The Labor Laws Compliance Officers (LLCOs) of the Department of Labor and Employment Regional Office No. 7 (DOLE-7) are now in full blast assessments of industries that have high incidence of ‘endo’ and other forms of prohibited employment arrangements.
According to DOLE-7 Regional Director Exequiel R. Sarcauga, the DOLE’s LLCOs are grouped into several teams to assess identified priority industries.
“Before we begin the assessment of priority industries, which are manufacturing, malls; food chains; hotels; restaurants, we make sure to cover as many industries as we can in our ‘endo’ orientations,” noted Sarcauga.
DOLE also conducted public information campaign on ‘endo’ and other illegitimate forms of contracting with Robinsons Malls on 6 September and with the manufacturing industry on 7 September 2016.
Other orientations were conducted on 10 September at Visayas-Wide Focused Group Discussion at Harolds Hotel; on 13 September with the Regional Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (RTIPC-7) at Hotel Pier 4; on 14 September with the Gaisano Group of Companies; and on 15 September with SM; and on 16 September with Maritime Industry Tripartite Council.
Sarcauga said that apart from informing the DOLE’s partner industries of the government’s move towards ending ‘endo’, it is also highly important that they would thoroughly understand what the law says on allowable and prohibited contracting and subcontracting arrangements.
“During the the orientations, we see to it that our partners understand that we do not only check the legitimacy of trilateral employment arrangements, but also the soundness and validity of bilateral arrangements, whereby workers are hired directly,” he said.
For directly hired workers, Sarcauga said the next thing to look into is their employment status, whether they are regular or non-regular.
Atty. Roy Buenafe, DOLE-7’s mediator-arbiter, said the legal basis of legitimate or job contracting and the prohibited or labor-only-contracting (LOC) arrangements are found in Article 106, as well as the direct hiring which is stipulated in Article 280 of the Labor Code of the Philippines.
“We are encouraging the management sector to cooperate with us. In the orientations we’ve done so far, we gave management representatives several forms and one of which is the notice of voluntary compliance. We hope to receive good news from them, which would mean that they have already absorbed or regularized contractual workers,” added Sarcauga.
The Region’s aggressive joint assessments, he noted, is in support to the first track of the DOLE’s three-pronged action plan on putting a stop to abusive employment arrangements.
The DOLE is now implementing strict enforcement of compliance to labor laws through inspection, joint assessment, and compliance visit; policy review of the existing Implementing Rules and Regulations, particularly on contracting and subcontracting; and amendment of the Labor Code provisions on contracting and subcontracting and security of tenure.
“Endo or end of contract,” is a scheme wherein contractual employees are hired and fired every three months by employers Also known as ‘5-5-5,’ it is a common practice among private companies to enable them to circumvent labor laws and deny workers regular employment or security of tenure.
