A MILITANT labor group yesterday urged President Duterte to hold his predecessor accountable for “crimes against workers,” as they challenged him to keep his word to end contractualization.
The Kilusang Mayo Uno accused former President Benigno S. Aquino III of taking the lives of hundreds of workers, peasants and lumad through the military’s counter-insurgency campaign.
“The workers call on the President to hold Aquino accountable for his crimes against Filipino workers and the people,” the group said a statement yesterday.
KMU chair Elmer Labog reiterated the group’s demand for an increase in the minimum wage from P481 to P750.
The increase in the national minimum wage, they said, would provide “immediate relief to workers and their families and would counter the distortion caused by the Wage Rationalization Law.”
Labog likewise reiterated KMU’s willingness “to work with the Department of Labor and Employment in drafting proposals and measures to totally curb contractualization.”
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has formed a technical working group to formulate ways to end the practice of contractualization.
Bello yesterday named Undersecretary for Social Protection Ciriaco Lagunzad III to head the panel on contractualization, together with fellow Undersecretary Joel Maglungsod.
The labor secretary stressed that short-term employment contracts, whether through direct hiring by employers or through contracting out, were not allowed.
Such practices are contrary to the provisions of Articles 106 to 109 of the Labor Code on contracting, or a circumvention of Article 249 on unfair labor practices, he said. Julie Aurelio and Toni Diane Bellen/rga