Workers’ Picket at the Palace Gates

PRESS RELEASE

April 7, 2017

Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP)

Workers’ Picket at the Palace Gates:

Labor demands DU30 to issue Executive Order

to scrap DO#174 and prohibit contractualization

WORKERS from various companies in Luzon – from Metro Manila, Laguna, Batangas, Cavite and Bulacan – held a picket at the very gates of Malacanang Palace on Friday morning to ask President Duterte for an Executive Order to end contractualization, in line with his electoral promise last May elections.

Nasaan ang pagbabago? Tuparin ang pangakong wawakasan ang kontraktwalisasyon!

The protest, which went farther than traditional rallies at the foot of Mendiola Bridge, sought to “highlight the determination of the labor movement in battling a scourge that has wrought havoc on the rights and welfare of Filipino workers”. It likewise “challenges the ‘Change is coming’ mandate of the present regime and the promise of ‘contractualization must stop’ by no less than President Duterte himself”.

BMP national president Leody de Guzman said, “On the tenth month of this populist regime that rode on the people’s disgust over neoliberal policies such as contractualization, nothing has changed especially in the sphere of employer-employee relations. Nasaan ang pagbabago? Mananatili bang pangako ang pagwawakas sa salot na kontraktwalisasyon? Was it just a Dutertean electoral gambit to woo the votes of millions of Filipino workers?”

Executive Order to Scrap DO#174 and Prohibit Contractualization

De Guzman explained, “DOLE Secretary Bello’s Department Order 174 runs counter to the President’s commitment to end exploitative labor contractualization. We are here today to ask the President to act decisively on this pressing concern. We want him to issue an Executive Order to scrap Bello’s DO174 and, once and for all put an end to the menace of contractulization, a promise he has yet to keep”

“Secretary Bello is playing politics by trying to appease both sides – labor and business. His alibi that DO#174 is ‘legal’ is not only misleading. More so, it is unacceptably stupid. Digong should remind his alter-ego in the labor department that Article 106 does not only provide for the regulation of contracting and subcontracting schemes. It also gives power to the labor secretary to prohibit it in order to protect the rights and welfare of workers,” he added.

“After more than two decades of contractualization, we now have a cheap and docile labor force that could not defend itself against unjust practices of abusive employers. Contractual workers are cheap because they are denied seniority benefits that should by enjoyed by employees upon regular status. They are likewise docile because of the perpetual threat of unemployment via termination of contract, which hangs over their heads like the proverbial sword of Damocles,” the socialist labor leader clarified.

“But since it appears that the hand does not do what the brain is telling it to do, as Sec. Bello is unable to fulfil the presidential promise to end contractualization, it is but logical – if there is an iota of sincerity and seriousness in the words of President Duterte – that an Executive Order be enacted to prohibit contractualization, in accordance to Article 106 of the Labor Code”, de Guzman concluded. #