as he mentions these measures during the Sona,” Zubiri said. - By Samuel P. Medenilla & Butch Fernandez

‘Scare tactics’ by bizmen behind SOT bill veto

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MANILA – The usually moderate Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), touted as the country’s biggest labor union, squarely placed on businessmen’s shoulders the blame for the major setback in the enactment of the Security of Tenure Bill, also known as the “End Endo Bill”.

TUCP spokesman Allan Tanjusay said the labor group “blames the scare tactics and deception of capitalists, both local and foreign businesses, for misleading President Duterte in rejecting the bill because it would disincentivize business and investors.”

Permanently putting an end to the often-exploitative practice of labor only contractualization was one of the president’s campaign promises, he added.

The measure aims to outlaw the practice of labor-only contracting or endo (end of contract) which the employers’ sector have been known to perpetuate in order to limit the benefits extended to workers and allow for easy termination of services.

“Business groups threatened our government with frightening scenarios of capital flight, relocation, and increased costs. We remind the foreign chambers, the employers, and the economic managers that dirt cheap and exploitative labor policies are no longer come-ons for investments,” Tanjusay added.

Meantime, a statement released by Malacañang following the bill’s veto said that Duterte merely wants to see some revisions on the bill, to promote fairness and retain ease of doing business in the country, which he also works on to invite more investors to come into the country.

“Our goal has always been to target the abuse while leaving business free to engage in those practices beneficial to both management and workforce,” the president’s statement read.

With the bill expected to be filed again in the 18th Congress, the Palace has reportedly pointed out certain provisions in the measure that need to be changed by its proponents.

This includes allowing certain forms of contractualization that do not specifically do harm to employees, instead of legislating a wholesale ban on short-term labor contracts. The proposed law should also take into account that policies adopted to protect workers should not “oppress or destroy” capital. (PNA)

TUCP asks Duterte to consider workers affected by crackdown on PCSO games

Labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines appeals to President Rodrigo Duterte to institute reforms in the agency as soon as possible to avoid compromising workers' livelihoods

CLOSED. Members of the Philippine National Police, including NCR top cop Guillermo Eleazar (right most), immediately close PCSO establishments following President Rodrigo Duterte's order. NCRPO photo 

MANILA, Philippines – Labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) urged President Rodrigo Duterte to consider the thousands of workers who would be displaced following his order to stop all gaming schemes of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
TUCP said that while it "respects" Duterte's decision to suspend PCSO's operations due to "massive corruption," they hope the agency's attendants were considered in the process.

The group appealed to Duterte to institute reforms in the agency as soon as possible to avoid compromising workers' livelihoods.

"Nakikiusap ang mga manggagawa ng PCSO betting stations na nawalan ng trabaho na kung maaari bilisan ang panahon ng suspension of operations upang sila ay makapagpatuloy sa kanilang trabaho. Nangangamba kasi sila na baka tuluyan na silang mawalan ng trabaho at mawalan ng kabuhayan," TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said on Saturday, July 27. - Sofia Tomacruz

Workers’ groups, solons slam Duterte ‘betrayal’

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The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines slammed foreign businessmen and their chambers of commerce for interfering in the country’s domestic policy following President Rodrigo Duterte’s veto of the proposed Security of Tenure bill.

“They are engaged in an unwarranted interference in the purely domestic affairs of the Filipino people. They are also infringing [on] our sovereignty. We remind these businessmen and chambers that while we welcome their investments, it should not be at the expense of denying what should rightly be regular jobs for Filipinos,” the group said in a statement Friday.

The TUCP said it took 19 years in Congress for the SOT bill to reach this stage, only to have it blocked by those who “stand in the way of the struggle of Filipino workers and their families’ struggle for decent work through secure and regular jobs.”

The Department of Labor and Employment and labor groups had thrown their full support for the bill.

On Friday, they said President Duterte’s veto would enable companies to keep hiring contractual workers who will be terminated after only five months and rehired on the same contractual basis, as a way to avoid regularizing their workers.

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines, on the other hand, welcomed the veto.

“We’re very glad that Malacañang has finally made up its mind that the security of tenure bill will only lead to loss of jobs and investments,” ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis said.

He said ECOP would police its own ranks to end abusive contractual practices.

Duterte clearly turned his back on workers, the TUCP said.

“The most democratic and most peaceful struggle of ordinary workers out of their poverty trap to endo are shut by a man who promised to introduce genuine change and uplift them,” TUCP President Raymond Mendoza said in a statement.

“President Duterte certified the security of tenure bill as an urgent measure in his 2018 State of the Nation Address, saying he did not have the power to end endo and only Congress, which has the legislative power, could do this. Now that Congress has acted on his certification, why veto something he certified as an urgent national bill?”

