NutriAsia, PLDT execs lay down reasons for contracting workers

Company representatives of NutriAsia and PLDT  on Thursday said they have legitimate and legal reasons for hiring workers from third-party manpower agencies.

At the Senate hearing on regularization of employees, both NutriAsia President Angie Flaminiano and PLDT Senior Vice President Menardo Jimenez noted that their companies contract workers only when the job description falls outside their core functions.

“For NutriAsia, the factor is if there is confidentiality and proprietary information, trade secrets involved in the activity then that is our core function and we develop core expertise over that,” Flaminiano told Senator Risa Hontiveros, who requested for an explanation on the grounds for hiring contractual workers.

“As far as we are concerned, B-Mirk (employees) only provides the weighing of various ingredients. This is a very mechanical function, it is simple, and he cannot, by himself reverse engineer the recipe as it is utility routine work,” Flaminiano added.

Impossible to manage all business aspects

Jimenez, on the other hand, informed the members of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resource development led by Senator Joel Villanueva, that PLDT cannot possibly manage aspects of business well beyond their expertise.

“At this point for us and our business, we believe that installation and repair is core to our business, and secondly in terms of what we outsource, we do understand that there are a list of companies or industries that we can outsource to, BPOs, call centers, janitorials, messengers,” Jimenez said.

“The number one reason why PLDT outsource is because of expertise of the outsource company. We don’t outsource just because we want to kill jobs, that is an unfair judgment of our company and the business sector,” he added.

Well-reputed third party companies

Meanwhile, Menardo emphasized that PLDT does not outsource randomly but only from well-reputed third party agencies.

He also mentioned the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) guidelines on when a company can hire contract-based employees.

“SPi is an expert when it comes to call center, answering calls, they are world-class. You put up a call center in PLDT, but we’re not as good,” Jimenez said in jest.

“We understand that even if it is (part of) core, you are allowed to outsource for augmentation or seasonality. So we do that as well,” he explained.

Cutting down expenses

However, Jimenez did admit that PLDT manages to cut down its expenses by refraining from directly hiring certain employees.

“I will agree, there is a cost-efficiency aspect to it, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that, every business has to be able to manage its costs so that it can grow, and so that it can give more jobs to people,” he confessed.

During the Senate committee hearing, workers claimed to be employed in a contractual basis, have criticized the two companies about the conditions and circumstances of their job.

Both companies denied any irregularities, saying that their employment procedures comply with labor policies.   /vvp