Bus operators ask SC to stop 'fixed salary scheme'

Four groups of bus operators on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to stop the Labor Department and the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) from implementing the fixed salary scheme for public utility buses this month.

 

In their 22-page petition, the bus operators said Department Order No. 118-12 Series of January 2012, and LTFRB Memorandum Circular should be declared "unconstitutional, null and void, and shoulde be recalled."

 

The petitioners were the Provincial Bus Operators Association of the Philippines (PBOAP), Southern Luzon Bus Operators Association (SOLUBOA), Inter-City Bus Operators Association (InterBOA), City of San Jose del Monte Bus Operators Association (CSJDMBOA).

 

The petitioners asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a writ of preliminary injunction against the DOLE and LTFRB orders on the fixed salary scheme.

 

The petitioners also asked the high court to order a status quo, restraining the respondents from implementing any other issuances that may arise from the assailed order and circular. 'Risk-taking behavior'

 

But in their petition, the operators said the new scheme will "force [them] to abandon their existing employment arrangments with their respective drivers and conductors... or such other time-honored arrangements that had long existed since time in memoriam."

 

Under current collective bargaining agreements, drivers and conductors receive salary on a "payment by results" or "commission basis."

 

But under the new wage scheme, bus operators have to provide their drivers and conductors with income not lower than the minimum wage. 

 

Also, they are also required to give added performance-based pay based on their productivity, safety performance, business performance and other related parameters.

 

The petitioners said the new scheme was "clearly, unconstitutional as [it does] not only create obligations between the aforementioned parties, without either of them agreeing thereto, but [it] also instead, impairs upon such obligations earlier entered into by both the aforesaid parties mutually," the bus operators groups said.

 

The groups said the new scheme takes away the rights conferred to them as contracting parties in their respective agreements with drivers and conductors.

 

They also said the DOLE order and LTFRB memo violated their rights to equal protection of the law, since the scheme would only cover buses in Metro Manila and not other buses in other parts of the country.

 

The petitioners insisted that provisions in their respective collective bargaining agreements have "better or more benefits [and are] products of intense and lengthy negotiations between petitioners as employers and drivers and conductors [as employees]."

 

The scheme was implemented in light of a DOLE survey showingt that PUB drivers tend to work 17 to 19 hours a day just to earn money under a "commission basis" system.

 

The government also hoped to reduce bus-related accidents on the roads through the fixed salary scheme. The salary regularization was a proposal of the Metro Manila Development Authority.

 

But the bus operators insisted that the number of bus drivers and conductors "complaining of their compensation is not that alarming."

 

The petitioners also stressed that there is still no "scientific or proven connection" between a bus driver or conductor's salary and incidents of road mishaps. — RSJ, GMA News