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| Photo by Rappler |
The mass of Filipino workers will look
back and remember 2019 as the year that President Duterte’s famous promise to
end endo dies ignominiously. With the stroke of his presidential veto of the
Security of Tenure bill, Duterte shamelessly killed his pledge to abolish
contractualization. End endo became another victim of EJK under the
administration.
The dispute around the Security of
Tenure bill pales in comparison to other labor related issues in 2019 like the
expanded maternity bill (EML) or the influx of Chinese workers. While there
were debates between workers’ and employers’ group about EML benefits, such
reforms were low hanging fruits in contrast to the long-running struggle around
contractualization.
Since the time that Duterte vowed to end
endo during the campaign period up to the eve of the presidential veto,
millions of workers held on to belief that those words would become deeds. For
four long years, the labor movement engaged with the government for the
implementation of the promise. Through the twists and turns of the campaign
against contractualization, labor groups kept up the pressure.
It took more than a year into the
administration’s term for DO 174 to be released by the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE). Since DO 174 merely recycled the provisions of Aquino’s DO
18-A, the labor coalition Nagkaisa instead directly petitioned Duterte for a
new rule that will make regular jobs the norm in employment relations. Thus
came EO 51 in May 2018 which again fell short of workers’ demands. Upon the
labor movement’s sustained demand, Duterte called on Congress in his 2018 SONA
to pass the Security of Tenure bill on the argument that only a revision of the
law could implement his promise. Then an open letter by all the employers
associations appealed to Duterte to veto the bill. On the eve of the Security
of Tenure bill lapsing into law last July, Duterte heeded the employers’ call
and betrayed his promise to workers.
Pundits may say that it was too much for
the labor movement to actually expect that such a radical populist promise will
actually be fulfilled. As the saying goes, nangako na nga, gusto nyo pa
tuparin. But for Partido Manggagawa, Duterte’s fake promise—which unfortunately
the masses of workers believed in—can only be exposed not through denunciations
but through experience. Thus the whole campaign to demand the realization of
Duterte’s end endo promise ended in the veto but it also led to a significant
drop in his popularity. In a Pulse Asia survey, Duterte’s performance ratings
dropped by seven points from June to September 2019.
Despite the veto, the labor movement
should be relentless in the end endo campaign in the coming year. But the
anchor of the continued campaign will not anymore be the broken promise of
Duterte but the real movement of contractual workers demanding regularization. In
the last few years, labor unrest has been on the rise with the number of strike
notices and actual strikes increasing. A majority of these labor disputes are
due to regularization. Besides high profile cases like the NutriAsia, PLDT and
Philippine Airlines, there are lesser known struggles by workers of the Sejung
garments factory in Cavite and ES Transport firm in Cubao whose issues include
regularization. Workers in Sejung spent their holidays on the picketlines while
the workers in ES Transport had to end their strike due a mysterious assumption
of jurisdiction order served on December 22 despite being a Sunday.
Encouraged by the presidential promise
of end endo and the labor movement’s visible campaign, workers in these firms
have not waited for the reforms from above but instead are claiming their
rights by action from below. It is upon these grassroots initiatives and
struggles, that the labor movement should base its campaign to abolish
contractualization in 2020 and beyond.
Aside from the fight against
contractualization, the labor movement should also open a new front in 2020—the
struggle to end regional wages. Duterte again made a promise—not as prominent
as end endo—but a pledge nonetheless to stop ‘provincial rates.’
In July this year, DOLE announced that
it will undertake a study on the propriety of the regional wage system given
the demand for wage increases and the clamor against provincial rates. Partido
Manggagawa has consistently asserted that regional rates are a system to cheapen
wages and boost profits. Thus wages in the NCR are double the rates in ARMM
despite the fact that the price differential is nowhere as large. In
Calabarzon, there are different wage rates even among contiguous cities and
municipalities even though the cost of living is basically the same throughout
the region.
Unfortunately, DOLE’s study of regional
wages has been outsourced to UP’s School of Economics (UPSE) which is a known
bastion of the neoliberal doctrine of the so-called free market. It is entirely
possible that the DOLE-UPSE study will end up recommending not just the
abolition of regional wages but also minimum wages itself. If so, this will
mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Minimum wages have served as protection
for workers since its enactment in 1936. President Quezon’s social justice
program was an evident response to the labor and agrarian unrest of the period.
At present, the minimum wage is not just the floor but it is also the average
wage rate in country. Due to union decline and low collective bargaining
coverage, wages above the minimum are an exception rather than the rule.
A Department of Finance study has
revealed that from 2001 to 2016, labor productivity has doubled but real wages
have remained stagnant despite repeated nominal wage orders by regional boards.
In other words, the pie has become bigger but capitalists have monopolized the
fruits of workers’ labor.
It is high time that the system of wage
fixing be fixed. Thus PM’s call to abolish the regional wage boards and setup a
National Wage Commission with the mandate to set a national minimum wage at the
level of the cost of living. This will be in consonance with the Constitutional
provision for a living wage. Next year, the fight for a living wage should
begin in earnest.
December 29, 2019
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