Hike Citira aid for displaced workers—group

Inquirer photo

The country’s largest labor group on Sunday demanded the allocation of more government funds for workers who may be displaced by the passage of a bill that mandates the rationalization of fiscal incentives.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said the proposed P500-million government aid for workers that may lose their jobs due to the Corporate Income Tax and Incentives Rationalization Act (Citira) is “too small.”

“The P500 million yearly budget for Citira-displaced workers is highly insufficient compared with the day-to-day expenses amid rising cost of living created by the TRAIN [Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion] law,” said TUCP President Raymond Mendoza in a statement.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said the amount will be used for the skills training of the affected workers. Salceda said last month that the money is not needed as the passage of Citira will not result in job losses.

A business group estimated over 700,000 workers will be retrenched if the Citira bill is enacted as it will remove fiscal incentives in economic zones in exchange for lower corporate income taxes (CIT).

Government officials are mum on the possible displacement of workers following the passage of the bill, but they said the measure will generate 1.5 million in “net employment.”

The TUCP criticized the administration for its “cavalier response” to the issue, which could affect the employment of thousands of workers.

“Our white-collared [Department of] Finance people are again deliberately playing dice on the lives of workers and their families by dangling an annual budget provisions for displaced workers and by sugarcoating Citira with a million jobs it will supposedly create,” Mendoza said.

He called on the government to conduct more public consultations, which should include labor groups, before the measure is approved by Congress.

Mendoza said issues that should be clarified during the consultations are the budget that should be allocated for workers that may be displaced by Citira as well as the number of companies and workers that may be affected by the measure.

The TUCP said the administration should come up with a “genuine transition program” for the affected workers.
‘Wider income gap’

The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) said the Citira bill, formerly known as the Trabaho (Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities) bill, will worsen inequality in the country.

FDC said the government is giving businesses a tax gift in the form of the reduction in corporate income taxes. This is “regressive taxation” which punishes the poor who pays more due to the value-added tax (VAT) law and the TRAIN law.

This will increase inequality in the Philippines where the country’s Gini coefficient is already at 0.4439 as of 2015, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality where zero indicates perfect equality and 1, perfect inequality.

“As it is, the top 50 corporate families have wealth equivalent to .0000021 percent of the aggregate wealth of the 23 million families. The Philippines is clearly one of the most unequal societies of the world. With Citira, inequality will deepen further,” FDC Executive Director Zeena Bello Manglinong said in a statement.

Manglinong said the Department of Finance’s own data showed that the country loses P300 billion annually from foregone corporate income taxes.

FDC said Citira provisions on the reduction of CIT are “unnecessary and archaic, quick-fix scheme such as tax competition.”

It added that the claim of the government that the country’s CIT is the highest in the region is “inaccurate.”

“FDC research also shows that some claims of the government are not exactly accurate. Vietnam’s CIT is at 20 percent, but what is often failed to be mentioned is that this is merely a floor rate. Vietnam’s CIT rate goes as high as 32 percent to 50 percent, especially for oil, mining and gas companies,” the group said.

However, FDC said it agreed with the Citira provision of removing perpetual incentives to companies.

While fiscal incentives should not be forever and must be “performance-bound and time-bound” as well as “efficient,” the group said Citira’s “foreign direct investments-financed development paradigm” remains “dangerous” to the economy.

This, FDC said, must be replaced by one that is based on “high value-added, technology-enabled manufacturing and services sectors.”

“The Freedom from Debt Coalition believes that the way forward is an industrial policy that purposely builds up the capacity of domestic firms to develop and compete,” FDC said.

“This must also mean that our method of taxation must also follow suit. We cannot pretend that technocrats in government have the sole solution to issues plaguing our country. It is time that we step forward with an alternative,” it added. - By Samuel P. Medenilla & Cai U. Ordinario

TUCP party-list files security of tenure legislation as HB 4892

Philstar file photo

THE TRADE UNION Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) Party-list said it has filed its version of the Security of Tenure bill, one of various versions of the legislation in play seeking to end the practice of contractualization after a previous bill passed by Congress was vetoed.

TUCP Party-list Rep. Raymond C. Mendoza filed House Bill No. 4892 which if passed will be known as the Security of Tenure Act of 2019. It seeks to criminalize all forms of contractualization and ban all forms of fixed-term employment.

Contractualization, also known as “endo,” denies workers a pathway to permanent employment and benefits, typically by terminating employment before the 6-month deadline for achieving permanent status and forcing workers to sign up again also on a contract basis.

“The bill seeks to provide security of tenure to 9 million Filipino ‘endo’ workers who are being exploited today in a modern form of slave labor […] Endo workers experience not being paid the minimum wage, even as they go without social security, Philhealth and PAG-IBIG coverage. Further they are denied their Constitutional rights to organize and to bargain,” Mr. Mendoza said in a statement.

