A number of labor groups urged President Rodrigo Duterte to issue an executive order that will put a stop to contractualization and other schemes that employers use to avoid regularizing workers.
Leaders of the Nagkaisa! Labor Coalition, the Kilusang Mayo Uno and other labor federations and workers’ associations said the President should make good his campaign promise to end contractualization.
“It’s about time the President makes good on his vow to end contractualization and stay true to his commitment to us during our last dialogue on Labor Day to issue an Executive Order to fulfill this promise,” KMU and Nagkaisa! said in a joint statement.
Labor leaders will have a dialogue with the President today (Feb. 7) in Malacañang.
The labor groups said that Duterte has asked them to draft an executive order which he will sign.
KMU and Nagkaisa! submitted a common draft but the Department of Labor and Employment facilitated discussions with both labor and employers on the issuance of an EO.
“We want the President to issue an executive order prohibiting all forms of contractualization based on the position we submitted,” Nagkaisa! and KMU said.
In discussions with the labor groups, they agreed to a version of the proposed EO which says that, “Contracting or subcontracting when undertaken to circumvent the worker’s rights to security of tenure, self-organization, collective bargaining and peaceful concerted activities pursuant to the 1987 Philippine Constitution is hereby strictly prohibited.”
Nagkaisa! and KMU said that the same issuance should also provide that, “Security of tenure refers to the direct hiring relationship between the principal employer and employee.”
All labor groups in the country have rejected the new anti-endo rules under DO 174 issued by DOLE in March last year as it still allows contractualization through ‘legalized’ forms of agency-hiring.
For over 20 years, the government has been regulating contractualization by allowing agency-hiring and other forms of trilateral employment relations which only resulted to the proliferation of fraudulent forms of contractualization like endo and labor-only contracting.
“The solution to this scourge is to make prohibition as the new rule to effectively protect workers’ security of tenure and all other trade union rights as guaranteed by the Constitution,” the labor groups said.