DOLE to employers: Give 13th month pay

AMID the holiday season, the Department of Labor and Employment in Central Visayas (DOLE-7) reminded employers to give their workers their 13th month pay.

DOLE-7 OIC-Regional Director Cyril Ticao said questions commonly lodged before their 24/7 hotline call services during the month of December, in many instances, involved the release of the 13th month pay.

“We are reminding employers to give workers what is due them. The payment of the 13th month pay is something that should not be compromised. Employers are even mandated to render report of their compliance to us,” he said in a statement.

Ticao said the influx of queries and clarifications regarding the said payment, which is mandated by Presidential Decree No. 851, becomes more apparent during the holiday season each year.

Otherwise known as the Thirteenth Month Pay Law, it requires all employers in the private sector to pay their rank-and-file employees 13th month pay on or before December 24.

The 13th month pay shall be 1/12 of an employee’s basic salary within the calendar year, Ticao said.

Ticao explained that the basic salary includes all remunerations or earnings laid by an employer to an employee for services rendered but may not include cost-of-living allowances, profit-sharing payments, cash equivalent of unused vacation and sick leave credits, overtime pay, premium pay, night shift differential, holiday pay, and all allowances and monetary benefits which are not considered, or integrated, as part of the regular or basic salary of the employee.

Pursuant to Labor Advisory No. 12, Series of 2013, covered employers shall make a report of their compliance with the law to the nearest DOLE regional office not later than January 15 of each year.

“We would like to clarify that all rank-and-file employees in the private sector are entitled to the said payment regardless of their position, designation, or employment status and irrespective of the method by which their wages are paid, provided they have worked at least one month during the calendar year,” Ticao said.

The formula to follow for the computation would be the total basic salary earned during the year divided by 12 months. The result would be the proportionate 13th month pay.

Employers who fail to pay the 13th month benefit are liable to money claim cases that aggrieved employees can file before any DOLE regional office.

Once the DOLE receives a request for assistance (RFA) to resolve a non-payment of the benefit, the RFA will be acted upon using the single entry approach (SEnA) mechanism of conciliation-mediation which is an accessible, fair, non-litigious and inexpensive dispute settlement system.

In April this year, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said the mechanism has benefited 39,691 workers within eight months from July 2016 to March 2017.

The settlement of these labor conflicts involving monetary and collective bargaining benefits amounted to more than P2 billion.