THE National Congress of Unions in the Sugar Industry of the Philippines (Nacusip) has expressed alarm over the statement of Presidential Adviser on Entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion that employees may not get their 13th-month pay and may end up empty-handed if the government does not ease restrictions on businesses.
“We, in the trade union movement is one with the business sector in calling for government to ease health and safety restrictions provided that there are enough vaccines for the workers to avail in order to have a more secured working environment to protect not only the customers but the workers as well,” its president Roland de la Cruz said in a statement Wednesday, October 13.
“However, floating the idea of employers to deprive workers of their much-awaited 13th month pay leaves a sour taste in our mouth,” he also said.
It can be recalled that in 2020, the same call was floated which prompted Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) Secretary Silvestre Bello III to issue a statement that the labor department would study granting exemptions to distressed companies from paying 13th-month pay to their employees.
Bello’s pronouncement was met with objection from the trade union movement and the labor sector in general which prompted the DOLE to convene the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council and discuss the issue.
De la Cruz said as a labor representative to the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council, there was a unanimous objection to the proposal of deferring the payment of the 13th Month Pay to the workers as well as providing exemption, as there is no legal basis to provide exemption.
He said that the 13th month pay is a statutory benefit that only Congress can provide exemptions or deferment through amending the law.
The 13th Month Pay Law was widely known to be associated with the late labor leader and Labor Sectoral Congressman Atty. Zoilo V. de la Cruz Jr. of Nacusip.
De la Cruz proposed it to the late former President Ferdinand Marcos and was directed by the latter to draft the Presidential Decree for his signature, he added.