The Department of Labor and Employment released some P30 million to provide assistance to the more than 2,000 affected workers displaced by the fire that gutted the NCCC Mall in Davao City where 38 people were killed.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III also assured the workers that there will be zero displacement of the employees affected by the fire.
In a statement, Silvestre said labor representatives met with the management of NCCC Mall and SSI, a business process outsourcing firm housed inside the ill-fated mall.
He also directed the Bureau of Working Conditions, Occupational Safety and Health Center and the Employees’ Compensation Commission to assist the affected workers.
NCCC has earlier committed to DoLE that its 616 regular mall workers will not lose their jobs and continue to receive their salaries as they will be reassigned to their other businesses. NCCC management has already submitted a report on the deployment of their regular workers to DOLE and is now being validated.
For the 192 agency-deployed workers under Bmirck Cooperative, NCCC said that talks are ongoing for their possible deployment to another establishment/malls in the city.
The SSI management vowed that all their employees will be paid salary up to Dec. 31, 2017. SSI also added that they will be rebuilding within 60 days as they have already found another building for their operations and assured their workers’ employment as soon as their operations resume.
A proposal for the payment of workers’ salary for the 60-day period is also being considered by the principal of SSI in the United States.
Bello also said that the DoLE regional office along with OSCH and ECC will put up funds to extend P20,000 in assistance to each family of those who perished in the fire.
On the part of ECC, P30,000 in burial assistance will be provided to each family of the 38 victims, including grocery items for the wake which will be followed by the provision of survivorship pension to their families amounting to at least P3,700 per month.
