Teachers demand OT pay in pandemic-hit school year

MANILA, Philippines — Public school teachers on Tuesday called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to grant them additional overtime pay for the 77 extra days that they were required to report for work during an extended school year marked by the raging pandemic.

In an April 13 letter to Education Secretary Leonor Briones, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) pressed for the grant of a 25-percent overtime pay to public school teachers, citing Article 87 of the Labor Code.

The law states that an employer must grant an additional pay of 25 percent of a person’s daily wage if the latter is required to work beyond the prescribed working hours.

The Salary Standardization Law raised a teacher’s basic salary to P22,316 in 2020 from P20,754 in 2019.

ACT claimed that educators received “little to no support” from the government for their services during the DepEd’s shift to distance learning program.

Nonstop service

“Our teachers have always given too much despite their circumstances, and they only ask for what is due them,’’ ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio said in a statement.

“The school year has already been extended and yet we also have to shoulder distance learning expenses. Will teachers not be given adequate compensation for their nonstop service?”

The DepEd has yet to respond to the Inquirer’s request for comment at press time.

The school year began on Oct. 5, 2020, and was originally scheduled to close on June 11. But this was extended by two weeks to allow students and teachers to adjust to remote learning, and then later to July 10 to give way to the annual in-service training for teachers.

According to ACT, the adjusted calendar requires teachers to work for 297 days without breaks, since they began reporting for work on June 1, 2020, to adapt to distance learning. This is 77 days in excess of the mandated 220 school days under Republic Act No. 11480.

The teachers also had to conduct Saturday classes, it added.

For Nestor Reyes, a public school teacher, the 25-percent OT pay was a “small compensation,” but would be a “great help’’ for educators who have been shelling out money from their own pockets to fund internet access for their online classes.

Reyes told the Inquirer that he spent at least P500 a month on communication, including cellular phone load that he used to call his students who missed classes, nearly double the P300 monthly communication expense allowance granted by the DepEd from March to December 2020.

“The P300 allowance can only get you so far. If a teacher constantly conducts online classes, P300 can only last them a few days at most,” said Reyes, who teaches technology and livelihood education at Jose Abad Santos High School in Manila.

Since he could no longer hold face-to-face tutoring given the monthslong lockdown, Reyes had to look for other sources of income.

For months Reyes has been selling corn and vegetables in their neighborhood in Manila so he could put food on the table for his family, on top of his main job as a teacher.

“My expenses doubled since the work-from-home setup was adopted. When we taught face-to-face classes before the pandemic, we never had to shoulder additional expenses for electricity, gadgets and internet access,” he recalled.

“At times like this, teachers only rely on our measly salary. So even if the 25-percent overtime pay is not enough, we would still gladly accept it to help augment our financial needs,” Reyes said.

Service credits, too

ACT also called for the grant of service credits for each day of work in excess of the mandated maximum 220 school days from June 1, 2020.

Once granted, the group said teachers may use these service credits “to afford [them] of the needed wellness breaks from the extended school year and grueling distance learning duties.”