Reforms demanded in wake of deadly QC factory fire

Photo from Inquirer.net

 

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called for stronger labor enforcement and labor inspection in response to the deadly industrial fire at a small garment factory in Quezon City. The fire in the early morning of Thursday last week at MGC Wearhouse Inc. killed 15 people, 12 of whom were stay-in workers.

 

"Heads must roll and justice must be served for the needless deaths and injuries to workers,” insisted Renato Magtubo, PM chairperson.

 

PM lambasted employers for cutting corners in occupational safety in order to raise profits and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for the lax implementation of labor and safety standards. The deaths of MGC workers recall the Kentex factory fire which killed 74 people, the country’s worst industrial tragedy. Further, over the years workers have also been killed or injured in several construction sites amidst the current real estate boom.

 

“While capitalists were scrimping on protection for workers and DOLE was sleeping on its job of enforcement, workers are dying in the workplace,” Magtubo elaborated.

 

He averred that “Accidents are not acts of divine providence that can be dismissed as unavoidable. Instead, accidents are the result of unsafe acts and therefore preventable by strict enforcement of occupational safety and health and labor standards.”

 

“We propose that the DOLE deputize labor leaders as labor inspectors. In so doing the number of inspectors and inspections can be increased several fold overnight, enforcement can be strengthened immediately, and workers' lives and limbs can be saved,” Magtubo recommended.

 

He noted that the DOLE’s “Labor Laws Compliance System” (LLCS) inaugurated in 2013 and the hike in the number of labor inspectors to almost 600 is still not working. An audit by the International Labor Organization in 2009 revealed that with only 193 labor inspectors to inspect 784,000 companies, an establishment gets inspected only once every 16 years.

 

“A big loophole in the so-called LLCS is the focus on ‘voluntary compliance’ and ‘self-assessment’ by employers. Voluntary compliance and self-assessment mean that the government is asking the wolf to guard the sheep. No wonder the sheep gets slaughtered,” Magtubo criticized.

 

He added that “The DOLE has again been caught sleeping on the job. DOLE must check firms for compliance not just with safety regulations but labor standards such as payment of minimum wages and benefits, observance of working hours and remittance of social security among others. Non-unionized workers are among the most overworked yet underpaid since they do not have the protection of an organization.”

Press Release

September 4, 2023