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

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

02 March 2018

Advisory: Press conference to kick off Women's Month Celebrations

Request for Coverage

What: To set off women’s month and on the road to March 8, International Women’s Day, feminists will express their opposition to Charter Change and other policies aggravating violence against women in a press conference.

Who: Leaders of World March of Women who will present data and call for jobs and justice while condemning the rising misogyny in the country, the extra-judicial killings in both urban and rural areas, mining and the violence of poverty due to TRAIN and unending “ENDO.”

When: TODAY, March 2, 10am-12 Noon

Where: Kenny Roger’s, Matalino St., Central District, QC

Media Advisory: Women workers kickoff Women's Month celebrations

EO vs endo pushed in nationwide rallies at DOLE offices

Workers are holding simultaneous rallies at DOLE offices in key cities as part of a campaign by labor groups who are calling for the signing of an executive order (EO) to abolish contractualization. Members of Partido Manggagawa (PM) and the labor coalition Nagkaisa are picketing this morning the DOLE offices in Intramuros, Calamba, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod and Davao City.

In a dialogue between labor groups and President Duterte this month, the latter promised to make a decision by March 15 on the former's lobby for an anti-endo EO.  Rene Magtubo, PM chair and spokesperson of Nagkaisa said that “President Duterte won on a campaign platform of abolishing contractualization. Two long years have passed and the promise remains unfulfilled. Duterte criticizes EDSA for its broken promises but his own vow to end endo remains unrealized.”

The rallies will also call on the Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to act on major labor disputes at firms Lakepower, Coke and Philippine Airlines. Last week the DOLE main office was rocked by rallies of workers of electronics firm Lakepower Converter and employees of Coke. Women workers of Lakepower in Cavite ecozone have been on strike for more than two months now. They are calling on the office of the Labor Secretary to intervene to resolve the protracted dispute. The workers are calling for a stop to the termination and suspension of union officers and members. The dispute has become a litmus test of freedom of association at ecozones.

Last year, the DOLE released a new department order on contractulization called DO 174. “DO 174 however is no different from previous orders which allow contractualization, and give wide latitude to capitalists to subcontract and replace regular employees with contractual workers. Thus we are asking President Duterte to issue an EO to implement his campaign promise of ending contractualization,” Magtubo explained.

The Philippine Airlines union PALEA is also asking the Secretary Bello to expedite the labor inspection report on the use of contract workers in the national flag carrier. Last year, the DOLE conducted a labor inspection of Philippine Airlines and its sister company PAL Express. PALEA, which observed the inpection process as the duly accredited union, insists that the assessment uncovered clear acts of illegal labor-only contracting in the outsourcing program of PAL and PAL Express.

“Massive subcontracting and outsourcing at PAL that has reduced its plantilla of regular workers and bloated its army of contractual workers is not different from PLDT which the DOLE already found as guilty of illegal contracting,” argued Magtubo. The DOLE has also released an order to regularize 8,000 workers and pay millions in money claims.

Photos can be accessed at:

https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/10156042273339323

https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/10156042320789323

https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/10156042324344323

The failures of Edsa must not lead to the establishment of another dictatorship

PM is joining Kalipunan ng mga Kilusang Masa (Kalipunan) in todays march of basic sectors to the People Power Monument. 

Edsa failed on many respect. But such failures must not suit the agenda of building another dictatorship. 

Edsa failed because real political and economic power, during the last 32 years, remained captured by the elite. The people, therefore, have the right and reason to seek redress and more so demand changes in their present condition of living under poverty and inequality. But such change we never envisioned to be lead by Duterte minions in Congress led by Pantaleon Alvarez. 

Changing the constitution or restoring another type of dictatorship was never our demand. Surveys likewise reveal that charter change is never the top concerns of Filipinos. It was never the call of our workers during the last three decades. The government, past and present, were aware of these demands such as ending endo and realizing the principle of living wage yet no change is happening. And those who push for charter change today were the same powers who deny workers the free exercise of their rights to decent work and human rights. 

Hence, on the occasion of the 32^nd anniversary of Edsa People Power, we reiterate our position that what ails this nation is not form of government but class rule. The revolution, therefore, is still alive. Change we will.

25 February 2018