THE labor group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino demanded the resignation of Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez over his supposedly continuing contradiction of President Rodrigo Duterte’s promise to end the practice of contractualization.
The BMP urged Duterte to remove Lopez from office if the Duterte is still serious about fulfilling his promise.
The labor group was reacting to Lopez’s most recent statement saying contractualization will only scare foreign investors.
“Since he assumed office, Secretary Lopez has consistently opposed measures to end contractualization,” the BMP said in a statement.
“At every step of the way, Lopez has represented and defended not the interests of Filipino workers but of capitalists, Filipino and foreign. He fails the test that the President set because he wants to “add more to the abundance of those who have much” rather than “provide for those who have little,” the BMP said.
Expressing frustration at the lack of progress in eliminating contractualization, the group said the President needs to do more to demonstrate his commitment to workers by firing Lopez.
“This is an important moment for the President, another early test by forcing him to choose whose side he will take and whose interests he will protect.
“If the President really cares about Filipino workers, if he really wants to ‘provide for those who have little,’ as he said in his inaugural speech, then he should match his rhetoric with action and do what needs to be done: he should immediate fire those in his Cabinet who favor contractualization,” the BMP said.
The group also called on the President to take concrete steps needed to end labor flexibilization, this include certifying as urgent and mobilizing all his party mates to pass a bill to amend Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code in order to prohibit the contracting and subcontracting of “usually necessary or desirable” work in the normal operations of a business, which should be performed by regular employees, in line with Article 280 of said law.
The BMP also said that revising the BMBE law will remove the exemptions to labor standards compliance of small and micro establishments, which comprise more than 90 percent of the employers’ sector, and to repeal DOLE’s DO 18-A and issuing a new order which reviews all existing subcontracting arrangements and cancels those that encroach upon the duties and functions which should done by regular employees.