Senate tackles proposals on equal employment opportunities for women

MANILA, Philippines—The Senate has started deliberations on proposals that seek to give equal employment opportunities regardless of gender. This includes allowing night work for women employees.

Senator Jinggoy Estrada, chair of the Senate committee on labor, said that despite guarantees expressed by the Constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the recently enacted Magna Carta for Women, cases of discrimination occur every day in factories, corporate towers and government offices.

“With all these legal assurance on equal employment, discrimination still persists in today’s supposed modern times,” Estrada said in a statement on Thursday.

At Wednesday’s joint hearing by the Senate committees on labor; youth, women and family relations; and civil service and government reorganization, Estrada said a study conducted by the Bureau of Women and Young Workers and the National Statistics Office showed that “women employees generally earn less than their male counterparts, they are predominantly low-skilled jobs and only a few of them advance to the top of the organizational hierarchy.”

He cited a study by the Department of Labor and Employment – Institute for Labor Studies (DOLE-IS) that showed a P1,000 monthly salary gap between male and female workers.

The same research, he said, showed that females tend to be given limited access to training, promotions and other fringe benefits, compared to males.

The hearing focused on expanding acts of discrimination on account of sex and identifying particular work-related instances that can be classified as discriminatory, and therefore illegal.

The committee also tackled Senate Bill 859, authored by Estrada himself, which allows night wok for women employees when increasing demand for work provides equal opportunities.

“There has been a demand for exemption from the night work prohibition for women employees, especially in the call-center industry,” Estrada said in his explanatory note in the bill.

The Labor Code, the senator added, generally prohibits night work for women for industrial and commercial undertakings.

“In granting exemption, the Department of Labor and Employment considered the changes brought about by the increasing demand for globalization, liberalization, advanced information and communication technology and communication technology and the Constitutional mandate for the equal rights to employment opportunities and the right against employment discrimination… to increase women participation in work and enhance employment generation,” Estrada said. Bea Sigua, INQUIRER.net trainee