Unemployment insurance? A Studied View from TUCP

1. There are close to 3 million unemployed in the Philippines in any given time.  Co-existing with one million vacancies waiting to be filled.

One third of unemployment could be remediated by proper employment facilitation, or job matching if you prefer, and by skills development or upgrading.

The other two million have to be generated by increased investment in-country or by the overseas market.

2. There are many modes of job loss – those at the instance of the workers, and those at the instance of other parties.

Job loss at the instance of workers may not need some measure of protection.

Those losing their jobs at the instance of others – plant closures, job reductions, end of contracts, even disasters, are the ones who need some temporary assistance.

3. Philippine social institutions (SSS, GSIS, Pag-IBIG, etc.) have provided loans for those members who have involuntarily lost their jobs.

These schemes are ad hoc, and are messy to monitor and administer.  Repayment rates are probably terrible.

4.TUCP has proposed an unemployment insurance scheme, but only for social institution members.  Collection and administration issues, even for the formal workforce,  are many.

Congress may set a time frame for the eventual coverage of non-formal workers.  This would be good while the tripartite sectors are learning to administer a scheme for the formal workers.

5.TUCP proposes collection of premiums (and payment of unemployment benefits) by existing SSS, GSIS and Pag-IBIG machinery.

The issue of who will pay premiums (workers and employers jointly, or employers only) can be decided after a thorough examination of  the matter.

Perhaps, initial contributions (or advances?) from SSS, GSIS, Pag-IBIG – could fund benefits while the unemployment insurance fund is being built.

6. Entitlement to unemployment insurance should be conditional on workers’ registration for employment and taking available, comparable jobs.

PESOs could do the registration and monitoring requirement, but not all PESOs could imbibe the rigid insurance-and-employment culture at the same rates.  PESOS have different stages of development.

PESOs have been devolved and are now the charge of LGUs.

Not many LGUs have permanent PESO staff.  Many PESO staff have PESO responsibilities only as added assignment.

Most PESOS would need serious capacity-building and modernization.

7. How much entitlement benefit?

It could be a fixed amount, or a percentage of the latest basic salary of the worker, or a percentage of the minimum wage.

This is only a detail, subject to studies, consultations and dialogue.

8. How long should unemployment benefits last?  A maximum of six months?  That was the average number of months workers who had lost their jobs spent looking for work in the past.

Again, this is only a detail.  The scheme could fortify some equitable system for benefits after studies and tripartite consultations.

9. Labor does not look kindly at tying up unemployment insurance with “a flexibilization of labor law”.

Security of tenure is a guaranteed right. Social security and legal protection – from the first day of employment  — are entitlements and are protected by law.

Employers can retrench their workers or dismiss them for cause or justifiable reasons.  Those dismissal cases which end up in litigation are those which involve unconscionable practices by employers – including those arising from union activities or those arising from employers or their agents simply not liking their workers faces.

If there were worthless or incorrigible workers, let employers build up the serious documentation and the case for their termination. Workers cannot just be terminated at will.

10. The practice of hiring workers for at most six months is productivity-counterproductive.  Employers waste resources used for training these workers – if they are let go only after a short period.  Or is it that employers do not care as they do not train these people anyway, and expect other parties to do the training for them for free?

11. Let us have unemployment insurance, the right kind. Not that which will force us to give up our other rights.

That said, LET’S DIALOGUE!!!