The TUCP also said the bill was not a disincentive to businesses, who could still hire seasonal and contractual workers.

The Pagkakaisa ng Timog Katagalugan-Kilusang Mayo Uno denounced the President’s veto as a betrayal of his campaign promise to end contractualization.

“Duterte has only put the nail on the coffin on the workers’ call for regular jobs under his administration, Similarly, there remains no justice for the more than 30,000 workers in the Southern Tagalog region that have been declared regular workers but have not returned even for a single minute as regular workers,” Pamantik-KMU said in a statement.

“In light of his betrayal against the people, we enjoin the call to intensify the workers’ fights outside the walls of Congress,” the group said.

Senator Joel Villanueva on Friday led senators in expressing disappointment over the presidential veto, while vowing to refile and prioritize the bill for the 18th Congress.


“Unfortunately, profit wins again with the veto of the SOT bill,” said Villanueva, who chaired the Senate labor committee.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the upper chamber “will refile and prioritize [it]. We will find an acceptable version.”

In a separate text message to GMA News, Sotto said he was “crestfallen but that’s how democracy works, and Congress, being dynamic, can refile [and have the bill passed again].”


Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also said he was saddened with the President’s decision because the Senate worked hard for its passage, as it was certified as urgent.

He said the bill can be refiled but the executive branch “must first get its act together.”

“We have frontline departments [DOLE and NEDA] with opposing views. We are unclear as to what the policy is. The bill passed by Congress essentially mirrors DOLE’s position but apparently the NEDA has a different one—which was eventually concurred with by the President,” Drilon said in a statement.

In the House of Representatives, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Arlene Brosas denounced the veto, calling it the President’s “biggest betrayal” of Filipino workers.

She said she and her fellow legislators would file a “stronger” anti-contractualization bill that would plug all the loopholes in the law that allow businesses to engage in job contracting.

“President Duterte’s veto of the security of tenure bill exposes his full allegiance to big businesses which lobbied hard against the measure,” Brosas said. “Despite certifying the measure as urgent and despite prominently vowing to end contractualization during the campaign period, the President pandered to the pleasure of business chambers by killing the anti-endo bill.”

Brosas accused Duterte of acting “in absolute compliance to the business sector’s demand not to sign the security of tenure law in utter disregard of his campaign promise. Duterte chose big business over workers and even over himself.”

“It is very clear in the veto message that the President wants to allow businesses to have the upper hand in outsourcing jobs “regardless of whether this is directly related to their business.”

“This essentially means unli-job contracting that will trap more workers in short-term, low-paying, and unsafe employment,” Brosas added.

Parañaque City Rep. Joy Tambunting said Congress would need to find “a better compromise between labor and management.”

Tambunting is the wife of former Parañaque City Rep. Gus Tambunting, who was the principal author of the measure at the House of Representatives during the 17th Congress. - Joel E. Zurbano and Maricel V. Cruz

Labor group: Vetoing ‘anti-endo’ bill ‘really hurt’ contractual workers, their families

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MANILA—The President's decision to veto a bill that would have given temporary workers secure employment "really hurt" laborers and their families, a union group said on Friday.

Alan Tanjusay, spokesman for the Associated Labor Unions—Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), said the group was disappointed for contractual workers who had hoped that President Rodrigo Duterte would fulfill his promise to stop "endo," the colloquial term for hiring and dismissing workers in fixed cycles.

"We are saddened for the millions of endo workers and their families dahil matagal silang umasa. They hoped for the President for so long, hoping that before the end of Duterte's term that he would fulfill his promise to address head-on the issue of poverty caused by endo," Tanjusay said Friday in an interview with ANC.

"It really hurt us because this is the President's campaign promise and he said he would not renege on his promise to end contractualization."

Duterte vetoed the Security of Tenure (SOT) bill authored by Sen. Joel Villanueva, despite his promise during his presidential campaign to stop contractualization and help in granting full-time employment status and corresponding benefits to contractual workers.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo announced the veto of the bill after retracting his statement late Thursday that the President rejected the measure.
Duterte vetoes 'security of tenure' bill, says spokesman

"So this is a non-fulfillment of his (Duterte's) promise and he's turning his back away on the workers," Tanjusay said.

The spokesman stressed the bill was a "chance" for contractual workers to "experience the economic gains the country has been experiencing."

"Mataas ang ating ekonomiya, yumayaman ang ating bansa, lumalaki ang profits ng companies, pero hindi po sila nakikinabang dito sa economic wealth na ito na sila mismo ay naging bahagi," Tanjusay said.

According to him, there is no more middle ground between the President and contractual workers.

