WITH 22-0 votes, the Senate approved on third and final reading Senate Resolution 454 sponsored by Senator Loren Legarda to ratify International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 151.
The rights of civil servants to organize, as well as procedures for determining conditions of employment in public service, are now protected by the concurrence of the Senate with ILO Convention 151, which was first adopted on June 27, 1978, in Geneva, Switzerland entered into force on February 25, 1981.
The Philippines, said Legarda, is the first Asian country to ratify the convention, which is also known as the "Convention Concerning Protection of the Right to Organize and Procedures for Determining Conditions of Employment in the Public Service."
She further said that the Convention will bolster the domestic and international status of the Philippines as a leader in promoting and protecting labor and civil rights.
According to the resolution, "the Convention promotes sound labor relations between public authorities and public employees’ organizations through the protection of the right to organize, granting of facilities or privileges to its representatives, full development and utilization of machinery for negotiation of terms and conditions of employment, and promotion of civil and political rights of public employees."
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ratified the Convention last May 26, 2017.
The Convention will promote better working conditions, and give public sector employees the opportunity to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment, and have proper avenues to voice out their grievances, Legarda said.
"Civil servants have waited for 39 years for the ratification of this Convention and the Senate's concurrence is a vote in upholding and promoting labor rights," Legarda said.
For his part, Senator Joel Villanueva, chair of the Senate committee on labor human resources development and co-sponsor of the resolution, said that the approval "serves as a fitting recognition to the dedication of our country's public servants and to the people they dutifully serve."
Prior to the ILO Convention 151, the Philippine government has ratified several ILO treaties in the past such as the ILO Convention 87 on "Freedom of Association", ILO Convention 98 on the "Right to Organize and Collectively Bargain" and ILO Convention 144 concerning "Tripartite Consultation".
It likewise complements Executive Order 180, serving as a model in improving labor relations in government, Villanueva said.
"No country has ever developed without a strong, professional, and modern government bureaucracy. We need them now, more than ever, as we wish to transition to an upper middle-income economy," Villanueva stressed.
Villanueva further underscored the importance of the said treaty in enabling the public servants to be effective partners in development. Through the convention, civil servants are now armed with rights to collective bargaining and negotiation which they hardly had before compared to their counterparts in the private sector.
As of January 2015, data from the Civil Service indicate that of the 1,944 registered unions in the public sector, only 992 or less than half have achieved accreditation status, while only 813 have collective negotiation agreements.
"This situation deprives many civil servants of rights enjoyed by their private sector counterparts. The main reason for this is that union registration and accreditation has been subjected to various policy changes over the years, thereby making some employees unable to meet the requirements to establish unions. We know that like some workers, civil servants can also experience unfair working conditions and practices by management."
Adding to the said problem is the confusion between workers and management's understanding of "management prerogative."
One example is in the Public Sector Labor Management Council (PSLMC) wherein workers are mere observers with no right to vote on cases lodged in the body, and more recently, they are relegated to the technical working group level participation.
Union activities are also stifled given the lack of definitive mechanisms on conciliation and mediation and dispute resolution in the public sector, leading to demoralization and unresolved issues between management and workers.
"Our concurrence to ILO Convention 151 is not an end in itself. It is merely continuing our avowed commitment to strengthen and protect our workers which include the civil servants. A vibrant collective bargaining in the public sector encourages workers to design their standards and codes of conduct."
Aside from the safeguards the ILO Convention 151 will afford to the right of the civil servants, Villanueva also believes that the Treaty's ratification will help prevent the abuse of contractualization or "endo" in the public sector. (VoxPop Philippines)