Davao workers rally, hit contractualization policy

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

WORKERS from different workplaces in Davao Region, mostly contractual, staged on Tuesday a protest in front of the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment in Davao City to protest the continuing contractualization under the Aquino administration.

The Alliance for Regularization and Increased Salaries of Employees (Arise), a sectoral alliance of workers from unionized and non-unionized workers, spearheaded the protest.

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Anthony Palma, spokesperson for Arise and a contractual worker, said the present administration has continued the contractualization scheme that was first implemented during her mother's administration.

Palma said, "Through the Department Order 18-A inked by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz last November 2011, P-Noy manifests adherence to contractualization scheme. The said order only reinforces the guidelines in permissible job-contracting in the Philippines, but never did it declare that contractual scheme in workplaces is illegal."

Based on October 2011 data of National Statistics Office, Davao Region has 1.835 million workers employed, but only 2.79 percent of whom are unionized and covered with a Collective Bargaining Agreement.

"Our government statistics per se, shows how contractualization rendered the workers powerless, making it among the poorest sectors that ekes out on a mere P291.00 daily or US$6.8 per day for industrial workers in Davao Region," Palma said.

"Based on our survey on different establishments in the city, workers from retail services and malls are mostly contractual workers. They were put to labor agencies and employed under a contract that lasts mostly only for five months. Aside from no security of tenure, they are underpaid where the average wage given to contractual is below two hundred pesos per day," Palma added.

He said contractualization is a scheme under the pretext of capitalist globalization.

"It is a mechanism employed by capitalists to lessen investment in human resources so to expropriate greater profits. Contractualization was introduced and flourished in the country after the Labor Code (PD 442) was amended during former President Aquino’s administration. The law was authored by then Senator Ernesto Herrera, a known leader of Trade Union Congress of the Philippines," he said.