Government workers who have been under Job Orders (JO) or Contract of Service (CSO) arrangements for a long time will have a higher chance of passing the Civil Service Exam (CSE) under the proposed “point-based system” of the Civil Service Commission (CSC).
During the budget hearing at the House of Representatives last Thursday, CSC Chairperson Alexei B. Nograles said they are studying using a “preferential point system” to allow more JOs and CSOs to pass the CSE.
He noted passing the CSE is a requirement to be qualified for most positions in the government.
Under their proposed scheme, Nograles said JO or CSO workers will be given additional points in their CSE depending on their years of service in the government.
“So they still need to take the civil service exam and they are not able to get the 80 [percent of the questions correctly], we will give them additional points equivalent to the number of years of service to their raw Civil Service Exam,” Nograles said.
Legally allowed
He issued the statement as asked by ACT Teachers Party-List representative France L. Castro on the proposed measure of CSC to reduce the number of non-regular workers in the government.
As of last June, over 642,000 of the government’s 1.82 million workers are JOs or COs.
Most or 487,149 of these non-regular workers are employed in local government units (LGU).
The rest are working in local government units (107,409), state universities and colleges (22,937), government-owned and controlled corporations (17,979) and local water districts (6,593).
Nograles explained many LGUs have JOs and COSs workers since they are allowed by law to do so.
In the case of non-LGU JOs and COs, he said these are allowed by the Department of Buget and Management (DBM) and the Commission on Audit (COA).
Anti-union busting measures
Nograles was also asked by Castro on how they intend to prevent the alleged incidents of union busting in some government agencies.
The CSC chief said they are targeting to address the said cases by increasing the frequency of the Public Sector Labor Management Council, which looks into the said matter.
“I cannot speak for the previous, but I commit and guarantee that under my leadership we will regularly conduct the PSLMC hearings,” Castro said.
Based on the latest data of CSC, there are 1,944 registered labor unions in the public sector.
Of which, 1,299 are accredited by the government.
Castro noted she got reports some government agencies are going after trade unionists through red-tagging or coercing them to disaffiliate with their labor unions. (Samuel Medenilla)