Gov’t workers hail Senate passage of ILO convention

ILO Convention 151 protects government workers' rights to organize and negotiate employment conditions

FRONTLINER. DSWD staff accepting requests for assistance at the agency's crisis intervention unit. Photo by Patty Pasion/Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – Government employees applauded the Senate’s ratification of the 3-decade old convention that aims to protect their rights, seeing this as the key to further their campaign against government rightsizing and regularization of contractual workers.

Confederation for Unity Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage) vice president Santiago Dasmariñas said that the Interntional Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 151 would oblige the government to allow workers to unionize and negotiate employment terms.

“Aside from the national laws, we now have an international law that is specific for the public sector. Through this, the ILO can now call on the government just like what it does for the private sector [workers],” Santiago said in a phone interview with Rappler on Monday, August 14.

Courage is the umbrella organization of the labor unions in different government agencies. It has been active in pushing for the ratification of the ILO Convention 151 since 1978.

The treaty is the counterpart of ILO Conventions 87 and 98, which assures private sector workers with the right to organize and the right to collective bargaining.

Santiago explained that while collective bargaining occurs between unions and their public sector employers, it is only limited to benefits and other rights. Salary rate is not included because it is dependent on Congress and the Salary Standardization Law.

Slow compliance

Despite this, workers still call on the government's compliance to the treaty. Manny Baclagon, president of the social welfare department’s Social Welfare Employees Association of the Philippines (SWEAP) said that it takes time for government to comply with treaties like this.

“Nasa Saligang Batas na natin iyang right to unionize. Nasa Article 13. Dapat lang hinihiling lang namin kahit di immediate compliance kundi progressive realization nung mga rights na sinasabi nila,” he said.

(The right to unionize is included in our Constitution. It’s in Article 13. What we are asking is the progressive realization of the rights mentioned if they cannot immediately comply with it.)

Among the rights they clamor for is the right to conduct strikes and the right to security of tenure. The treaty urges the government to grant the workers their general civil and political rights aside from the right to organize and collective bargaining.

Regularization of workers has been a big concern for contractual members of the bureaucracy fearing they will be the first casualties of the efforts to streamline the government through the rightsizing bill. (READ: Contractual frontliners vulnerable to effects of gov't rightsizing)

Out of the 2.4 million workers in government, a quarter or 595,162 are under job order and contract of services arrangements.

“This just adds basis for workers to defend their rights. Like the proposal to streamline the bureaucracy, the convention may be a way of counteracting that because it recognizes civil and political rights [of the workers],” explained Gene Niperos of the Alliance of Health Workers.

“It can be interpreted as liberally as possible [as long as it’s] in the context of social justice,” he added.

End endo

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) also hailed the success of their counterparts in the public sector.

“We are the first Asian nation to ratify this ILO convention and by this ratification we bind ourselves to the right of government workers to unionize. Public sector unionism can only mean a stronger, more assertive civil service,” said TUCP Vice President Luis Corral in a message to Rappler.

It was President Rodrigo Duterte who endorsed the ratification of the convention to the Senate in May this year. TUCP is now looking forward that the President will take action on the measures seeking to end contractualization in the country.

“We await for the Presidential certification of HB 444 and major amendments to cure Department Order 174. This is crucial to ensuring endo will finally end as promised by Duterte,” he said. – Rappler.com / Patty Pasion @pattypasion

DoLE’s move to review high-heel policy lauded

A labor group on Sunday lauded the pronouncement of the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) that it is now considering regulating the mandatory wearing of high-heeled footwear in workplaces.

The Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) said the proposal is a significant step for the government towards improving the working condition of workers, who are required to wear high heels by their management.

“The ALU-TUCP commends the swift action made by DoLE on a request made by salesladies to do away with the wearing of high heel shoe because it causes pain and exposes them to the risk of sliding, falling, and tripping off,” ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said in a statement.

ALU-TUCP is against the mandatory wearing of high heels due to its supposed negative effects to the posture of its users.

“Most of these salesladies have been enduring the pain and the risks caused by wearing high heels shoes for the entire period of the shift for many years because they will be fired whenever they complain against it,” Tanjusay said.

Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III said he has already created a technical working group to conduct a study and stake holder consultation to craft a new policy that will regulate the use of high heels.

Tanjusay said they will continue to monitor the developments on Bello’s proposal.

“ALU-TUCP envision a policy that cover not only salesladies but promodizers in supermarkets, waitresses, hotel and restaurant receptionists, flight attendants and lady security guard,” Tanjusay said. - By: Samuel Medenilla / Tempo

Labor task force to meet ​on ​rest periods to mall employees

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III (davaotoday.com)

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the labor department is coming up with an administrative order to direct all business establishment to grant rest periods for salesgirls including male employees.

In an interview at the sidelines of the opening of the One-Stop Service Center for Overseas Filipino Workers in Gaisano Mall here Friday, Bello said the technical working group will meet on Tuesday, Aug. 15 to come up with a recommendation which will be the basis of the order.

“During their period of working they should be allowed rest time. Pumunta ka dun sa SM, walang saleslady na nakaupo, puro nakatindig yan. So hindi lang alisin yung requirement of high heels, we should also allow our salesgirls and security guards and other male workers some rest time,” Bello said.

He said in a span of an hour salesgirls or personnel who are commonly required to stand for a long period of time during their duty should be given “five to 10 minutes rest time” every hour.

“Depende kung gusto nila palabasin muna yung workers kung san sila pwede magrest ang importante allow them some period of resting (It depends on employers whether they want to allow the workers to go out to where they could rest, the important thing is they will be given some period of resting),” Bello said.

Meanwhile, the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) lauded DOLE for acting swiftly on the concerns of the salesladies.

Bello on Thursday ordered the DOLE’s Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC), the Bureau of Working Conditions (BWC) and the Bureau of Special Working Concerns (BSWC) to come up immediately with a policy in view of an occupational safety and health hazards faced by salesladies in wearing high-heel shoes and giving rest periods to both male and female security guards and salespersons.

ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said the most of the workers were employed as short-term contractual employees.

“Most of these salesladies have been enduring the pain and the risks caused by wearing high heels shoes for the entire period of the shift for many years because they will be fired whenever they complain against it. Apart from having no security of tenure, they have no union to help them improve their plight,” Tanjusay said.

The ALU-TUCP last week urged the DOLE to draft a policy forbidding employers nationwide from requiring women employees to wear high heel shoes at work because it poses danger to their safety and health in the absence of a government regulation.

Tanjusay said the ALU-TUCP envision a policy that cover not only salesladies but promodizers in supermarkets, waitresses, hotel and restaurant receptionists, flight attendants and lady security guards. - ZEA IO MING C. CAPISTRANO (davaotoday.com)

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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