EDITORIAL

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Sunday, January 8, 2017
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WORKERS won an initial victory. The implementation of the pro-contractualization Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Department Order (DO) 168 has been postponed. The drafted DO168 is seen to be tenfold worse than the current DO 18-A as it explicitly allows contractualization of all core job functions.

The war against contractualization, however, is far from over. Labor groups fear DOLE is attempting another maneuver via the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC) in a meeting on Jan. 14.

NTIPC is dominated by powerful capitalist blocks –like all other Regional Tripartite Wage Boards (RTWBs) that machinated to further press wages down to the bottom. The list includes the Employers’ Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Philippine Association of Local Service Contractors (PALSCON) that, with the help of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), drafted the anti-worker “win-win” solution –the origin of DO30 that was later named DO168.

Will the meeting be another attempt to rephrase or sugar-coat the same pro-contractualization policy?

Labor secretary Silvestre Bello must stop any and all efforts to maintain contractualization schemes that have been liberating capitalists from all responsibilities mandated by Philippine and international labor laws. He can simply retract all the said DOs and sign the Department Order prohibiting all contractual employment schemes. Pro-labor lawyers have, in fact, drafted and submitted for him such a DO prohibiting all forms of contractualization to protect workers’ rights to security of tenure as guaranteed by the 1987 Constitution under its Article 13 Section 3.

The Labor Code, despite its limited pro-worker provisions, clearly states that the Secretary of Labor is empowered to either allow or prohibit contracting out of labor. This same power has been used by previous labor secretaries to bypass fundamental constitutional labor rights and issue guidelines allowing the full-scale practice of contractualization such as the Aquino administration’s DO 18-A series of 2011. Bello can simply do the exact opposite. These are simple and clear resolutions to truly end all forms of contractualization.

The united force of the labor sector must be ever vigilant in its stand to end all forms of contractualization and be wary of attempts to simply rephrase or sugar-coat old department orders.

 
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