TUCP: Inclusive growth remains elusive for workers

The Filipino worker marked the International Labor Day with the continued burden of poor wages, irregular jobs, risky workplaces, high costs of living, rising unemployment, and inadequate social insurance, a labor group said on Sunday.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) president Atty. Raymond Mendoza said the inclusive growth of the economy only benefit the elite of the society and remains elusive to ordinary workers.

“The TUCP identifies the apparent breakdown of both the employers’ non-compliance to and government’s lax enforcement of the existing general labor and the occupational safety and health standards as one major cause of the problem,” Mendoza said.

The TUCP accused the Department of Labor and Empployment (DOLE) of inefficient enforcement and employers' compliance efforts through its Labor Law Compliance Officers (LLCOs).

Mendoza said the DOLE only has 550 LLCOs in the country, limiting the agency's power to monitor and conduct workplace inspections to ensure labor laws are met.

The group cited that the DOLE Labor Law Compliance System accomplishment report for 2015, where compliance of the General Labor Standard was only at 73.18 percent, while the Occupational Safety and Health Standards compliance was at 66.94 percent covering only 50,161 establishments out of the 900,000 registered work establishments nationwide.

Mendoza said employers and the government compete with each other by cutting wages and living standards for workers by moving establishments to where the wages are lowest and where workers' rights are fewest.

Minimum wage not enough

The TUCP said that the current minimum wage is still inadequate for a family of five to survive, according to the lowest standard food and non-food needs set by the government at P417 per day, but the puchasing power of each worker is only at P316 after deductions.

Metro Manila has the highest minimum wage in the country at P481 per day.

"This anomaly is reflected in the recent Labor Force Survey released in March showing there are 7.9 million formal sector workers who said their wage is inadequate,” Mendoza said. 

Meanwhile, the TUCP said all workers should be considered as regular employees, assured of security of tenure upon hiring.

He said that instead, some employers undermine the provisions of the Constitution and the Philippine Labor Code by hiring workers through third-party manpower agencies and cooperatives, avoiding direct employer-employee relationship.

"Abusive employers increase their margin of profits by creating dummy manpower agency and cooperative in hiring their own staffs and personnel by not paying the mandatory minimum wage and social protection insurance premiums such as Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth, and Pag-ibig,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza cited the factory fire incident at the Kentex rubber factory in May last year, killing 74 people, which revealed workers received below minimum wage and without benefits such as SSS, Pag-ibig, and Philhealth.

The same report also showed the gross violations of the Kentex factory on general labor and occupational safety standards despite a Certificate of Compliance and a permit to operate issued by Valenzuela City.

De-subsidized, jobs mismatch

The TUCP also criticized the administration of President Benigno Aquino III's withdrawal of the subsidy on the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 and the Light Rail Transit in January last year.

The labor group said the increase in fares slashed minimum wage earner's daily budget by P10 to P15.

The group said that the government also failed to address the job-skills mismatch and unemployment and underemplyoment rate in the country.

Mendoza cited data from the DOLE, citing 4,239,392 domestic and international job vacancies were offered in 3,686 job fairs held in 2014 and 2015 nationwide, but only 391,088 were hired on the spot from the 1,286,073 applicants.

The TUCP saw no significant quantity of new factories and job-creating investments to address the country's employment rate.

"While there are four million people who are without job and eight million underemployed who complained of measly pay, there are no concrete measures in place on how to minimize the number of workers falling through the cracks,” Mendoza said.

The TUCP is hoping that the next administration will be able to address the problem in the labor industry.

The group, in coalition with 49 labor groups and the Nagkaisa labor coalition, are urging the 2016 presidential candidates to sign a seven-point contract as "concrete steps in working out solution to problems imposed on Filipino workers and their families." —Joseph Tristan  Roxas/ALG, GMA News