THERE is ongoing labor strife at the President-elect’s hometown of Davao City between the management of the Nakashin Davao International, a frozen fruit company, and its workers. It is an issue that must be given attention since it manifests the problems brought about by the practice of contractualization that the Duterte administration promised to resolve.
Given the conflicting messages issued so far by the President-elect’s camp, the outcome of the labor dispute will foretell the prospects of whether the labor problems brought about by the practice of contractualization that has been plaguing the country ever since the 1989 Herrera Law amended the Labor Code will be resolved.
Like most companies in the country, Nakashin hires workers through employment agencies as a cost-cutting measure. This way, they save on the costs of employee benefits and other liabilities associated with regularization. After switching from one agency to another, 75 out of 300 workers of the company were not rehired last April 2016 after they refused to sign blank waivers and quitclaim documents. These 75 workers then launched a strike and demanded that they be regularized as employees after working for the company in the past four to nine years.
The issue became more controversial when members of the President-elect’s first family entered the fray. First, Duterte’s son, Vice Mayor Pulong Duterte, accused the labor organizers affiliated with Kilusang Mayo Uno of meddling into the labor dispute. At a mediation meeting in his office, the son of Duterte berated and threatened Romualdo Basilio, Vice President of KMU Mindanao. He also later on called out incoming Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod for getting involved in the issue. It was later revealed that the husband of Sara Duterte, daughter of the President-elect is the lawyer of the Japanese company.
These unfortunate incidents have escalated the labor dispute and the latest word is that the Japanese company has filed for closure after incurring losses supposedly amounting to 140 million pesos. Now, 240 jobs are in peril and also affecting the income of fruit farmers in Maguindanao who would lose a market for their products.
It is easy to be swayed by the argument of the company and the Duterte siblings if one misses a very important point. If only the Japanese company absorbed and regularized the workers who have served the company for years, for instance, instead of firing them, the labor dispute would not have occurred. From a business standpoint, the costs of giving employees benefits as mandated by law is also sure to be meager compared to the reported losses running in the hundred millions of pesos.
But the company played hardball by filing for closure last June 12, even as workers note that operations are continuous at the plant. It did not help that the President-elect’s first family are personally involved in such a controversial issue. In a city like Davao, it is certainly within the ambit of elected officials like Pulong Duterte to protect investments and businesses. But it also their responsibility to ensure that the rights of the workers who create profit for these enterprises are respected and upheld.
One of the emotional issues during the last elections was the specter of contractualization that their father, President-elect Duterte, emphatically promised to end in his many public pronouncements. The “endo phenonomenon,” or end-of-contract practice of companies has transformed the workers of the country into a cheap rotating labor force bereft of security of tenure, receiving low pay without benefits, who are discarded by their employers in a cycle of five to six months.
It is a practice that is not just prevalent in the private enterprises but also in the public sector as well. Incoming DSWD Cabinet Secretary Judy Taguiwalo note that of the 29,000 employees of her department, only 2,000 are regular government employees. The rest occupy that notorious category of job orders who are paid less, subject to changing political tides, and without the benefits and rights that working for government should grant.
There is no dignity to be a worker under these conditions and many voted for Duterte with the hope that he can put an end to this travesty. Besides, contractualization is related to our peace and order problem with many opting to recourse to survival methods outside the margins of what the law allows.
The Nakashin incident is a test case if the incoming administration is really serious about bringing about fundamental change. President-elect Duterte and his family can still send a clear message if they decide to stand behind the striking workers of Nakashin and work towards the end of contractualization in the country’s labor practice.