President Rodrigo Duterte has certified as urgent a proposed law against contractualization seeking to ensure job security in the country.
He certified the immediate enactment of Senate Bill 1826 or the Security of Tenure and End of Endo Act of 2018.
The bill aims “to strengthen workers’ security of tenure by prohibiting the prevalent practices of contractualization and labor-only contracting which continue to immerse our workers in a quagmire of poverty and underemployment,” Duterte said in a letter to Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Friday, which was released by the Palace on Tuesday.
Lawmakers on Monday moved for the regularization next year of all, if not most, of the 658,679 job order and contract service workers in the government, more popularly known as “endo” workers.
The plight of “endo” or end of contract workers surfaced during the plenary deliberation of the House of Representatives on the proposed budget of the Civil Service Commission for next year amounting to P1.5 billion.
Rep. Antonio Tinio said there was a widespread use of job order and contract of service in different government agencies, even in national agencies, local government units, state universities and colleges, government-owned-and-controlled corporations and others.
The work schemes like ‘endo’ and labor-only contracting” would soon be realized after President Duterte certified as “urgent” the Security of Tenure Bill, Senator Joel Villanueva said on Tuesday.
Villanueva, head of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development, welcomed Duterte’s move to ensure the welfare of workers.
Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said the Senate will not proceed with its deliberation on the second tax reform package, also known as the Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-quality Opportunities or TRABAHO bill unless the government can present definitive data on its impact on jobs.
Angara, chairman of the Senate committee on ways and means, is conducting a hearing on the TRABAHO bill.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said Senate Bill 1826 seeks to prohibit labor-only contracting and does not exempt contractors with small and even big capitals.
“Labor-only contracting is prohibited. There is labor-only contracting where the job contractor, whether licensed or not, merely recruits and supplies or places workers to a contractee regardless of whether or not he or she has substantial capital or investment in the form of tools, equipment, machinery, work premises among others,” the Senate version of the bill said as read by Roque.
Roque said the bill would effectively repeal the Labor Code provision that allows labor-only contracting only if your company has sufficient capital and assets.
Roque said under the bill, probationary employment will not exceed six months from the first day of service regardless of the nature of work to be performed.
“A job description and qualification standards to qualify for the regular employment shall be made by the employer to the employee,” said Roque quoting a certain provision of the bill.