Workers fear ‘endo’ vow now on the back burner

Labor groups are seeing their hope for an end to contractualization—as what President Duterte committed on several occasions since the campaign period—dim by the day, especially with the Chief Executive opting to evade the labor issue in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) on Monday.

For Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III, however, the President has already fulfilled his promise of ending “illegal contractualization”.

“What is left now is the issue on contractualization, because what the workers wanted is that there is total prohibition,” he said. “But we told them that it is not possible because there is a law that allows employers to get contractual workers,” he added. For example, he said, if an employer wanted to get a security guard for his company, he could hire one from a manpower agency. Also, if a company wanted to get janitors, it could hire from an agency. “We cannot tell employers to stop it because we have a law on that,” he added.

But the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) and Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) disagree, which is why they were disappointed when Duterte did not mention in his second Sona how he intends to put an end to the practice of fixed-term employment. Moreover, theKMU said it is becoming obvious the President will not be able to junk contractualization under his six-year term.

“I don’t find any concrete and substantial commitment with regard to labor issues and other important issues of the masses. The President’s Sona is not for the common people,” KMU Chairman Elmer C. Labog told the BusinessMirror.

ALU-TUCP Spokesman Alan A. Tanjusay said they are still hoping for the issuance an executive order (EO) banning contractualization as a mode of employment. “Of course, [we still expect him to end contractualization], not only because ALU-TUCP wanted it, but, most important, because he promised it,” Tanjusay told the BusinessMirror.

However, Tanjusay said as much as ALU-TUCP wanted to give the Chief Executive time to resolve the labor issue, it wonders how long should workers wait for labor reforms to be enacted.

“We are willing to give him the time he said he would need in delivering the promises he made to the Filipino people, but how long are we going to wait? Until when will the workers have to hope in him?” Tanjusay added.

Duterte, during the campaign, vowed to outlaw contractualization—particularly the hiring practice known as endo—a promise that earned him the support of several labor groups. However, a year after and two Sona later, Duterte has yet to comply with the appeal of the labor movement for an EO scrapping contractualization.

What labor groups got, instead, was a department order issued in March by Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III imposing tighter regulations on contractual arrangements. Labor groups and economists have since criticized Bello’s order, saying it was redundant with existing laws and it oversimplifies the labor market.

Striking while the iron is hot, labor groups demanded one after the other reforms under the Duterte administration, including a P184 across-the-board wage increase for Metro Manila-based workers, after getting the Chief Executive’s commitment to end contractualization.

Much to the labor groups’ dismay, however, Duterte made no mention of scrapping fixed-term employment and increasing wages in his second Sona. On top of this, Malacañang has yet to divulge any information on the status of the draft EO seeking to scrap contractualization submitted by ALU-TUCP on May 9.

But Bello insisted that there is no more endo (or end of contract), a term referring to the practice of employers to hire employees on repeated five-month contracts to go around the law requiring them to hire on a regular basis any employee who has worked for them for six months.

“Endo has stopped, because the President has already told employers and managers to stop,” Bello said, noting that “when the President said there would be no more contractualization, what he meant was that there would be no more illegal contractualization”.

He said they have corrected this practice in some big companies, such as in the country’s leading chain of supermalls, “where we asked the management to regularize their salesgirls, for instance, because the salesgirls are necessary workers in the malls”.

He said the SM Group has committed to comply, “but only gradually”, the same request made by leading food chains, citing the huge number of their workers.

Jollibee, for instance, has more than 50,000 workers “and has asked that they be allowed to gradually implement regularization”.

However, Bello admitted that there were still many shopping malls, department stores and food chains that continue to violate the law on contractualization.

So far, the labor department has monitored the regularization of 61,000 contractual workers in a span of one year, or since the President announced the end of the practice of endo. - By Elijah Felice Rosales With Manuel Cayon / Business Mirror


http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/workers-fear-endo-vow-now-on-the-back-burner/

Martial law extension or expansion will be a very expensive, unproductive experiment

The battle of Marawi has already entered its 9th week. And it won't be over until everything gets back to normal.  In fact, it is the normalization and rehabilitation part of this conflict which is a bigger war to win since failure in this aspect, we believe, will only create more conflict in this highly stratified region of the country.

