Don’t penalize workers late for work due to traffic, firms urged

While employers are demanding that government solve the traffic problem and appoint a traffic czar, labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) in turn is asking employers not to penalize workers who are late for work due to traffic.

“Since employers recognize that there is no existing solution yet to this pressing issue, we demand that capitalists not punish workers who are late due to a problem that they have no control over,” said Rene Magtubo, PM national chair, in a statement.

The traffic has become a hot topic recently with a public sector union federation, PSLINK, initiating a petition for the resignation of Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chief Francis Tolentino.

PM is proposing the following to employers:

1. Grace period of 30 minutes
2. No warning or infraction if three or more workers are late due to traffic
3. No pay cut, offset through additional time worked
4. Shuttle buses for establishments with 200 or more workers

Magtubo added that unions should negotiate with management for such measures in their collective bargaining agreements or table them in grievance procedures.

“Workers without unions should directly petition management. Until traffic congestion is substantially reduced, such remedial steps must remain in place to protect workers,” he said.

“Traffic is a concern not just to employers but also to workers. With workers spending some four hours on the road to and from their workplaces, work-life balance suffers as a result. Thus workers also implore government for effective solutions to traffic congestion but ask that employers pitch in too by among others, not penalizing workers who are tardy,” Magtubo explained. Tina G. Santos