Can gov’t be penalized for hiring over 720,000 casuals?

A workers’ union took to task Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III for excluding government agencies among the labor-only contracting violators which deprive employees of their benefits.

Ferdinand Gaite, president of the Confederation of Unions for Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE), said the sheer number of contractual employees in government service exceed those employed in private corporations.

Gaite made the claim after Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III issued on May 28 a list of 3,377 companies engaged in labor-only contracting in compliance with President Duterte’s directive on Labor Day to come up with a list and sanction the erring companies.

On the same day, Duterte signed Executive Order No. 51, which was supposed to scrap the practice of contractualization but ended up reiterating what was already in the Labor Code or the Herrera Law that allowed “labor contracting.”

Bello’s list named Jollibee Foods Corp. as the top violator in the private sector with 14,960 contractual employees; followed by Dole Philippines, Inc. (10,521); and PLDT, Inc. (8,390).

Gaite said he was surprised why no government agency was included in the list considering that there are more than 720,000 non-regular workers (called casuals, contractual, job orders, contract of service and others) out of the 2.3 million government employees.

“The government is the largest violator and should be the first to be penalized. This figure pales in comparison with other private companies DOLE has listed,” Gaite said.

The Inventory of Government Human Resources of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) as of 2016 showed that the 720,000 non-regular employees work for the Department of Public Works and Highways with 22,419, Department of Health with 21,424, and the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD) with 20,890.

No benefits The others are employed by the Quezon City government (10,249), Department of Agriculture (9,496), Department of Transportation (8,455), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (8,123),and the Department of Education (6,602).

Conspicuously, most of the 420,000 of the non-regular workers are employed mostly by 1,715 local government units (LGUs.)

Roxanne Fernandez of the Kawani Laban sa Kontraktwalisasyon (Kalakon) and a contractual employee of the National Anti-Poverty Commissionn (NAPC) urged the President to immediately end contractualization as he promised during the campaign.

“As non-regular workers, we have no security of tenure, no social insurance protection, no or minimal benefits, disallowed from joining unions, have relatively lower pay but actually pay higher taxes as we are treated as ‘individual contractors’ or a business entity,” Fernandez bewailed.

Fernandez also pushed for the passage of House Bill 7415 authored by the Makabayan bloc in the Lower House which seeks to prohibit contractualization in government, grant security of tenure and civil service eligibility for all non-regular workers who have rendered at least six months of government service.

She said the bill should be made a priority and urged lawmakers to immediately pass the measure.