ALL WORKERS’ UNITY, an alliance of unions, associations, federations and individuals from the public and private sectors, today launched a campaign for the illegalization of contractualization in the Philippines. At a protest rally along the Elliptical road in Quezon City, hundreds gathered and declared “Kontraktwalisasyon, ipagbawal”.
“This is a momentous occasion in the labor movement’s history, in unity we resolved to fight back against contractualization! Workers and employees, from private and public sectors, organized or indivituals, from the cities and the countryside, from industries, agriculture and services, employed or unemployed we cometogether to militantly struggle to end contractualization”, Elmer Labog, Kilusang Mayo Uno Chairperson and a member of the All Workers’ Unity said.
“Every worker and employee in our country has the right to his/her keep. Contractualiztion is like a gun aimed at our head for us to surrender our rights to decent pay and tenure. Under the prevailing conditions of the system which maintains a huge army of unemployed, contractualization is a chokehold to workers’ basic and constitutional right. We cannot breathe anymore!”
The leader revealed contractualization, an onslaught of the implementation of flexibilization of labor under the neoliberal policies implemented by the government is sweeping across both private and public workers and unless staved off by resistance of the the workers and the public in general, regular work will ultimately be replaced by contractual labor.
“Based on current estimates, there is a prevalent ration of 10% regular in enterprises, factories and offices. Now, this phenomenon is fast becoming a reality even in government agencies, local government units and state hospitals. A glaring example is the DSWD, its 23,000 personnel complement is composed of 20,000 Memorandum of Agreement employees and only 3,000 regular employees”, Ferdinand Gaite, COURAGE National President and also an AWU member added.
“It is alarming that the government itself is among the top culprits guilty of this crime against all workers. The government has been implementing policy of freeze hiring of regular employees, natural attrition and mass lay-off through its so called rationalization plan and has relied mainly on contractualization (job orders, contract of service, memorandum of agreement employees, etc.)”.
“From contract to contract, an untenured worker is threatened with unemployment and hence is forced to surrender every entitlements labor have fought for and won in its long history of arduous struggle! Without cause and due process he can be fired at any given time, he is denied of his right to self-organization and usually remains at the bottom rung of the pay scale. From contract to contract he must compete in a shrinking job market until he has los his “competitiveness” and eventually join the bourgeoning army of the unemployed. This must be stopped”, Jossel Ebesate, Alliance of Health Workers’ Chairperson concluded.