We anticipate, though, that Marawi will ultimately fall back into the hands of our government forces.  War ultimately ends even without a victor. What it leaves, definitely, are the enormous humanitarian costs that will be very difficult to measure.  The Marawi war has already claimed at least 500 lives and created more than 200,000 bakwits.  Thousands of livelihoods were also lost as the city was razed into the ground by aerial bombings and fierce ground battles. Furthermore, the declaration of martial law has endangered civilians' free exercise of human rights in the entire island of Mindanao.

The Supreme Court has already ruled on the legality of the declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao but the 60-day duration of Proclamation 216 is set to expire on July 22, 2017.  Hence, the President, Congress and the entire nation now face a bothering question on whether the Martial Law in Mindanao should be extended or be expanded to cover the entire Philippines.  The House leadership, when asked, is even willing to extend and expand Martial Law for the entire term of the President or until 2022.

NAGKAISA labor coalition declares its opposition to the extension or expansion of Martial Law based on the following grounds: 

1.     It is not necessary;

2.     It will be very expensive;  

3.     It is unproductive and is a disincentive to economic progress;

4.     It weakens our democratic institutions; and

5.     It strengthens the hands of the totalitarians.

We find no compelling reason to warrant its extension or expansion at this point in time.  We believe that lawlessness in many forms can be addressed by a highly professional and effective military/police leadership. Ensuring professionalism and quality armed services is where Presidential powers are best exercised.  

Furthermore, extending this kind of war for a much longer time and carried out on a nationwide scale will become a very expensive experiment for a country whose development is highly dependent on loans and regressive taxes. It is therefore unacceptable to see the proposed expansion of VAT and imposition of excise taxes on oil, automobiles and sugar drinks funding not a social program but infrastructure for war. 

Lastly, it will be very unproductive for the President to spend his remaining years in office for this costly war.  War is both destruction and political distraction.  It neither creates nor equally redistributes social wealth that is now concentrated in the hands of oligarchs.

The President, in other words, has a better war to wage and win against contractualization, low wages, and high prices of basic goods and services.  If you want peace, Mr. President, build social justice and economic inclusion first. 

Dito ka namin gustong maramdaman.

Labor hopes for abolition of job contractualization

GRASSROOTS workers remain hopeful that President Rodrigo Duterte will address their concerns in his coming second State-of-the-Nation Address, particularly their long demand for the abolition of work contractualization.

Taking the cudgels for the estimated 25 to 30 million contractual workers, the group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP), in a statement over the weekend, called on the President to address the issues of unemployment and underemployment, and the falling buying power of the existing daily minimum wage.

"The Duterte one-year honeymoon period with the people is over. It is now time for action. Grassroots workers and their families want to know from the President the Duterte roadmap to address falling wages, joblessness and underemployment with five years left in his term. We want to know [his]plan on how to make economic growth benefit workers who helped built that wealth and how he intends to accomplish them," ALU spokesman Alan Tanjusay said.

The ALU-TUCP is the biggest workers' organization in the country registered with the Department of Labor and Employment.

Although majority of its members come from the banking, manufacturing, services and agricultural sectors, it also has members in the public sector and the informal-economy sector.

According to the group, there are close to 12 million unemployed and underemployed individuals while the purchasing power of the daily pay fell from 24 percent to 27 percent in highly urbanized Metro Manila and in 16 other regions nationwide in view of a 3.4 percent inflation rate announced by the government in March this year.

It said short-term endo (end of contract) or contractualized workers, numbering 25 to 30 million working in hotels, restaurants, malls, factories and plantations nationwide are hopeful that the President would come up with an Executive Order (EO) that outlaws the temporary work arrangement.

In his May 1 Labor Day speech, Duterte asked workers for time on his campaign promise to abolish job contractualization, asking the Nagkaisa labor coalition group to draft for him to sign an EO that obliges direct-hiring, does away with labor contractors and cooperatives and eradicates fixed-term employment.

