LABOR groups in Negros Occidental are calling on the Senate to immediately approve the security of tenure bill, which will end contractualization in the country if passed into law, before it adjourns session next week.

Hernane Braza, national president of the Philippine Agricultural Commercial and Industrial Workers Union-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (PCIWU- TUCP), said on Monday, February 4, that they support the move of their counterpart-organizations in Metro Manila to hold a protest at the Senate in a final push for the approval of the proposed bill.

Braza said the security of tenure, under the Constitution, is a property of the workers. Thus, under the Labor Code, one cannot take away such property.

“The Senate cannot afford to wait for the resumption of the Congress’ session to act on the long-overdue anti-contractualization measure of the government,” he said, adding that “if they are sincere enough, the impending adjournment of the session could not hinder them to approve its own version of the bill.”

Senate Bill 1826, known as An Act Strengthening Workers Right to Security of Tenure, was certified urgent by President Rodrigo Duterte in September 2018.

Its counterpart measure, House Bill 6908, was approved by the House of Representatives on January 29.

Congress is set to adjourn its session next week to allow lawmaker-candidates to prepare for the start of the campaign period for the upcoming national and local mid-term polls on May 13.

“We hope that candidates should prioritize the interest of the workers over their election agenda,” Braza said, adding that in fact, acting immediately on the proposed legislation would still be a form of campaign activity as “they will for sure get the support of the workers.”

TUCP, in a report, said the main feature of the bill says that even if that agency has capitalization and equipment, it is still a labor-only contractor and those workers are really regular employees of the company to which they are deployed.

The proposed measure seeks to amend the Labor Code on the prohibition of labor-only contracting and other provisions that allow contracting arrangements. The amendment will also clearly define the nature of the work and activities that may be contracted out, it added.

It can be recalled that Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said that a total ban on contractualization is not possible, unless existing laws are amended, as there were legal activities requiring contractual relation.

Even the President said the Executive Order (EO) he signed in May last year is not enough and Congress still needs to amend the “outdated” Labor Code.

The EO states that “contracting and subcontracting, when undertaken to circumvent the workers' right to security of tenure, self-organization and collective bargaining and peaceful concerted activities, pursuant to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, is hereby strictly prohibited.”

Without the EO, companies are still allowed to enter into “legal” contracting and subcontracting arrangements that are not banned, as provided by Department Order 174 of the Department of Labor and Employment's.

The EO is also applied “to all parties, including cooperatives engaged in any contracting and subcontracting arrangements.”

Labor groups in Negros Occidental, though, stressed that the struggle is not yet over despite the issuance of the EO imposing a total ban on all forms of unlawful contractualization in the country.

Once again, workers were just taken for a ride. There is nothing new about the EO issued by the President “that was meant to be a bucket of water splashed in order to put out a raging fire,” they said.

Wennie Sancho, secretary-general of General Alliance of Workers Associations, said security of tenure should be given primordial consideration and “we likewise support the move to approve the bill as early as possible for the good of the workers.”

“The provisions of the proposed bill should be in line with the declaration of the state that it shall uphold full protection to labor,” he said, adding that “that is what we mean by the security of tenure.”