ALMOST 800 companies were found to be engaged in illegal labor-only contracting (LoC) by the Department of Labor and Employment in the last two years, according to DOLE Undersecretary Joel B. Maglunsod.
He told the BusinessMirror THAT their labor inspectors identified 767 companies to be engaged in LOC from June 2016 to April 2018. LOC is an illegal working arrangement, wherein companies contract out positions even if these are directly related to their main business.
“We already issued [compliance] orders to them to regularize 883,691 workers,” Maglunsod said.
Meanwhile, he said another 2,610 companies with 141,161 workers are still undergoing processing from the DOLE for suspected LOC.
“These are the ones which have already undergone inspection assessment. They already completed exit conference and are now undergoing mandatory conferences,” Maglunsod said.
He confirmed they already submitted the list of 3,377 companies, which are engaged or suspected of LOC, to Malacanang last Thursday.
The number of companies with LOC cases comprised only about 3 percent of the 99,526 firms, which were inspected by the DOLE since 2016. Last month President Duterte ordered the DOLE to submit the list. The President has yet to announce what he will do to the list.
Maglunsod said it will be up to Duterte to reveal the names of the companies included in the list, but he noted that the processing of the LOC cases will continue.
“Some of these LOC cases are now in the process of execution, while the others are on appeal at the Ossec [Office of the Secretary]. There are also those which are filing a motion for reconsideration,” Maglunsod said.
He added their campaign against LOC has already resulted to the regularization of 176,286.