Solon: DOLE to blame for workers’ death

MANILA, Philippines–The Department of Labor and Employment shares the blame for the death of eight workers after they were trapped inside a burning Pasay City warehouse that had allegedly been locked by their employer, according to Gabriela party-list Rep. Emmi de Jesus.

De Jesus also said that she would file a resolution to investigate the labor law violations that lead to the sufferings of the trafficked workers, saying the Pasay City incident was not the first.

De Jesus said that if the DOLE had been diligent in seeing to it that the rights of workers to organize and voice their complaints were respected, the Pasay City workers’ employer, Juanito Go, could not have allegedly violated labor standards with impunity.

The workers, all young women, were trapped in the warehouse where they also lived because, according to reports, their employer locked them in at night. This, however, was denied by Go.

“The government’s refusal to criminalize and prosecute safety violations consign our defenseless women workers to modern-day slavery. The Philippines will always be the worst place in the world for workers as DOLE stands idly by and merely counts dead women in killer workplaces,” De Jesus said in a statement.

In seeking a probe of labor law violations, she said the Pasay City incident was similar to a deadly fire in Butuan City in 2012, which left 18 women dead.