Claim of regularization: More of propaganda than reality

Workers here negated the pronouncement of Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III claiming nearly half a million were already regularized during the administration of President Duterte. Labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) called the Secretary’s statement pure propaganda and far from reality.

KMU said while it is true that there were regularization orders from the DOLE on different companies, the reality is that companies are not complying with the orders and are instead dismissing workers in droves. Examples include Jollibee Foods Corp. and PLDT workers where in Jollibee, the DOLE ordered the regularization of 6, 482 workers earlier this year but the company instead laid off its workers and in PLDT, the DOLE had previously ordered PLDT to regularize 7,344 workers from 38 of PLDT’s third-party service contractors but again laid off those workers by terminating the contracts of the company’s third-party service contractors. Worse, the DOLE’s Order was overturned by the Court of Appeals last August.

The workers also lambasted the DOLE’s approach of giving leeway to employers in terms of “voluntarily” regularizing instead of implementing the full compliance of regularization of workers. This bogus “voluntary” regularization scheme has left more contractual workers than ever since companies would opt not to regularize in order to retain their profit margins.

“We are a testament that DOLE is inutile in implementing the law. We have long been declared as regular workers of Sumifru, but the company is blatantly disregarding the Court’s order,” said Paul John Dizon, president of Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm (Namasufa-Naflu-KMU).

KMU in Southern Mindanao also bared that the DOLE-XI runs counter to Bello’s claim that their department has fulfilled the campaign promise of President Duterte on ending contractualization. (pr)