DAVAO City — A labor rights group has dared the government’s labor department to properly implement the recently signed Occupational Safety and Health Law which they described as a “landmark victory for all Filipino workers.”
Rochelle Porras, director of the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (Eiler), said the passage of the law ensures that “poor working conditions resulting to gross violation of labor rights and worse, working deaths can now be penalized.”
“The challenge now is for the labor department, by virtue of RA 11058, to inspect all workplaces including establishments located inside Philippine Economic zones,” Poras said in a statement.
It can be recalled that Eiler previously lambasted the labor department after it failed to inspect the workplace conditions inside the Philippine economic Zones. Porra’s group, in particular, scored Dole’s “voluntary assessment” monitoring of workplace, saying such practice is not working and only put the workers’ lives in peril while working in hazardous conditions.
Porras said the labor department’s practice had caused tragic incidents in the past. She cited the Eton incident in Makati City back in 2011, Valenzuela City’s Kentex Factory incident in 2015, the Housing Technology Industries in Cavite in 2017 and in the same year, the NCCC Mall fire incident in Davao and for 2018, the J.E. Abraham C. Lee Construction in Cebu.
“We sincerely recognize the heroes of economic development, the workers who have persistently lobbied for stricter penalties for employers’ violations of occupational safety and health standards,” she said. (davaotoday.com)
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