Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has directed all labor law compliance officers nationwide to strictly monitor and inspect establishments with contracting and sub-contracting employment scheme, in line with the government’s plan to reduce the practice of contractualization or “endo.”
The Labor chief issued a memorandum order directing the officers to enforce the Labor Laws Compliance System and also instructed its Bureau of Working Conditions to draw up profiles of contractors and subcontractors based on results and or findings from LLCOs.
Associated Labor Unions’ policy advocacy officer Alan Tanjusay said the labor group hopes that this step leads to a momentum that result in its promised total elimination of contractualization, “Endo” or “555” precarious work arrangement.
Tanjusay said the labor group welcomed Bello’s initiative to reduce the practice of “endo” by at least half in the first six months of the Duterte administration.
Bello said that cutting by 50 percent the “endo” practice will be the challenge he will give to the officials in the department.
The memorandum also obliged regional directors to submit a comprehensive report to the DoLE secretary related to violations of existing labor laws and complaints of “endo” submitted by affected workers.
DoLE regional offices are also required to submit profiles of contracting and sub-contracting arrangements from companies.
“All documents shall be submitted to the Office of the Secretary, through the Office of the Undersecretary for Social Protection, on or before July 15,” he said.
Bello noted that the undersecretary for Social Protection shall have overall supervision over the activities he stated in the memorandum.
To fully iron out technical aspects and issues surrounding contractualization, a workshop is scheduled on July 18 to 19 with labor officials and other stakeholders.
“All industries will benefit [from this], from shopping mall employees to workers from private companies even media and broadcasting companies,” Bello said.
The labor group said that the department should hire additional LLCOs as there are only around 500 LLCOs tasked to enforce labor laws and labor policies.