Gov’t also engages in contractualization

Labor contracting in public sector should be fixed first – Escudero; Davide describes gov’t ‘worst violator of contractualization’

GUESS who is the biggest employer of contractual employees? Government.

Sen. Francis Escudero lamented that the government remained to be the “biggest employer of contractual employees, both national and local.”

Escudero, a member of the Senate committee on labor and employment, recalled that the practice started during efforts to streamline the bloated
government bureaucracy.

He told in a television interview that the government should lead by example and fix the problem of contracting in the public sector first “before slamming the private sector.”

Cebu Gov. Hilario Davide III seemed to agree with Escudero.

“The worst violator of contractualization is the government,” Davide said in an interview with reporters on Wednesday.

He said the government hires job order and casual employees whose employment depends on a project or program.

But he pointed out that there are some industries that could not avoid having contract-based jobs.

When looking into contractualization, the governor suggested that the type of industry and nature of the job be taken into consideration.

Even before EO 51 was signed, Mayor Paz Radaza of Lapu-Lapu City said that they have been observing the performance and attitude of their job order and casual employees in the city hall and considering them for regularization.

The review was done per department.

Radaza said some casual employees had been hired as permanent workers while some job order employees were given regular status.

“But we try to emphasize karon ang rating sa performance, biometrics, attitude and others, because still you can’t deny that there are employees who are not working well,” Radaza said.

Based on the 2016 Integrated Survey on Labor and Employment, there were 1.19 million non-regular workers in the country, including probationary, casual, contractual/project-based and seasonal workers.

During his visit in Cebu City on Tuesday, President Duterte signed Executive Order No. 51, prohibiting certain forms of short-term employment while allowing schemes, like seasonal or project-based jobs of janitors and maintenance workers, to continue.

The EO basically reiterated existing policies on contracting, and Mr. Duterte called on Congress to amend the Labor Code of the Philippines for more substantive changes.

Labor groups said the EO offered nothing new and left millions of “endo (end of contract) workers without benefits.

Employers who practice endo offer tenures shorter than six months, the threshold at which a worker must be made permanent and entitled to benefits.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod said he understood the sentiments and frustrations of the labor groups.

But he reiterated that the President was limited by the power given to him by the Constitution and the Labor Code.

Maglunsod, who was in Cebu to grace the Labor Day celebration for the informal sectors, said they were already expecting negative reactions from the labor groups.

“Gusto lang nato ipaabot sa atong mga mamumuo nga dili perpekto or dili mao ang ilang inasahan nga EO, mangayo nalang mi dispensa nila (We just want to apologize to our labor groups that the EO is not perfect and not what they had hoped for),” he said.

But he assured that the Department of Labor and Employment is working to meet the demands of workers.

He pointed out that the House Bill 6908 or the Security of Tenure Bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives, didn’t tackle the total prohibition of contractualization.

He said the bill was a consolidation of different versions and had provisions acceptable to both employers and employees.

Davide said he understood that President Duterte could only do so much and that some provisions of labor laws needed to be changed.

“The role of the President, as the chief executive, is to execute the laws (and) enforce the laws. Through that EO, he is merely enforcing what’s already on the Labor Code,” he said.

But business leaders welcomed the new EO.

Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) president Antonio Chiu said they supported the EO because it was consistent with the Labor Code.

“While it allows certain jobs to be contracted out, it also protects the rights of workers for just benefits and compensation plus security of tenure,” he said in a statement.

Steven Yu, vice president for external affairs of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry, assured that most of their 350 member-companies had been compliant even before the EO was signed.

“The business community supports the President’s policy on endo. We are one with the government in creating a harmonious management and labor relationship to foster strong economic growth,” he told CDN.

“We are also supportive of the President’s direction to update our labor laws because it is already outdated. A labor law that is attuned to the changing business landscape,” he added.

But Cebu Business Club President Gordon Alan Joseph said that while he approved the move to end illegal contractualization, labor laws should contain provisions that protect business owners.

“I also believe that current labor laws make it very difficult to discipline ineffective or even criminal employees. We need to raise productivity and this can only be done by fair labor practices that reward productivity and penalize poor performance,” Joseph said. /with reports from inquirer