Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III. (File photo from GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III directed Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) on Monday to regularize its more than 7,000 workers as he stressed that the compliance order was “final and executory.”
Bello said that even if PLDT’s contract with its 38 service contractors had been terminated, the workers should not have been affected and, in fact, should have been regularized.
Labor-only contractors
“The order is to regularize [the] 7,000 workers [who] were outsourced by the contractors because they are found to be labor-only contractors,” he said.
While the labor department has ordered PLDT’s contractors to “cease and desist” from providing services to the telecom giant, PLDT has failed to regularize the affected employees.
PLDT has denied it was skirting the order and questioned its validity in the Court of Appeals. —Jovic Yee