Labor group condemns bill to end ‘endo’: ‘This is not what workers envisioned’

A labor group on Wednesday denounced the House of Representatives' adoption of Senate Bill 1826 as an amendment to House Bill 6908, which approved the measure that seeks to strengthen the security of tenure of employees in the private sector as well as to end contractualization.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the manipulation in the House of Representatives adopting Senate Bill 1826 or Security of Tenure (SOT) bill without considering the progressive provisions of House Bill 6908 which trade unions have been advocating for in the House for 21 years now," Federation of Free Workers (FFW) president Sonny Matula said in a statement.

"While we did welcome SB 1826 earlier, without the strong provisions of the House, the proposal will not be effective to addressed abusive contractualization," Matula added.

According to Matula, the strong provisions of the House bill were "ignored and disregarded with alacrity" by the House that drafted the progressive provisions.

"Clearly, some decision makers killed the process in the bicameral committee conference to prevent the harmonization of the law to answer the call of workers to security of tenure," Matula said.

"This is not the law that the trade unions and the workers envision for many many years," he added.

The measure approved by Congress prohibits subcontracting out the same work contracted out by the employer.

It also seeks to limit job contracting to licensed and specialized services and classify workers into regular and probationary employees, treating project and seasonal employees as regular employees.

President Rodrigo Duterte urged Congress to pass bills protecting the rights of workers, particularly security of tenure and self-organization on May 1 as the country commemorates Labor Day. — BM, GMA News