ILO mission to look into RP’s labor reform agenda

The International Labor Organization (ILO) is sending a three-man mission to the Philippines to look into labor laws and policies that relate to the country’s application of international standards on the right of workers to organize.

Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito Roque said the ILO mission would meet members of the labor and human resources development committees of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to identify the gaps in the country’s Labor Code, in relation to the country’s application of ILO Convention 87.

The Convention provides for the right of the workers and employers without any distinction, to establish and join organizations of their own choosing, with a view to further and defend their interest, without prior authorization.

Roque said the ILO mission, composed of Director of International Standards Department Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry and her deputy and a labor standards specialists, would also consult with labor and employers.

He said for a number of years, the ILO has proposed for the introduction of amendments to eight provisions in the country’s Labor Code to strengthen the right of Filipino workers to organize.

The most important and highly contentious among the eight provisions is Article 263(g), which allows the Secretary of Labor to assume jurisdiction over national interest cases and in effect impose a strike ban.

So far, Roque said the country has passed into law Republic Act. 9481, or “An Act Strengthening the Workers’ Right to Self-Organization, Amending for the Purpose Presidential Decree 442, otherwise known as the Labor Code of the Philippines.

The new law expands the capacity of federations and national unions to organize local chapters and acquire representative status for purposes of collective bargaining.

Roque said his department has included legislative reforms in the country’s decent work common agenda, adding that tripartite consultations had been going on for sometime to forge consensus on the proposed amendments. The common agenda represents areas of consensus to be pursued by the tripartite partners aimed at achieving decent work in the country.

The Philippines is one of the seven countries – along with Bahrain, Bangladesh, Denmark, Ghana, Morroco and Panama – that have piloted the decent work program based on the ILO framework.

At the same time, Roque said there are pending bills in the House and the Senate that seek to introduce amendments to the eight articles in the Labor Code, particularly Article 263 (g).

Except for House Bill 5095, which seeks to repeal Article 263 (g), the other seven bills seek to replace the phrase ‘indispensable to the national interest” criterion with the concept of “essential services,” as suggested by the ILO, and, thus, limiting national interest cases to hospital, electrical services, water supply services, medical institutions, communication and transportation and transportation services.

Roque said the executive branch will respect the principle of separation of powers and subsequently leave to Congress the matter of calendaring the bills for deliberation and appropriate hearings.

Meanwhile, Roque stressed that the government upholds its policy of promoting and protecting the Filipino workers’ rights, including their right to organize, as evidenced by 362 new labor unions and workers’ associations with 15,774 members that have registered with the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) from January to April this year.

He said this as he exhorted militant groups to refrain from muddling the issue on the objective of the ILO mission in the country.

Roque pointed out that the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), in particular, has been raising issues that are outside the ILO’s agenda in its review of matters relating to the application in law and practice of the right to freedom of association and the workers’ right to organize.

He said based on a report from the Bureau of Labor Relations, the newly organized labor organizations bring to 34,320 the total number of existing unions/collective bargaining agreements which have registered with the DoLE.

These unions, he said, have members totaling 2.6 million.

Roque said the DoLE relentlessly conducts labor education seminars to educate labor and management on their rights and responsibilities as the government under the administration of President Arroyo remains committed to promote and protect labor rights which are essentially human rights.

He said the promotion and protection of human rights is a matter of national policy, adding the government has fulfilled its international obligations to protect human rights with its abolition of the death penalty and the ratification of 12 human rights treaties.

Labor Undersecretary Romeo Lagman, in a statement, also said the Philippines adopts and adheres to the principles of freedom of association and respects the rights of workers to organize.

In fact, he said the Philippines joined the first 11 countries that ratified ILO Convention 87 in 1953, just three years after the Convention came into force in 1950.

He said the Philippine Constitution is explicit in declaring the State policy to guarantee the right of all workers to self-organization as embodied in Convention 87. The Labor Code breathes life into this State policy, he noted.

Lagman, thus, vehemently denied that there pervades in the country a grand design to suppress freedom of association and the right to organize, as being perennially alleged by militant groups.

“There is no climate of impunity that pervades in the country allegedly affecting the free exercise of trade union rights,” he emphasized.

Lagman said the government has accepted the request of the ILO for it to send a mission to Manila to identify gaps in the Philippines’ labor laws and to observe the country’s application of Convention 87.

He said the government is “prepared to engage the mission in a constructive spirit for the formulation of a joint action aimed at improving the Convention’s application in the country.” PNA