Makabayan rejects bill extending probationary employment
Makabayan bloc lawmakers yesterday flatly rejected the proposal of a fellow oppositionist to extend the probationary employment or workers from six months to 24 months or two years.
In a press conference, progressive lawmakers led by Reps. Arlene Brosas (Gabriela Party-list); France Castro (ACT Teachers Party-list) and Ferdinand Gaite (Bayan Muna) said the proposal runs counter to the constitutional provision providing for permanence in their job at the earliest possible time during the employment.
Brosas said such proposal is not expected to come from the country’s labor force and may have instead been the idea of the management.
“Hindi ito nanggagaling sa perspektiba ng mga manggagawa kundi sa iba. Essentially, hindi ito katanggap-tanggap sa labor code, the Konstitusyon at sa mga manggagawa (This did not come from the perspective of labor. Essentially, this is not acceptable under the labor code, the Constitution and even by the workers),” she said.
On the other hand, Gaite said instead of pushing for longer probationary period, Congress should act immediately in passing the security of tenure bill that would put an end to the practice of “endo” or the firing of workers before they could reach six months on the job.
Probinsyano Ako Party-list Rep. Jose “Bonito” Singson Jr. filed House Bill 4802 to allow the management to have enough time to assess whether an employee may be qualified for regularization and granted benefits that go with this employment status.
“Considering the advent of technological advances in various industries, the probationary employees must undergo a series of developmental training and assessment to ascertain their ability to do the job,” explained Singson.
He added: “In every stage of the development, the probationary employee must satisfy a set of standards to qualify. These processes demand more time, which in a lot of cases takes more than six months.”
According to Singson, the employees should take advantage of the longer time of probationary employment to prove their value to their employers and demonstrate their skills and talents to be promoted to regular status.
“Furthermore, this measure will also provide an opportunity for the probationary employees to have continuous employment for more than six months, which will enable them to qualify for some of the mandatory benefits under existing laws,” said Singson.
The Makabayan bloc and Singson both belong to the minority group in the Lower House.
A number of bills have already been filed to outlaw so-called “labor only contracting” that gives employers six months to assess the performance of temporary workers.
The House Committee on Labor and Employment chaired by 1-PACMAN Party-list Rep. Eric Pineda has scheduled a series of hearings on the bills.
“Extending the probationary period is only extending further their time in employment limbo. We should all focus instead on ensuring that a genuinely pro-worker Security of Tenure Law gets enacted soonest, especially that the Department of Labor and Employment has been revealed to be backing a version of the bill that would even perpetuate contractualization instead of ending it,” said Gaite in a press statement.
The Makabayan bloc has been batting for the passage of House Bill 3381 or its own version of the Security of Tenure law which is directly opposite to the provisions of a Department of Labor and Employment proposal for job security.
DOLE has recently presented its draft Security of Tenure Bill to the House Committee on Labor, and has alarmed lawmakers with its provision on fixed-term employment, said Gaite.