A recipe for disaster.
This was how labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) described the decision of the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) to reject the appeal for a longer window for business-process outsourcing (BPO) firms to transition from work-from-home operations to traditional office-based work.
Bryan Nadua of PM, who is also a BPO worker, noted such abrupt transition could compromise the health and safety of employees.
“BPO workers should be returned to work safely,” Nadua said in a news statement issued on Monday.
Jodelle Villanueva, a former Customer Service Representative before becoming an HR Manager in a BPO firm, echoed Nadua’s statement. He noted on-site BPO work has a high chance of spreading Covid-19 infections.
“Even before the pandemic, if one BPO employee gets a cough or cold, in a day or two, someone else will show similar symptoms due to infection. Headsets too are sometimes shared among employees, and are another way by which Covid-19 might be easily transmitted in a 100 percent fully operational scenario,” Villanueva said.
To minimize such risk, Nadua and Villanueva urged the government to allow BPOs to maintain 50 percent to 70 percent of their employees in worksites, while the rest work at home.
The FIRB issued a resolution, which allowed the said BPO firms to have 90 percent of their personnel working at home until March 31, 2022.
PM hit the resolution, which it said, was done, without any stakeholder consultation.
The labor group urged the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to conduct a tripartite dialogue, including BPO workers, to address the issue.