The measure aims to totally prohibit contracting, subcontracting, manpower agency hiring, and outsourcing, including those undertaken by so-called service cooperatives engaged in manpower supply.

“This Bill seeks to criminalize labor-only contracting which is already prohibited under our existing laws but is perpetually being circumvented to deprive workers of their Constitutionally-guaranteed rights to Security of Tenure,” according to the bill’s explanatory note.

Under the bill, all employees regardless of employment status or position cannot be dismissed without cause or due process.

The measure also provides that all employees, except those under probation, be considered regular including project-based and seasonal employees.

HB 4892 also prescribes fines of P50,000 to P5 million, and imprisonment of six months to one year for violators.

In his July 26 veto message to the Senate, President Rodrigo R. Duterte said that while he stands firm in his commitment to protect the workers’ right to security of tenure, the enrolled bill “unduly broadens” the scope of labor-only contracting, which is already banned by law. — Vince Angelo C. Ferreras

Fuel price hike to erode workers’ buying power – TUCP

Business World photo

The fuel price increase may trigger the erosion of the buying power of all workers, a labor group said Tuesday.

“The big-time fuel price increase will definitely impact the prices of goods and cost of services which will automatically lessen the purchasing power of wage,” said Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) president Raymond Mendoza in a statement.

“This natural increase in the prices of goods and services will be confounded by additional prices imposed by profiteers and profiteering activities who always exploit the weak enforcement of government regulation on prices of basic commodities and services,” Mendoza added.

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) slammed the oil price hike as “artificial, unwarranted, and unjustified.”

“The Duterte government is allowing big oil companies to use the attacks in Saudi Arabian oil companies, which can be fixed soon, and the long-standing trade war between US and China to implement a big-time oil price hike. The Oil Deregulation Law must be junked because it only feeds the greed of big oil companies. They are always using the international situation as an alibi,” said KMU secretary-general Jerome Adonis in a statement.

“We won’t take another series of OPH (oil price hike) sitting down while prices of basic commodities again go up. The Christmas season has practically started in the Philippines, and we don’t want manufacturing companies and supermarkets to get yet another excuse to raise the prices of their products during the run up to December. Neither, will we accept the attempts of the oil companies to justify oil price increases by saying, yet again, that global prices have also gone up. The government should confront the oil companies once and for all for jacking up their prices at the slightest excuse,” he added.

Julius Cainglet of the Federation of Free Workers said the oil price hike was grossly unfair to workers.

“They are raising oil prices on the basis of mere speculation. There should be enough buffer stock in the international market to stave off the price increases,” he said.

Rene Magtubo of the Partido ng Manggagawa said there should be no big-time price hike given that oil companies still have their reserves priced at a lower cost.

“Any big-time increase should be supported by the DOE’s assessment on the oil companies’ present oil reserves and costs. Absent this, big-time oil price hikes will be a windfall to oil companies but would bring about price hikes to basic goods that ordinary workers consumed,” he said.

Josua Mata of Sentro believes any additional oil price hike would be highly speculative.

“From what I gathered, the Saudi government is acting fast to rebuild their capacity, and they should be able to address the problem soon,” he said. - By Leslie Ann Aquino

Requiring permits not enough to protect construction workers —TUCP

Rescuer are busy as they search to retrieve a body believed to be trapped when a hotel being demolished in Malate Manila, eventually collapsed Monday morning.The incident killed two workers wounding several others. - Business Mirror photo

Issuing construction and demolition permits alone are not enough to ensure that the occupational safety of workers are given importance by contractors, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said on Tuesday.

TUCP made the statement following the death of two laborers when a Hotel Sogo building collapsed on Monday.

“This fatal Sogo construction site mishap with multiple deaths shows the repeating cycle of how city hall building permit officials and the Labor department regional officers are negligent in conducting onsite inspection and worksite visits before or after issuing building and demolition permits to building owners and contractors,” TUCP President Raymond Mendoza said in a statement.

According to the TUCP, at least 11 deaths have been recorded at various construction sites across the country from January to September 2019.

It cited the case of a construction worker who was killed in Manila in July after he was crushed by a falling crane pulley.

“Most building owners and contractors wanted to finish the project quickly as possible and at a low cost as possible and at the expense of the safety and well-being of construction workers," Mendoza said.

"Without government on-site inspections, fatal and death-causing accidents such as this Sogo hotel demolition incident happens,” he added.

“The TUCP ardently hopes that city hall officials and labor regional officers to be consistent in conducting worksite inspections to ensure building owners and contractors comply with the occupational safety and health standards that the building and demolition permits and clearances requires," Mendoza said.

On Monday, the collapse of a Sogo building under demolition in Malate, Manila killed two workers. Others sustained minor injuries.

Hotel Sogo assured that the demolition firm would assist the victims.

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday also ordered a "thorough" probe on the incident. By DONA MAGSINO, GMA News