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10/04/2010
Struggling contractual workers may have found another ally in their plight of becoming regular employees after a party-list group solon yesterday vowed to push a bill seeking the abolition of project-based jobs in the country.
The Democratic Independent Workers Association (DIWA) party-list Rep. Amy Aglipay told reporters that she had filed a bill called Security of Tenure Act of 2010 to eliminate the contractualization of workers in the country, which she described as unfair and abusive.
“It is sad to hear that many unscrupulous employers have resorted to devious schemes to subvert their employees’ right to security of tenure and other labor rights,” she said.
“We believe that each Filipino deserves to have a job that is regular and not a part-time one. The bill will definitely give security and assurance to our hardworking labor force that they will not lose their job once their short contract expires,” Aglipay said.
A Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) in 2004 indicated that non-agricultural industries with 20 or more workers employed 297,614 contractual or project-based workers. The top four industries that employed them were manufacturing, which employed 84,420; real estate or renting business activities, 71,595; construction, 40,608; and wholesale and retail, 36,724.
Aglipay argued that many business enterprises had resorted to subvert the worker’s rights to organization, full employment and equality of employment opportunities — as stated in both Constitution and the Labor code — by the practice commonly known as contractualization.
“The will definitely stop employers from their pernicious practice of contracting workers only for five to six months at a time and then laying them off and replacing them with another batch of workers,” she added.
Should the bill be passed into law, Aglipay said that those will reap the benefits of the law are the security guards, house helpers, public utility vechile drivers factory workers and even the members of the media.
“We call on our colleagues that this bill be passed so that no one in our rank will be accused of tolerating the exploitation of the working masses,” she said.
“This is a safety net for our workers that will assure them that they will not remain contractual in their jobs,” Aglipay added.
The DIWA lawmaker assured everyone that the bill also had put several measures that will balance the interest of both the employers and their employees to maintain a sound and healthy economy in the country.