DTI should impose its weight against rising inflation, not on labor

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The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should impose its weight against rising inflation rather than keeping the labor price low under the policy of contractualization.

The DTI has always been on the side of business, thus, when Secretary Ramon Lopez stated that contractualization “is not unfair to workers” he was essentially parroting the line of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) whose bottom line position on this issue is to keep the price of labor low to remain competitive. For DTI and ECOP, the best way to keep the price tag of labor low is to keep contractualization as the prevailing policy of the Duterte administration.

The labor movement has repeatedly rejected the “win-win” formula of DTI and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). Our bottom line is change: Direct hiring must be the new policy. This is the only way workers can actually enjoy their constitutional right to security of tenure. The DTI and DOLE position is for workers to enjoy security of tenure in their respective manning agencies and not in their principal employers as contained under Department Order 174 of DOLE. This “win-win solution” has led to a farcical situation where majority of the more than 45,000 workers reportedly “regularized” under DO 174 last year now find themselves “regularly employed” by agencies and not by the principal. The rule should be, as its name denotes, manpower agencies and other service providers should merely be treated as agents of the principals.

This is the main reason why we have been pushing for an Executive Order to correct this distortion and rectify decades of injustice imposed upon millions of workers. The Labor Secretary, and in this particular case, the President, can prohibit contractualizaton under the Labor Code.

Section 2 of the labor-proposed EO provides relief for this impasse as it states that: “Contracting or subcontracting when undertaken to circumvent the worker’s rights to security of tenure, self-organization and collective bargaining and peaceful concerted activities pursuant to the 1987 Philippine Constitution is hereby strictly prohibited. Security of tenure refers to the direct hiring relationship between the principal employer and employee.”

Contractualization under the proposed EO is still recognized. Only that the types of job that can be contracted out be done upon consultation with members of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC). What the DTI wants is to perpetuate the norm of contracting out almost all jobs in the guise of management’s exercise of their prerogative. This regime, for over two decades, led to a dramatic change in employment relations, with “middlemen employers” such as manning agencies and “labor cooperatives” dominating the trade.

This norm also has dissipated almost all rights guaranteed to workers by the constitution and labor laws, from security of tenure, right to organize, collectively bargain and to strike in accordance with law, and to be represented in the formulation of policies affecting their welfare.

Again, to DTI: Contractualization is not unfair to workers? It seems like this agency is now headed by a feudal lord.

Trading workers through manpower agencies who act as middlemen in a trilateral employment relationship is feudalism, which is clearly unjust. For more than two decades, this re-feudalization of labor has become the norm and keeping the policy will perpetuate this abominable condition of poverty and inequality amid economic growth.

Hence, when we stated that the buck stops now with the President, it is because we believe the impasse can be resolve in favor of justice. It’s either change as promised by the President, or business-as-usual as demanded by ECOP.

NAGKAISA Labor Coalition
Press Statement

Time is up: The buck stops now with the President on the issue of endo

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Contractualization was a top billing issue during the 2016 presidential election. And it was the President who made a campaign promise that the moment he becomes the Chief Executive, contractualization will stop. The trade union movement responded with enthusiasm and accorded the President the courtesy and latitude of managing his plans by participating in all the summits, workshops, and dialogues organized by the government on this issue.

Several times he asked leaders of Nagkaisa labor coalition that he be given more time to realize his pledge – the first was on February 27, 2017; then on May 1, 2017; and the last was on February 7, 2018 where he asked for another extension until March 15. On these occasions, President Duterte would always say that contractualization is anti-labor and anti poor as it brings in hardship and poverty upon millions of our workers.

Furthermore, it was also the President who asked Nagkaisa leaders during the Labor Day dialogue held in Davao last year to draft within 10 days an Executive Order (EO) that he can sign to correct the labor-rejected Department Order 174 issued by the Department of Labor and Empoyment (DOLE) in March last year and to rectify the more than two decades of failed framework of regulation. Nagkaisa religiously complied with all these processes and waited for the final response of the President.

Now, a few days before his self-imposed deadline and the President is no longer asking for time and more drafts but for a compromise. The buck stops now with President Duterte. The labor-drafted EO which seeks to bring back direct hiring and institutionalize prohibition as the general rule on contractualization but recognizes that there are types of jobs that can be contracted out as along as it passes through consultation with the National Tripartite and Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC) is the fairest middle ground or “compromise” that labor can take. A watered-down version of an EO is unacceptable.

NAGKAISA Labor Coalition
Press Statement

‘End workers’ insecurity’: Duterte urged anew to junk contractualization

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A labor group called on President Rodrigo Duterte to properly balance the interest of employment and capital in the country.

The call of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) on Tuesday was made after Duterte said that he needed more time to study the proposed executive order (EO) that aims to terminate contractualization.

ALU-TUCP also urged Duterte to sign the said EO, as all workers deserve the security of tenure as stated in the Constitution.

“Management prerogative is not unfettered. It is bound by the Constitution, the laws of the land, public policy, morals and simple decency. The Constitution is crystal clear: workers have the right of security of tenure,” Michael Mendoza, ALU-TUCP president, said in a statement.

“We call on the President to fulfil his promise to the workers to end the hopelessness and insecurity of millions,” he added.

Under the proposed EO, contractualizaton would only be allowed for some professions to be decided by the labor department and its council, the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council. /je - By: Faye Orellana - @inquirerdotnet

Labor groups hold picket outside Dole offices

For a cause. Members of labor groups in Cebu ask President Rodrigo Duterte to fulfill his campaign promise of ending contract-ualization in the country. (SunStar Photo/Amper Campaña)

A FEDERATION of labor groups called Nagkaisa held a synchronized rally in front of all Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) offices nationwide to lobby for the end of contractualization.

Art Barrit of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) and Dennis Derige of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said that President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to sign the executive order (EO) ending contractualization on or before March 15.

The labor groups believe that the issuance of the EO is long overdue, considering that ending contractualization in the country was a campaign promise of President Rodrigo Duterte in the May 2016 election. “I think this is just a pencil-pushing activity but this a coordinated nationwide mass action by a united labor front under Nagkaisa.

The President must sign that EO to end contractualization on or before March 15 because that is long overdue,” Barrit said.

He said Duterte promised to end 50 percent of contractualization in the country by the end of 2016 and the remaining half by the end of 2017.

Derige, for his part, said that once Duterte signs the EO, there will be no more fixed-term employment and labor-only contracting in several companies will be stopped. “There will be direct hiring and the companies are mandated to comply with all the benefits for them like Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth and Pag-ibig Fund since they are regular employees,” he said.

According to Derige, Dole’s Department Order (DO) 174 issued last year, which provided guidelines on contracting and subcontracting, was good that an issuance of EO will no longer be needed. But he said the DO was a failure. “It seems that our Dole Secretary Silvestre Bello III has a balancing act due to the lobby of the business sector,” he said.

Barrit said there are two versions of the EO submitted to Duterte, that of Dole and the labor groups. The latter, they believe favors the businessmen. Dole 7 Director Cyril Ticao, when sought for comment, said that he didn’t know about this since all documents are prepared by their legal department. (EOB)- SunStar