"We don't see any middle ground because the SOT bill is the middle ground," Tanjusay said.

Duterte, he said, "might take a hit on his political capital" for rejecting the bill. - ABS-CBN News

18-m workers may lose jobs in 6 years

File photo / Rappler

The labor group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines feared more than 18-million Filipino workers would lose their jobs in the next five to six years due to factories and establishments resorting to robotics, automation and artificial intelligence in selling products.

ALU-TUCP National Executive Vice President Gerard Seno expressed the apprehension after

Department of Trade and Industry Undersecretary Rafaelita Aldaba claimed around 18.2-million workers could lose their jobs over the period of the next five to six years as enterprises shifts to automation, robotics and AI to create efficient service and more products to be competitive.

“We can confirm that workers particularly in the agriculture, retail and manufacturing are now being impacted with only one employee left operating a machine in a production line that used to be manned by five to 10 workers,” Seno said.

Seno said they were concerned that affected or displaced workers might have difficulty to cope and acquire new skills needed to cope with the innovation if government will not be able to provide adequate and inexpensive up-skilling sessions for them.

Seno is also appealing to government to provide unemployment insurance schemes or programs specially to help displaced workers mitigate the impact caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The DTI said around six-million workers from the agriculture sector, 3.4 million in retail and 2.4 million in manufacturing sectors could lose jobs by 2024 with more and more transition to automation and AI. - Vito Barcelo

Govt cheers deeds; labor jeers anti-SOT tack

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AS government patted its back on accomplishing regularization of 471,394 contractual workers, labor groups slammed employers for pushing for the outright veto of the pending Security of Tenure (SOT) bill.

Labor Assistant Secretary Benjo Santos M. Benavidez told the BusinessMirror the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) was already able, as of July, to facilitate the regularization of nearly half-a-million contractual workers.

Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III considers this as a result of the government’s campaign.

“The regularization of almost 500,000 contractuals is a big thing,” Bello said. “It is unprecedented.”

The labor chief said these figures could still rise especially if President Duterte will opt to sign the pending SOT bill, which imposes additional restriction for contractual work arrangements.

“I am sure and quite positive we will get a positive reaction from the President. After all, this is certified [SOT] bill,” Bello said.
‘Wrong assumption’

HOWEVER, labor groups slammed employers for pushing for the outright veto of the SOT bill based on a wrong assumption.

Last week, local and foreign business groups submitted a letter to Duterte to appeal to him to junk the SOT bill, claiming it was already redundant with the provisions of Executive Order (EO) 51 and the DOLE Order 174.

Labor coalition Nagkaisa chairman and Federation of Free Workers (FFW) President Jose Matula called the assessment “unrealistic,” citing the thousands of workers who fall prey to arbitrary contractualization.

“With due respect the business leaders claiming that the old rules is enough to solve Endo, it appears they are out of touch of reality with the situation of millions of workers,” Matula told the BusinessMirror.

Endo is the acronym for “end of contract,” an illegal form of contractualization wherein workers are repetitively hired and rehired by their employers for the purpose of circumventing their right to be regularized.
Mutually beneficial

Last May, the DOLE reported it was able to facilitate the regularization of around 400,000 workers since 2016 from 3,377 firms, which were found or suspected of engaging in illegal forms of contractualization.

Many of the said employers claimed they were not aware that some of their positions cannot be legally contracted out since they are part of the company’s “core” business.

The process of determining if a position is “core or non-core” has been the subject of numerous labor disputes due to contradicting interpretations from management and labor unions.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Spokesman Alan Tanjusay said the passage of the SOT bill will aid in ending this contentious issue.

He said it is this mutually beneficial nature of the SOT bill that makes them confident that Duterte will back the legislation.

“The SOT bill, when approved into law, as it is, will identify the jobs that can be contracted out and what are those that can only be regularized,” Tanjusay said. “This will help employers to plan better and cope with demands of the modern times.”

Matula explained the process of this determination will be done through the Industry Tripartite Council, which has representatives from both employers and labor groups.

Bello earlier said the bill was already transmitted to Malacañang last June 21 for Duterte’s consideration.

‘Unparalleled’

But even without the SOT bill, Bello said Duterte’s accomplishment on contractualization policy is already unparalleled, which is why he endorsed this achievement together with the soon-to-be constructed overseas Filipino workers (OFW) Hospital in Pampanga to become part of the President’s upcoming State of the Nation Address (Sona) later this month.

The construction of the first- ever OFW-dedicated hospital in the country, Bello said, is expected to start by July 15.

Malacañang said Duterte’s Sona this year will focus more on the administration’s poverty alleviation programs to show the government’s malasakit or concern to Filipinos. - By Samuel P. Medenilla