Protesters from the five provinces of Caraga take to the streets in Butuan City to dramatize their grievances against the Duterte administration as they mark the 115th Labor Day on Tuesday. (photo by erwin mascariñas)
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By ERWIN MASCARIÑAS
Correspondent .

BUTUAN City–The Kilusang Mayo Uno said Caraga’s mining and agricultural sectors are the most problematic in terms of labor issues and concerns.

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KMU revealed this even as some 1,000 workers and activists from the five provinces of Caraga took to the streets here on Tuesday to air their grievances against the Duterte administration over what they said was the government’s failure to fulfill its promises to workers.

The demonstrators, under at least 18 unions in Caraga led, trooped to the Guingona Park where they marked the 115th Labor Day with a protest rally.

Tito Tanduyan, secretary-general of KMU in Caraga, said the demand was for a genuine solution to the problem on contractualization, just wages, and to assert their right to establish workers’ unions.

“We are here to ask for what is fair, and for the workers who have been exploited and stepped on all these years,” he said.

Tanduyan noted that most of the workers who joined in the Butuan protest came from the mining sector and plantations. He said organized teachers and youth and other groups also came.

Caraga’s mining sector is the most problematic, pointing out that over 8,000 mining workers were not regularly employed or were merely contracted loaborers.

He said the agricultural sector, especially workers in oil palm and banana plantations, is next in their list. He said there were nearly a thousand cases of workers’ rights violations against plantation owners in the region.

Aside from this, workers in Caraga were also hurting due to the Duterte administration’s Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (Train) law “so while we are fighting to have the appropriate increase in the wages of our workers here comes a law on taxation that has increased the cost of basic commodities,” said Tanduyan.

Edgar Candel, 49, of Barangay Manat, Trento in Agusan del Sur, said the Train law made it difficult for workers like him to make both ends meet.

Candel complained: “We won’t be able to enjoy the benefits of the tax. We are only earning P321 a day. The increase in the prices of basic commodities due to the Train law has made our life harder. We travel several kilometers from the center of the town, and the increase in fuel prices has had a domino effect on the prices of rice, sugar, soup, and milk. The prices went up but our wages are the same.”

Candel works at Agumil Philippines Inc. where workers are seeking a collective bargaining agreement and a wage increase.

Redundant

In Cagayan de Oro where similar demonstrations were staged on Tuesday, the KMU said there was no need for President Duterte to sign an executive order or for Congress to pass a legislation banning the illegal contractualization of workers. KMU pointed out that this has been stipulated in Article 106 of the Labor Code.

“There is no need to sign an EO. Why is there a need for it when he can order the Labor secretary to implement Article 106 of the Labor Code? It’s very clear in Article 106 that labor-only contracting is illegal,” said Wildon Barros, secretary-general of KMU in northern Mindanao.

Since the Department of Labor and Employment is a branch of the government’s executive power, Barros said, Duterte can simply give an order to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to enforce the Labor Code’s provision.

“The workers are the ones on the losing end. They are being passed around like a basketball. Duterte said he will sign the EO and then he also said he will ask Congress to pass a law prohibiting it. But all he has to do is order Dole to enforce an already existing labor law,” Barros said.

Article 106 provides: “The Secretary of Labor and Employment may, by appropriate regulations, restrict or prohibit the contracting-out of labor to protect the rights of workers established under this Code.” (with reports from davao today)

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