BPO employees’ group wants DOLE to investigate alleged rights violation
MANILA, Philippines — A network of employees of business processing outsourcing (BPO) has asked the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to investigate BPO companies that allegedly violated the rights of workers to refuse to work under unsafe conditions during the onslaught of Tropical Cyclone Uwan.
BIEN Philippines, or the BPO Industry Employees Network, filed on Tuesday before the DOLE Central Office a formal request for the agency to conduct a labor inspection and investigation of several companies believed to have allegedly breached Republic Act (RA) No. 11058 or the Occupational Safety and Health Law and the DOLE Labor Advisory No. 17, Series of 2022, or the provision of guidelines for work suspension during weather disturbances and similar events.
In its formal request, BIEN Philippines also urged the DOLE to “direct all BPO employees to prioritize employee safety by suspending on-site work in areas under signal warnings or flooding” and “ensure that no worker is punished, penalized, or forced to use leave credits for prioritizing their safety during natural disasters.”
READ: Group files complaint vs BPOs over work safety lapses during Cebu quake
“There are many good laws for workers but they are not implemented properly, especially in BPO, there is no regulation coming from the government and we have been telling this to DOLE for a long time,” BIEN Philippines Secretary General Renzo Bahala told reporters in an interview.
Bahala said that based on their 24-hour monitoring during the peak of Uwan, they received complaints from BPO employees from approximately 100 companies, where most of them claimed that they were forced to report to work despite unsafe working conditions.
Bahala noted that some employees who chose to be absent from work were issued “Notice to Explain.”
With these complaints, Bahala lamented the unfairness that the BPO employees face during natural calamities where their work can’t be suspended.
“Because of the nature of our work, where we provide services to mostly western countries, the idea that even if the Philippines is affected by a tropical cyclone, the country we are offering services to is not. In the eyes of the employers, our operation should be non-stop.,” Bahala added.
Bahala also shared that the probationary employees, or those who haven’t been regularized yet, bear the heaviest brunt of sanctions for not reporting to work. He said that attendance is part of the metrics of the performance to be reviewed in order to be regularized.
DOLE’s steps
DOLE Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma said that he had already acted on the request and directed concerned regional directors to determine the next steps.
“[I] have acted on the request yesterday by directing the concerned Regional Directors where the companies being complained of are located and operating to invite mgmt to explain their side on the allegations so that the Regional Directors can determine the next step to take after the hearing,” Laguesma told the Inquirer in a Viber message.
READ: DOLE issues cease and desist order to Cebu BPO over disaster response
Laguesma also said that he ordered the inspection of companies being complained about “to ensure the safety of the workers.”
BIEN Philippines – Cebu earlier filed a formal complaint against 30 call center firms based in Cebu province for the RA No. 11058 during the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Bogo City in Cebu last September 30.
The group stated that they received more than a hundred reports of agents being forced to report to work despite their pleas to prioritize their safety and their families. /mr
