DOLE expects more workers regularized by end of 2021

AN additional 200,000 contractual workers were regularized by their employers even with the onset of the novel coronavirus disease pandemic last year, according to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

This was on top of the over 580,000 workers, who were absorbed by their companies through the efforts of DOLE in 2019.

“This is one of the achievements of the Duterte administration...it is unprecedented,” Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello said in a previous online briefing.

Labor Undersecretary Benjo M. Benavidez disclosed 800,000 workers benefitted from their anti-illegal contractualization drive from 2016 to July 2021.

Bello noted the said beneficiaries could still increase before the end of the current administration especially since they are in talks with telecommunication giant PLDT and St. Luke’s Medical Center, which both have pending regularization cases.

DOLE ordered PLDT to regularize 7,300 of its workers, but the telecommunication firm questioned the decision before the courts.

Bello said he is confident both regularization issues will soon be resolved.

Labor groups earlier acknowledged that this was the first time such mass regularization was facilitated by the government.

However, they criticized Duterte for falling short of his campaign promise to put an end on the controversial work arrangement, which undermined the security of tenure of thousands of workers, through the passage of the necessary legislation.

To recall, Duterte vetoed the Security of Tenure bill in 2019, which would have regulated contractualization in the country, stating its broad definition of illegal labor-only contracting would negatively affect the employment of some workers.