Paid leaves plan bucked

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) has expressed its concern over the plan to grant employees new or extended paid leaves, warning against the potential backlash on productivity and the cost of doing business.

In a position paper, Ecop voiced its opposition against 10 Senate bills (SB) that are scheduled to be heard today.

The various bills seek to provide new or at least improve existing paid leave benefits given to workers.

“For business, additional nonworking days mean days off from work. Excessive

nonworking days would hamper operations and production especially for the manufacturing and service sectors,” Ecop president Donald Dee said in the paper, which was shared with media.

These include proposals for prenatal leave, parental care leave.

There is also a proposal that wanted to grant a special leave of absence 15 days per year for all legitimate spouses of overseas workers.

He said employers would shoulder higher costs of services and production if they would require workers to work on nonworking days.

He added that the bills— except for one which would cover the service incentive leave—made no distinction to the size of the establishment, dismissing the differences of micro, small, medium or large enterprises. Microcompanies are currently exempted from service incentive leave, he said.

“We are greatly concerned that any further reduction in the number of working days particularly through additional leaves impacts not only on productivity and on the cost of doing business, but also on the viability of micro and small enterprises which constitute over 99 per cent of all registered enterprises,” he said.

There are 15 regular holidays and special days in the country, under the Holiday Rationalization Act. Ecop had also previously opposed proposals in the House of Representatives to extend the number of nonworking days.