Workers push for compliance of employers found guilty of labor-only contracting in DOLE inspections
MANILA. Some 100 members of the BMP Southern Tagalog chapter, along with leaders and supporters of the Dusit Thani supervisory union, will hold a rally in front of the DOLE offices in Intramuros tomorrow to urge the labor department to consummate its inspection processes by compelling employers to regularize workers.
“DOLE, huwag naman kayong maging banderang kapos,” said BMP-ST chair Domeng Mole. “Employers do not follow the compliance orders of the labor inspections on labor-only contracting. Not only do they employ delaying tactics by submitting their appeal to the said findings,” he clarified.
“More so, using the threat of unemployment, they tell casual employees not to demand their regularization. Local unions at inspected workplaces are also dissuaded from including the now regular workers into their bargaining unit. If the DOLE would not compel management to regularize its workers, then its inspections only created more confusion at the shop-floor level, which will lead to the further detriment to labor rights and standards,” Mole added.
The BMP Southern Tagalog chapter has documented 9 DOLE inspections in the industrial Calabarzon region, which ordered the regularization of 2,369 casual workers (see data below). The list included the Asia Brewery Inc. plant in Cabuyao, Laguna, where the management was ordered to regularize 351 workers. The ABI casual workers are scheduled for a dialogue with Sec. Bello at around 11:00 a.m.
Also joining the protest are supervisory workers from Dusit Hotel, who protest the termination of its union president, Crisanto Ami. Ami was dismissed on trumped up charges. The union believes that the heavy-handed reaction is a retaliatory action to a DOLE investigation on labor contractualization practices by the Dusit Thani management last May 16, 2016.
As the result of said inspection, the management was ordered to regularize 309 out of 382 casual employees and to pay P48 million to compensate for its underpayment to the aggrieved workers. The inspection was requested by Mr. Ami.
Meanwhile, BMP national president Leody de Guzman challenged the DOLE to show proof that Duterte’s stance against contractualization is real. He concluded, “After more than a year in office, the contractualization of ‘usually necessary or desirable’ work continues. Tuloy ang endo! Even with the DOLE inspections, employers still resort to labor-only contracting to keep wages low and their workers docile. If there is truth to Duterte's harsh words against contractualization, DOLE Sec. Bello, as his alter-ego, should go after these abusive capitalists and their labor-only contractors”. #
