VARIOUS labor leaders will meet with President Rodrigo Duterte on May 1, Labor Day in Davao City, to discuss several issues, particularly the banning of contractualization and endo schemes which continue to exist despite the issuance of the Department of Labor and Employment order 174.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the department was honored the President himself would grace the main Labor Day celebration.
Meanwhile, student activists belonging to Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan and Kaisa UP vowed to attend the Labor Day celebration instead of hitting the beaches.
The students plan to mobilize and march side-by-side with laborers under socialist group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino towards the foot of Mendiola bridge to press for the total abolition of all forms of contractual employment.
Both groups are also calling for the rejection and repeal of the recently issued DoLE Order 174 which allows employers to hire the services of manpower agencies in supplying their companies with temporary work units instead of regularizing employees after the probationary period.
Dozens of their members held a noise barrage at Philcoa Wednesday to call on President Duterte to fulfill the promise he made exactly one year ago in the Luzon leg of the 2016 presidential elections.
“Like our parents who are laborers, we are dissatisfied with Department Order 174. It failed to even make a dent to curb the systematic and legalized circumvention of workers’ constitutional rights,” said Spark’s spokesperson, Jade Lyndon Mata.
“It is easier for many to conclude that nothing has changed since Duterte took over from Noynoy Aquino. The retention of neo-liberal economic policies, including contractualization, will ultimately lead to the erosion of his popularity,” Mata said.
Mata claimed the scourge of contractualization had affected millions of Filipino youth even if they had formally joined the labor force.
“Many of my former classmates have failed to enroll and attend their classes regularly, citing that their parents were on and off the job circuit, making it extremely agonizing for them to sustain the daily cost of acquiring an education,” Mata said.
Yael Toribio, vice chairperson-elect of the University Student Council of UP Diliman and member of Kaisa UP, described the labor department’s DO 174 “a nastily gift-wrapped prank in the guise of a graduation gift” from the Duterte administration.
“After years of study in pursuit of a successful career, this is what the more than 600,000 new college graduates receive as a graduation gift. With unemployment on the rise, both the government and employers are virtually blackmailing graduates into accepting low-paying, benefits-scarce contractual work,” said Toribio.