THE Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will convene labor groups on Monday to craft a unified position on the issue of contractualization or endo.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said the various labor groups in the country do not have a common position on the issue of contractualization, with some labor groups pushing for an outright ban on all forms of contractual employment arrangements, while others are agreeable to a compromise between labor and capital.
Bello said the DOLE will hold a Labor Summit at the Occupational Safety and Health Center in Quezon City to provide labor groups an opportunity to craft a unified proposal on the issue of contractualization.
“The position of the labor groups is not unified, unlike the management group that already presented a win-win proposal on contractualization,” Bello said in a statement.
Some labor groups have rejected the so-called win-win solution broached by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which involves enforcing the Labor Code to regularize workers employed by accredited contractors.
The DTI said such a compromise between the interests of labor and capital will benefit workers by providing them security of tenure and the mandatory social-security benefits, while benefiting capital also by allowing them to continue tapping contractors for noncore processes in their businesses.
However, some labor groups, such as the Associated Labor Unions, have rejected such proposal and called for a total ban on all forms of contractualization as promised by President Duterte during the campaign.
Bellos said the Labor Summit today will also tackle other labor issues, such as the proposed P125 across-the-board wage hike that is being opposed by the Cabinet’s economic team.
The wage hike was proposed by some DOLE officials earlier, but National Economic Development and Authority Director General Ernesto M. Pernia said the Cabinet’s economic team had already talked Bello out of supporting such a proposal, which employers said would drive them out of business.
“There are several issues which need to be clarified and resolve immediately with the labor movement. There are the issues on contractualization, overseas Filipino workers, illegal recruitment and many more,” Bello said.