"The rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer because workers' wages and benefits are inadequate. There are no new decent jobs created and if there are jobs, they carry no security of tenure and skills and jobs are mismatched. There is no trickle-down effect. There is no genuine progress because of these inequalities," Tanjusay said. - BY WILLIAM DEPASUPIL, The Manila Times

Labor union to wage board, employers: Try living on P357 a day

The P491 minimum wage in Metro Manila has a real value of only P357, based on National Wages and Productivity Commission data

SEEKING JOBS. Unemployed Filipinos at a job fair. Rappler file photo

MANILA, Philippines – Labor unions expressed their growing frustration to the wage-setting board as they again appealed for a minimum wage hike during a public consultation on Thursday, July 6.

Associated Labor Unions (ALU) spokesperson Alan Tanjusay even posed a challenge to members of the tripartite wage board of the National Capital Region (NCR), which is composed of representatives from the labor sector, employers, and the government.

In presenting ALU's proposal, Tanjusay said they are just asking the tripartite wage board to restore the purchasing value of the P491 minimum wage. Data from the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) show it currently has a real value of P357.

"Imagine P357, pagkakasyahin mo. Hinahamon ko po ang miyembro ng wage board, subukan po kaya natin na i-challenge na mabuhay ng P357 sa isang araw," Tanjusay told the board.

(Imagine you'll have to budget P357. I challenge the members of the wage board, try living on P357 a day.)

He stressed that this amount is not only for a single person but for a family of 5 people.

"How will this affect our workers? They'll be forced to buy the cheapest food for their family. That means less nutritious food for you and your family," he added in Filipino. (READ: Is the minimum wage enough for a day's worth of nutritious meals?)

Petitions

ALU is seeking a P184 across-the-board wage hike nationwide. Other groups such as the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) are asking for a P259 increase while the Association of Minimum Wage Earners and Advocates (AMWEA) wants the minimum wage to be raised to P1,200 in 4 tranches.

"This wage increase petition, it's the only hope of the workers to augment their earnings," said TUCP's Raffy Mapalo.

While the wage board secretariat said the Philippines has the highest minimum wage among its Southeast Asian counterparts, Mapalo argued that this information should be assessed vis-à-vis the real needs of workers.

"Let us look beyond the wage but the prices of commodities in each country and the productivity of the Filipino workers," he said.

All 3 groups lamented that previous increases have ranged from just P10 to P15.

Tanjusay said ALU filed its petition "in protest," accusing the board of not being responsive to workers' needs. He stressed their call to abolish the regional wage-setting scheme and establish a national board to set a uniform wage. (READ: Is it time for a national minimum wage?)

Management side

Board Chairperson Johnson Cañete said they will be taking note of the sentiments of the workers, but would still have to consult with other stakeholders before deciding. The board will have a consultation with employers on July 14 and another dialogue with the labor groups on July 27.

"We will also be looking into how much can be given," Cañete told Rappler in an interview after the consultation. "The employers should be able to afford the petition of the workers. We should balance the interests."

The board's employer representative Vicente Leogardo Jr, who is also the director-general of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), said granting the wage hike would afftect micro, small, and medium enterprises the most, which comprise 91% of businesses in the country.

Meanwhile, for ECOP president Donald Dee, both employers and workers should think outside the box in resolving the wage issue.

Dee told Rappler that he has crafted a "social contract" with labor groups that would "increase the purchasing power of the peso."

The contract includes a commitment to construct a dormitory for workers paid for by employers so they don't have to spend on daily transportation. They will also be jointly asking the government to provide free Wi-Fi and equalize the power rates of factories inside and outside special economic zones.

"In a month or so we will be signing a new social contract with the labor groups... We will be submitting to the government, part of our commitment voluntarily working together. We are proposing to the government, we're doing these things but they must act," said Dee.

While amenable to this agreement, ALU-TUCP is still banking on the approval of their proposal to provide a P500 subsidy to minimum wage earners.

Tanjusay said President Rodrigo Duterte has agreed to this scheme. The workers have already submitted a proposal to the Department of Budget and Management on how this can be operationalized. – Rappler.com