TUCP seeks standard emergency protocol for the workplace

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said that it is high time to set mandatory workplace emergency protocol standards for workers to ensure their safety during emergency situations.

TUCP President Raymond Mendoza (TUCP Party-List / MANILA BULLETIN)

“Because there are no specific mandatory guidelines regarding such life and death scenario, there is a very urgent need to create a regulation or mandatory policy standards protocols now that protects the workers’ health and safety and guides employees and employers on what to do when emergency disasters and calamities occur during working hours,” said TUCP President Raymond Mendoza.

Mendoza said some companies adopt their own evacuation protocols and hire safety officers and safety evacuation plans voluntarily, but many “enterprises do not have or are not even aware of such employees evacuation procedures.”

“Most of the victims in workplace disasters are the rank-and-file employees (cashiers, casino employees, salesladies, security guards ) who were made to hang on to their work and remain in their stations waiting for specific orders from managers, supervisors and company owners amid the quickly evolving mishap,” said Mendoza.
“A split second-time delay in reaction to such dangerous situation further exposes workers to workplace death and injury,” he added.

The labor group said that it received reports from workers, through social media, seeking help and advice after their employers reportedly refused to evacuate them during the earthquake last Monday.

“Though Republic Act 11058 or ‘An Act Strengthening Compliance With Occupational Safety and Health Standards And Providing Penalties Thereof’ mandates employers and contractors to provide a safe and healthy workplace and that it gives employees the right to refuse to work in an unsafe workplace, there’s still an imperative to create a specific implementing rules and regulations of the law that governs this emergency scenario such as earthquakes,” the group said. - By Analou De Vera

Workers on heels

LAST week, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) did something right for long-term sufferers of pain caused by high heels. It asked the labor department to prohibit employers from requiring employees to wear heels, especially if they spend most of their hours on their feet.

According to news reports by GMA News and Philippine Daily Inquirer, ALU-TUCP was concerned that requiring workers to spend many hours standing in high-heeled shoes would cause them to suffer foot and leg pain, as well as increase the risk of workplace accidents. Now, a lot of us love our high heels. As part of the process of embracing middle age, I now spend most of my workdays in flats or other sensible shoes no more than two inches high.

But I still keep two pairs of three-inch heels for those days when pretending to be 5’8” makes an anxiety-inducing presentation go easier. Up until last year, I took 250 steps every hour, walking down stairs and office corridors, while wearing 3.5-inch wedges. (An admittedly impractical pair that I still have and love.) That continued until one day, SunStar Network Exchange Editor-in-Chief Nini Cabaero pointed out I should probably use safer footwear while chasing my daily step-count goals. (I elected not to say anything recently about her covetable boots.)

ALU-TUCP’s appeal is meant to benefit a different group of workers who, as part of their daily grind, spend long hours on their feet, like salesclerks, promo attendants, waitresses, and hotel receptionists. Apart from the absence of choice, another issue is business expense. When they require high heels as part of their workers’ uniform, how many employers have the good conscience to pay for at least part of the cost of that footwear?

Do they make sure that when employees pay for part of the cost of mandatory high heels through salary deductions, their daily pay does not dip below minimum wage? There are other good reasons to require sensible shoes. Restaurant workers, for instance, may be asked to wear slip-resistant shoes, lest they tumble and accidentally fling a cleaver at one of the chef’s vital organs. Concern for workers’ comfort is another.

A study published in March 2012 by the Journal of Applied Physiology said that long-term use of high heels “may compromise muscle efficiency in walking and is consistent with reports that high heel wearers often experience discomfort and muscle fatigue.” Before they reached that conclusion, researchers Neil Cronin, Rod Barrett and Christopher Carty observed 19 participants, of whom nine had spent at least 40 hours a week, for at least two years, shod in two-inch heels. My argument for prohibiting a high-heel requirement at work has to do with honesty.

Requiring grocery checkout clerks and sales staff to stand in heels for much of their day raises an obvious irony. It is the false elevation of a class of workers whose pay and benefits linger on the lowest rungs of the country’s corporate ladders. Now if a worker chooses to spend the day in heels, then more power to her. (Or him, for that matter.) But there’s a word for employers who require lowly-paid staff to spend their days in impractical and painful shoes: these people are the real heels. By ISOLDE D. AMANTE (On Twitter: @isoldeamante) - SunStar

Read more: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2017/08/13/amante-heels-558140
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TUCP urges gov't to revive safety patrol in worksites

MANILA, Philippines - Labor group Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa (TUCP-Nagkaisa) urged the government to revive the tripartite safety patrol and conduct surprise inspections in all construction work sites particularly government-funded projects nationwide.

During the Construction Industry Tripartite Council (CITC) meeting on Tuesday, TUCP-Nagkaisa spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said it is alarming that all of the 112 workplaces inspected by the safety patrol in 2012 in Metro Manila, Regions, 3, 4-A, 7 and 11 have no trained safety officers.

He said that all sites inspected also have no functioning health and safety committees, no records of accidents and illnesses, no health personnel as well as health services, and no provision for sufficient and appropriate personal protective equipment.

The CITC is composed of labor groups, workers’ association, contractors and steered by the government. It tackles issues and concerns involving construction industry and recommends industry policies to the government and to the legislature.

Composed of employers’ group, labor unions and government’s occupational safety and health officers, the safety patrol was created by the department order of the Department of Labor and Employment in 2012, invoking the visitorial and enforcement prerogatives of the Secretary of Labor as mandated by the Labor Code of the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the Associated Labor Unions, said the revival of safety patrol will minimize workplace accidents.

"It is because whenever there are mishaps in the workplace, it’s the construction workers who are the ultimate loser--- they end up dead or disabled physically. But accidents can be minimized if government enforce the law and employers comply with the standards on a regular basis," Seno said.

He said the breakdown of labor standards at the construction workplace was highlighted by a blatant violation by the project owners and the project contractors over the collapse of wall of a warehouse building in Barangay Ilang-ilang in Guiguinto, Bulacan on January 19.

The accident left 12 construction workers dead, including a wife and a child, and injured three others.

Two weeks later the Bulacan building mishap, two workers were killed and eleven others were injured when the installed formworks above them collapsed while a ramp is being built in a building at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City. - By Denis Carcamo (philstar.com)

Campaigners in the Phillippines call for lead convention update

Labour and environmental groups in the Philippines are demanding greater protection for workers, children and the general public against the dangers of exposure to lead-based paints.

The groups, which include the EcoWaste Coalition and the Associated Labor Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), are demanding that the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) White Lead (Painting) Convention C013, which first entered into force in 1923, be updated to make it applicable to all lead pigments and dryers, ready-to-use paints, as well as to exterior applications.

“It’s been over nine decades since C013 entered into force and lead poisoning via exposure to lead contaminated paint chips, dust as well as products such as toys remains a huge threat for the health of children and workers in many countries,” said Allan Tanjusay, spokesman and policy advocacy officer, ALU-TUCP. - chemicalwatch