Photo from Pag-ibig |
The militant labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM)
slammed Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma’s rationale for excluding workers’
representatives in the newly created Inter-Agency Committee for the Protection
of the Freedom of Association and Right to Organize of Workers.
“Secretary Laguesma wants the accused to be the
judge in labor rights cases. If we follow Laguesma’s faulty logic that
complainants cannot be the judge then more so the accused. Laguesma’s
logic betrays his class war framework that pays lip service to social dialogue
principles. The demand that workers’ representatives sit in the Inter-Agency
Committee is aligned with the normative tenet of tripartism in resolving labor
cases and disputes,” stated Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.
On the eve of Labor Day, an Executive Order signed
by President Bongbong Marcos created the Inter-Agency Committee with Executive
Secretary Lucas Bersamin as chair, Laguesma as vice chair and includes other
government agencies but excludes trade unions and employers’ groups. The
security sector, specifically the Department of National Defense, National
Security Council and the Philippine National Police, sits in the Inter-Agency
Committee.
“Security forces are the usual respondents, along
with several employers, in the 380 cases involving killings, abductions,
arrests, harassments and red-tagging of unionists detailed in the report of the
workers to the International Labour Organization’s High-Level Tripartite
Mission (ILO HLTM) last January,” Magtubo elaborated.
He added that “Laguesma’s slip is showing. What can
workers expect from a Labor Secretary that makes lame excuses for banning trade
unions? This behavior may be expected of the government’s security forces but
cannot be the attitude of a Labor Secretary.”
The creation of the Inter-Agency Committee was the
government response to the ILO HLTM recommendations. The annual ILO conference
next month will consider if the Philippine government had adequately responded
to the recommendations.
Magtubo insisted that “We ask the government to
heed fully the ILO HLTM recommendations, especially for a Presidential
Commission that includes workers’ representatives. The clock is ticking as the
ILO annual conference is due to open in a month’s time.”
Some 10,000 workers in last Monday’s huge Labor Day
rally in Manila and similar labor unity protests in other cities called for
respect for the right to unionize along with demands for a wage hike and an end
to contractualization.
Press Release
May 4, 2023
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