DIFFERENCES between two top officials of the Labor Department are causing the delay of an executive order ending contractualization in the country, President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday.
“We’re talking about the endo now, there’s a ruckus there because the Undersecretary does not like it and Secretary Bello [was at the other side],” Duterte said, referring to Undersecretary Joel Maglungsod and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
Duterte, who earlier expressed his intentions to end the practice of contractualization in the country, is set to sign an executive order prohibiting the practice of manpower agencies and cooperatives of supplying only labor.
Maglungsod, nominated by the communist National Democratic Front to be part of the government, had expressed belief the “win-win solution” being pushed by the employers’ sector would become a major obstacle to eliminate contractualization—a move supported by Bello and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
Bello had earlier released Department Order 30, seen to be a strict implementation of the law on contractualization or job contracts in the country.
DO 30 is set to replace the DO 18-A, or the rules implementing the Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code.
Meanwhile, the big labor group Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said President Duterte breached his promise to millions of Filipino workers to stop “endo” and “contractualization” scheme with the proposed DO 30 which will only legalize contractualization.
“Workers do not deserve this odious holiday and year-ender present from the government,” the group’s spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
The labor group reminded the President that when he was campaigning for the presidency, he even threatened to close companies who will continue to practice contractualization scheme.
The President also warned big company owners he would shot them should they refuse to cooperate.
“I am warning you, you choose: stop contractualization or I will kill you. You know why… I am the President. I am here. I have immunity.”
Tanjusay said the DO30 simply simulated in new fashion the framework of recognizing trilateral employment relations.
“It perpetuates the failed logic of regulation which, during the last several decades, has allowed and legitimized the business of labor contractualization done in many ways and in different forms.”
While many people may have been accustomed to President Duterte’s use of hyperbole in driving a point, the workers would not bite it because the epidemic of contractualization has really gone out of proportion – a plague that warrants absolute containment in order to save the present and future generation of workers, the women and the youth.
“Zero tolerance, therefore, is the correct and strategic policy change to pursue,” he said.
The labor group said that the DO30 falls short of what has been promised by DU30.
“This has to stop. The perpetuation of trilateral employment relation, which DO30 continues to recognize in the form of job/service contracting of specialized, project and seasonal jobs, is more of a system upgrade rather than a change in the policy itself. Hence, we denounce it as unacceptable,” the ALU-TUCP said.
“We do not want any middleman. We want direct hiring and fixed-term employment,” Tanjusay said.
