(davaotoday.com file photo)
DAVAO CITY – A year after the fire incident that killed over 72 workers in a slipper factory in Valenzuela City, labor activists reminded President-elect Rodrigo Duterte of his pronouncement on scrapping contractualization and voluntary labor law compliance of companies.
Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER) said “ending contractualization and the voluntary labor law compliance system are bold steps which Duterte must do to prove that his iron first really swings for justice in the context of the Kentex tragedy.”
“We want to see Duterte take up the cudgels and finally hold accountable officials from the labor department and local government. We urge him to scrap DOLE’s voluntary compliance system which has bred gross yet unexposed labor rights violations across workplaces in the country,” EILER executive director Anna Leah Escresa-Colina said in a statement, Friday, May 13.
The group also noted that the Kentex factory fire has brought to fore the issue of “endo” or labor contractualization, as more than half of Kentex workers are contractual and are hired through a manpower agency.
“Duterte promised to end contractualization. Let the Kentex tragedy be a reminder of this promise and the labor department’s order legalizing manpower agencies and cooperatives,” Escresa-Colina said.
The group urged the new administration to replace the Labor Department’s Labor Law Compliance System (LLCS) that “has ridiculously resulted in self-assessment among companies” with a strong pro-labor regulatory mechanism that enforces labor laws in all companies.
Escresa-Colina said under DOLE Department Order 18-A issued in 2011, “the employee-employer relationship is shifted from principal enterprises and contractual workers to third party firms (manpower agencies and subcontractors) and contractual workers.”
She said banning contracting and subconstracting will be the litmus test on Duterte’s promise of ending contractualization.
On Thursday, Duterte’s transition team has presented the outline of its economic agenda sans the issue on contractualization.
Carlos Dominguez III, a member of the transition team who will head the economic development cluster of Duterte’s cabinet, have not included it in the presented outline. But Duterte’s spokesman Peter Laviña said some of them already met with the labor sector.
“There has been initial meetings or consultations, but I think Mr. Domiguez was not privy to it, because this was the preparation for the May 1 Labor day,” he said.
But Laviña said “not all” of those they consulted agree to fully ban contractualization.
“So we will have to flesh out the details we understand that this is part of a law and this is an administrative order so the new team will have to review and consult both the business and the labor sectors so that we will be able to come out with an acceptable formula,” he said.
Laviña said Duterte objected contractualization because it hinders workers from gaining skills.
“What the Mayor was saying, he objected to contractualization for the fact that many of our workers are not gaining skills when they are assigned to do a thing for 5-6 months and after that they are assigned another task or job. If they apply work abroad which requires 2 or 3 years experience they cannot show anything because they are only allowed to work for such and such particular work for 5-6 months,” he said.
But he said that other industries like works in the household and agriculture have piecemeal or “pakyawan” scheme.
“So how do we deal with this also?” he said.
However, Elmer Labog, chairperson of the Kilusang Mayo Uno described contractualization as that which “considers workers’ lives very cheap.”
“We are calling on all workers, especially the contractuals, to unite and fight for their rights, including workplace safety. Ultimately, they are fighting for no less than their lives,” Labog said.(davaotoday.com)
