Employers seek help in funding health, safety expenses for workers

Several months into the world’s longest quarantine, employers in the Philippines said they could not shoulder all the health and safety expenses that the government wanted the private sector to pay for at a time when everyone’s reeling from the recession.

While the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) understood that employers had a role in addressing the pandemic, they said they could not do it alone.

Throughout the pandemic, the government kept on passing much of the burden to companies—from providing transportation and housing for affected workers to shouldering COVID-19 testing for employees. “But businesses alone cannot effectively hurdle the challenges brought about by the pandemic,” said Ecop chair Edgardo Lacson in a recent statement.

“Philippine employers need the help and cooperation of the government, the labor groups and other stakeholders to restart business operations to overcome the grave impact of COVID-19 and the ensuing harsh quarantine protocols,” he added.

This was one of the resolutions passed by employers during the 41st National Conference of Employers (NCE), which was conducted online. The conference was divided in sessions that covered about three months, starting June 30 and ending last September 4.

Among others, the employers also urged the government to provide a stimulus package for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, to provide safe and efficient public transportation and shuttle services for private sector workers as well as to provide relief and incentives for businesses to recover their losses.

In essence, Ecop urged the government to craft quarantine policies that balance the need to protect life and livelihood as its president stopped short of saying that the current policies were not balanced at all.