Bello: Draft EO regulates contractualization

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Thursday said the proposed Executive Order (EO) on contractualization set to be signed by President Duterte would only regulate and not totally prohibit contractualization.

“The provision of the EO is that the Secretary of [Labor] in consultation with the national tripartite industrial (peace council) may allow some form of contractualization. That’s the tenor of our EO,” Bello said.

The labor department is hoping that Mr. Duterte will sign the draft EO during his April 16 dialogue with the workers’ sector.

Although some labor groups said they were not keen on attending the meeting, Bello said he was “assured by Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod that 25 (workers) would attend.”

President’s promise

But labor groups on Thursday said they would not legitimize any document that “does not reflect the original presidential promise” to prohibit contractualization in the country.

In a press conference, a moderate labor coalition, Nagkaisa, said it would not attend the next round of meetings with Malacañang unless Bello showed the draft EO on the contractualization ban.

Rene Magtubo, spokesperson for Nagkaisa, said members of the coalition had expressed fears that the labor department had compromised some of their demands in order to give way to employers’ interests.

Alongside the militant labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno, Nagkaisa has been in talks with the Palace since February last year in crafting an EO that would scrap contractual labor.

‘Contradictory statements’

But Malacañang’s “indecisiveness and contradictory statements”—the latest of which stated that Mr. Duterte was “powerless” to end the practice through an EO—prompted the coalition to put the blame squarely on Bello.

They accused the secretary of “misleading the President and the public” by making it appear that the labor groups were calling for an absolute ban on contractualization.

Not absolute ban

“Our position has never been to call for an absolute ban. In fact, (in our version) contractualization can be allowed for certain jobs, functions and activities,” said Luis Corral, vice chair of the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.

While Nagkaisa’s draft “strictly prohibits” contracting or subcontracting, Section 2 of its version grants the labor secretary power to determine which jobs or activities may be contracted out through consultation with the national tripartite industrial peace council.