TUCP lauds ILO for acting on complaint, assails DOLE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRESS STATEMENT

TUCP lauds ILO for acting on complaint, assails DOLE

Former Senator and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) President Ernesto F. Herrera has commended the International Labor Organization (ILO) for acting swiftly on the complaint lodged by TUCP concerning the nomination of a workers’ adviser in the 2012 International Labor Conference in Geneva.

Herrera, in his complaint letter to the ILO Credentials Committee in Geneva, questioned the nomination of Victorino Balais as adviser in the workers’ delegation of the Philippines, whose title appeared on the Provisional List of Delegates was “Vice President and General Secretary of the TUCP.”

The TUCP leadership wrote that the action of the Government of the Philippines in nominating a person who is not an elected officer and simultaneously designating him as Vice President and General Secretary of the TUCP, “is clearly an affront to the leadership, membership, as well as to the Constitution of the organization,” which amounts to “blatant and notorious affront and violation of the TUCP Constitution.”

According to Herrera, actuations like these by the government, in particular the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), in “interfering with internal union matters and privileges are violations of ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association.”

Furthermore, Herrera called the attention of the DOLE, in his letter to the Secretary of Labor and Employment, demanding rectification to the nomination submitted by the government.

In response, the Secretary of Labor and Employment contended that the designation of Balais as the TUCP Secretary General on the initial credentials was an “honest oversight which the government immediately corrected in its final and official submission of credentials.”

At the same time, the DOLE Secretary admitted in her letter to the ILO Legal Adviser that the “correction having been overlooked,” asked that the title of Balais be corrected as “President, Philippine Transport and General Workers Organization and not as General Secretary of the TUCP.”

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