Employers buck 25 labor bills

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) is fighting to keep the status quo on security of tenure and contractualization as the group moved to block 25 House bills (HB) that seek to amend the antiquated labor code.

Ecop filed a single position paper dated May 16 against 25 separate HBs that are pending deliberation before the House committee on labor and employment, addressing it to Committee Chair 3rd District of Cagayan Rep. Randolph S. Ting. A copy of the document was sent to the media yesterday.

The referred bills were numbered in Congress as follows: HB 55, 76, 170, 341, 556, 563, 709, 712, 895, 916, 1045, 1208, 1351, 1563, 1837, 1857, 1910, 2389, 3556, 3769, 3802, 4443, 4444, 5130, and 6264.

It is difficult to pin down what the 25 bills wanted to do specifically, especially given their varying ways of approaching the critical labor issues. However, in essence, these proposals aim to address contractualization and security of tenure at the possible expense of business, according to Ecop.

The employers’ group cited the common denominator of these proposals, which was to impose more labor-friendly policies, some of which Ecop argued were in “conflict with the basic nature and accepted concepts in law and jurisprudence on job contracting, employment relations and security of tenure.”

The position paper was filed months after the Department of Labor and Employment signed Department Order No. 174 as the government’s solution to the seemingly perennial problem of endo (end of contract), which refers to the abusive practice of hiring workers for short-term consecutive periods to avoid providing them with benefits due to regular employees.

Neither the employers’ group nor the labor sector expressed full satisfaction with the outcome of the order.

Ecop defended the status quo, noting that contractualization was premised on constitutional rights, apart from the fact that it had already been acknowledged in law and jurisprudence as an exercise of management prerogative and business judgement.

The group claimed that some of the bills wanted to limit contractual arrangements to jobs that were “not usually necessary or desirable, or directly related to the usual business of the principal,” a move which Ecop said would leave a “destructive impact on business.”

“The implication of such proscription is that employers can no longer contract out janitorial, security, messengerial and more importantly, higher forms of contracting and outsourcing involving business processes and manufacturing,” the position paper read.

Moreover, Ecop said that the entitlement of workers to security of tenure was linked to the “right of enterprises to reasonable returns on investments and to expansion and growth.”