35M contractuals hope for end to endo

manilatimes.net/35m-contractuals-hope-for-end-to-endo/258359/

The Manila Times

ALMOST 35 million contractual workers could be freed from a labor contract system that is good only for 5
months whoever wins the presidential elections on May 9.
The next President ridding labor of contractualization was welcomes on Monday by the workers coalition
Nagkaisa led by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP).
Alan Tanjusay, spokesan for Nagkaisa-TUCP, said the country has almost 35 million contractual workers out of
67.1 million workers as of 2016.
Contractualization or endo (end of contract) or 555 is a work arrangement whereby workers are only hired for
only about 5 months without security of tenure, monetary, non-monetary and social protection benefits.
The law requires regularization or termination of those employed for 6 months.
All the five candidates for President, including Manuel Mar Roxas 2nd, the official candidate of the Aquino
administration who had never lifted a finger in addressing the massive contractualization, promised to solve the
labor problem.
Roxas vowed to end endo within three months of his presidency through a law.
Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza, TUCP president, said his group expressed hope that contractualization will
be addressed by the incoming President.
Its been many years of struggle against contractual work arrangement and we only see a bright hope in ending
it after last nights debate, Mendoza added.
Jose Matula, president of the Federation of Free Workers (FFW), also welcomed the development in the fight
against contractualization in the Philippines.
But, Matula said, the FFW believes that only Vice President Jejomar Binay has the true intention to solve the
problem because Binay was with the workers and lawyered for them in upholding the constitutional right to
security of tenure in a number of illegal dismissal and regularization cases.
During the debate, the Vice President said contractualization is against the law.
Creating many permanent jobs, according to Binay, will solve the problem.
Wilson Fortaleza, spokesman for the Partido Manggagawa, though the statements of the five presidential
candidates, including Sen. Grace Poe whom PM is supporting, lack concrete steps to end contractualization,
the good thing is that the issue became mainstream. Whoever wins has to deal with [his or her]commitments to
labor. This issue doesnt need a single champion. Everyone must support this cause.
Fortaleza said the next President and the labor sector, particularly PM, would work together to seriously solve the
problem.
According to Tanjusay, While large and small corporations and businesses are thriving for many years now
because of economic growth, contractual workers are deprived of their fair share of the wealth they helped build.
Workers under this work scheme are called working poor because they cannot cope with basic standards of cost
of living.
He explained that under the scheme [of contractualization], companies undermine the Labor Code by hiring the
services of a recruitment or manpower agency or cooperative for the services they needed to avoid a direct

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employer-employee relationship for less than six months. They then rehire workers or renew contracts with the
agency if employers still wanted to pursue their services. Other employers create dummy manpower or
recruitment agencies for them to avoid direct employee-employers relationship.
Tanjusay said the contracted workers receive less than the mandated minimum wage without social protection
benefits such as Social Security System, Pag-IBIG and PhilHealth.
They are also deprived of overtime and holiday pays, non-cash perks and benefits, he added.
Legislative efforts to marginalize the contractualization scheme are introduced in every Congress at the Senate
and House of Representatives through the proposed Security of Tenure Act bill but the push for its approval into
law is always opposed by powerful business and employers groups including manpower agencies and
cooperatives, Tanjusay said.

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