THE labor group Association of Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines said Tuesday President Rodrigo Duterte had asked labor groups to draft an executive order that would put an end to abusive middlemen contractualization work arrangements and return to the norm of direct hiring by principals and employers.
ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said the President asked them in a dialogue in Malacañang for time because he had to deal with certain processes.
He said President Duterte gave the labor groups within the week to finish the draft order and set the date to meet again on May 10.
“The President was sincerely asking for our patience when he asked us to give him time to end contractualization. He was candid enough to allude to vested interest groups lobbying against the end of contractualization,” Tanjusay said.
“We told him that workers were not happy with controversial Department Order 174 precisely because it does not carry out his commitment to end contractualization. We emphasized that .DO 174 just bans the already previously banned Labor-only contracting and ‘cabo’ system and does nothing to significantly advance the regularization of millions of contractual workers,” the ALU-TUCP officials said.
“The President said he understood what the workers want and suggested that we assert our public interest power to ensure a just transition to help him meet his promise to the nation,” the labor group said.
The group said with the eradication of middlemen, including manpower service cooperatives, workers see an executive order that would mandate principal employers directly hiring workers, and no longer employing middlemen contractors to avoid paying their social obligations to workers and to avoid the exercise by workers of their Constitutional right to organize unions and bargain for a better deal.
“I stand firm on my conviction to end ‘Endo.’ Just give us time. The Labor Code guarantees all the right to security of tenure. This has to be strictly enforced. Labor laws must be enforced against Endo and labor-only contracting,” the labor group quoted Duterte as saying during the closed-door meeting with labor leaders.
Duterte admitted there was “resistance and objections” from some members of his Cabinet and interest lobby groups on his decision to ban contractualization.
“But the President said he has no sympathy for oligarchs,” Tanjusay added.
