SOME weeks earlier, President Rodrigo Duterte bluntly said that he might not sign an Executive Order (EO) banning labor contractualization, a practice in some companies that earned a jargon called "Endo" or "End of Contract."
He said that it is up for Congress to come up with identical laws. This statement obviously caused a stir, it left a bad taste especially on the labor sector.
But then on Tuesday, May 1, during the observation of Labor Day in the country, Duterte announced that he signed an EO banning the "illegal contractualization and sub-contractualization" of workers. It was a surprise that put naysayers in a limbo.
However, a copy of an EO has yet to be seen in public. Questions such as how do we define an "illegal" contractualization? And that also means, there is a "legal" means?
The bottomline of this "Endo" issue is security of tenure. For three to six months, a worker in factories, service-based companies and even in clerical jobs have to pray that their contracts will be renewed, or else they will start looking for other places of work. This means that they have to comply another set of requirements, let alone the time wasted for job hunting.
Some, if you are only a contractual, you don't get much of the benefits like 13th month pays, social security, health insurances, among others. Not even an "employer-employee" relationship. You are on your own, and yet you labored so that their companies are earning billions.
The president's EO, can be an assurance that at least more than half of companies, especially those that earns multi-millions yearly, should comply to this, especially if these are consistently being monitored by the Department of Labor and Employment without favor or biases towards these companies.
However, "creativity" can take place. For sure, there are labor schemes that may still shortchanged the laborers. Some may hide it in a form of a different name but the premise of it still go down to being contractual, like: "permanent employee for six months subject for performance evaluation." There are also those labor "agencies" acting like "solutions" or "support." Of course, these got away because it did not directly violate labor laws.
The reason for the call to end "Endo" is not only because there is "illegal" or "legal," it is also because they both exist and the workers are still at the mercy of this labor system.
And most of all, if the government is truly serious about eradicating this labor malpractice, it should be exemplified from within.
Up to now, government agencies and local government units still employ "contract of service" and "job order" personnel, there is also a difference between casual, full-time, and permanent employees. This is a next big challenge to the administration: ending creative forms of "endo" from the inside.
(Nefluczon@gmail.com)
