Agency reinstates protesting university janitors

MANILA, Philippines—School janitors don’t just clean rooms, they can also clean dirty labor practice.

This was the message of an Aglipayan priest in a thanksgiving Mass held Friday at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines’  Sta. Mesa campus to mark the end of the months-long protest by the school’s laid off subcontracted janitors.

The Rev. Antonio Tayco of the Philippine Independent Church congratulated the Samahang Janitors ng PUP (SJPUP) for their reinstatement in the school service, saying that their unity and firm stand to fight for their rights helped them overcome the setbacks.

The PUP board of regents has approved a contract with Sparrow, the new manpower agency that agreed to absorb the 152 laid off janitors, SJPUP president Rey Cagomoc told the Inquirer.

The janitors, some of whom had been working for decades as subcontracted workers at PUP, lost their jobs in February when the new agency Carebest did not absorb them.

Two failed biddings for a new agency prolonged the janitors’ plight.

PUP, under president Emmanuel de Guzman, finally entered into a negotiated contract with Sparrow and the janitors would start working again on Sept. 16, Cagomoc said.

He said they were planning to make appropriate action to compel former PUP officer in charge Estelita dela Rosa to pay them for the seven months they were out of work.

Cagomoc said that because of the retrenchment some of them had been thrown out of their rented homes and put up makeshift shelters on campus grounds, which they started dismantling on Friday.

“Some of us lost our homes, some stopped sending their children to school, and when the storms came, we could not avail ourselves of the Pag-Ibig calamity loans because our payments were stopped,” he said.

In a speech, Cagomoc said their fight for labor rights did not stop with the end of their picket as the practice of contractualization still continues to burden workers.