Think Bits

Protecting labor
By Ricky Poca
Cebu Daily News First Posted 13:13:00 08/08/2010

There is much talk about the proposed 12-year basic education program to comply with the country’s commitment with the Bologna Accord and the Washington Agreement, which require those who would like to work in Europe and in the United States to have at least the same number of years of basic education as Europeans and Americans.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro says his department will implement the 12-year program with emphasis on vocational and technical education, so that after high school, the graduates are already qualified, skilled and competent to work. I think that is the proper thing to do because today our curricula have plenty of subjects that aren’t useful for most employment opportunities.

Is the additional two years of basic education good for the country? Some question its propriety, because it would be an added burden to families, but there is no other way but to comply with the Bologna and Washington Agreements. If we don’t we would lose our competitiveness abroad and many Filipinos who want to work abroad will find no proper employment.

So, what happens after the 12-year basic education? Will the graduates still take up four years of college? I think what is going to happen is that graduates will just take up two years of technical or vocational education, and those who qualify can take up three or four years of specialized college courses.

This is a good proposal. I’ve been teaching college classes for years and I often have students who are still 16 years old and not mature enough to face the rigors of higher learning, so they fail to choose the courses that fit them best. Others are simply not academically prepared.

In my experience as the new chairman of the Department of Political Science at University of San Carlos, when I interview applicants for the program, asking them what tracks in political science they want to pursue, many usually don’t know and would usually settle for the most common, which is law and public policy, ignoring that there are other three equally relevant tracks.

The lack of maturity of many first year and second year students is a concern for us teachers who see that they may not be prepared for college life. I am encouraging more debate on this proposed new highway of education, for us to come up with better-informed choices.

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I think the problem confronting Philippine Airlines has brought to for the issue of contractualization in the private sector. Workers are hired on the basis of their contracts, which bar them from becoming regular employees.

In this scheme, recruitment or placement agencies provide workers to companies, which hire the workers for just five months, not long enough for the six-month period to let them qualify for regularization.

This scheme has been abused by many private companies that want to shortchange their laborers who don’t get entitled to the benefits regular workers enjoy.

Even those doing work directly related to the core business of a company are hired under this scheme. What is worse is that the legislative department and judicial branches of government have in a way reinforced the scheme of contractualization.

A proposal to enact a new Labor Code that would regulate or ban contractualization had rough sailing in Congress, which was expected because many senators and district representatives are business owners or consultants of big firms. So, they protect their own kind.

In the judiciary, I do not know if the members of the bench are blind to the lamentable conditions of workers.

Even established firms are adopting the scheme, although I think some of them do so primarily to check on new employees’ workplace behavior and attitude.

But this can be corrected with the many tools available for both labor and management to pursue. There are ample provisions in the law to protect management from abusive employees, but management must be vigilant in documenting incidents involving misbehaving employees. One must remember that in Labor Law, in case of doubt everything must be resolved in favor of labor.

In many labor cases, management finds itself at the losing end, based on statistics of the National Labor Relations Commission and the Department of Labor.

I observed that management had this penchant for dismissing or terminating employees without due process, confident that they could do anything because they own the company. It’s a whole new story today. That is why management resorts to the contractualization scheme; it’s more convenient to forego dealing with problems that go with having regular employees.

It is hoped that government comes up with a law that would protect labor from the abuses brought about by contractualization, especially because the Constitution recognizes labor as the primary social and economic force in our country.