The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is set to convene next week the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC) for the formulation and enforcement of new safeguard against job contractualization embodied under Executive Order (EO) 51.
“We are targeting to hold it before [May] 26. So it will likely be on the third week of the month,” Labor Undersecretary Joel B. Maglunsod told the BusinessMirror.
Under Section 2 of the said EO, “the security of labor and employment may, by appropriate issuances, in consultation with the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council under Article 290(c) of the Labor Code, as amended, declare activities which may be contracted out.”
In the upcoming NTIPC meeting, Maglunsod said, they will focus on the creation of the guidelines for the implementation of the said provision of EO 51.
“We will discuss EO 51, particularly, it if it will be by industries,” Maglunsod said.
The Federation of Free Worker earlier said it is hopeful that the said provision of the EO will give workers the power to oppose the contracting out of jobs.
The Partido Manggawa, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, and Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa are against the EO since they claim the order will just allow employers to propose more jobs to be contracted out.
NTIPC is the policy-recommending arm of DOLE composed of representatives from the government, employers’ organization and labor groups. Its members are replaced with every new administration through Palace appointments.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said that, ideally, they would have opted to first update the membership of NTIPC since its current representatives are serving on a holdover capacity.
“We would ask labor and management to submit their nominees…after that we will convene,” Bello said.
Maglunsod said they have already submitted to Malacañang a list on the new batch of NTIPC representatives, but it is yet to be acted on by President Duterte.
“Until it [has been decided upon]…the [current members of] NTIPC will continue with [their] job even if it is on [a] holdover capacity,” Maglunsod said. No less than the members of the NTIPC issued a resolution, urging Duterte to appoint new sectoral representatives in at least 21 government agencies.
Among the agencies, which it noted should be given new members, is the NTIPC; National Labor Relations Commission; Philippine Economic Zone Authority; and Social Security System. “The workers’ and employers’ sector had been continually expressing their concern in the government genuineness of sectoral representation in the various policy-making and advisory tripartite bodies,” NTIPC said in its Resolution 1, series of 2018.
“It has been observed that there are quite a number of current sectoral representatives who are [on a] holdover capacity pending the selection of new representatives and a number of sectoral positions presently vacant due to natural attrition…,” it added.
NTIPC urged Duterte to finally appoint a new set of sectoral representatives to concerned agencies as soon as possible.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes