Casilao said contractualization is not a
mere short-term tactic to reduce costs or to defeat a union organizing
drive, but a long-term strategy for shedding all obligations to workers
and eliminating all employee rights based on the existence of an
employment relationship.
“It removes various obstacles to the extreme exploitation of workers which they have won through decades of struggles,” Casilao said.
Citing recent studies, Casilao said contractualization is extensive in the Philippines, with seven out of 10 firms implementing combinations of flexible work arrangements, and with estimates showing that contractuals now outnumber regulars among Filipino workers. As labor groups and advocates have described, contractualization is a dagger in the hearts of Filipino workers.
Casilao said large corporations such as Shoemart (SM); a retail company owned by Philippines’ richest Filipino, Henry Sy, is notorious for employing contractual employees with shortened employment tenures of 3 to 5 months.
In 2011, Casilao said the Philippine Airlines (PAL), the country’s flag carrier, has succeeded in outsourcing its ground operations that retrenched 6,000 regular employees in favor of contractual workers.
Casilao said majority of the country’s 37.6 million employed persons are either employed in contractual, temporary, probationary, seasonal and odd jobs. Based on official government data, an estimate of 44 percent of workers employed in various industries are not regulars.
He said the rate of contractual employment is also high in the construction sector at 81% and quarrying sector at 59%.
Casilao said contractual employment schemes can be viewed as the micro-economic firm-level aspect of the continuing and worsening economic restructuring of the world economy that is part of the macro-level liberalization, deregulation and privatization policies of neoliberal globalization.
Casilao said labor flexibilization pertains to innovations in work organization and employment schemes associated with the adoption of new production technologies and/or human resource management designed to extract greater profits prompted by increasing global competition and crisis.
“These profit maximization schemes include labor-only-contracting, subcontracting, hiring of casuals and contractuals, hiring of apprentices so that in the Philippines labor flexibilization is used synonymously with “contractualization” or “casualization” of labor,” Casilao said.
In the past decade, Casilao said contractual employment proliferated due to the neoliberal policies of globalization.
“In fact, a big chunk of locally-generated employment is attributed to contractual or temporary jobs across industries particularly in special economic zones, the service sector and industries concentrated on export-oriented production mainly of semi-manufactures with little value-added,” Casilao said.
The bill defines contractor or subcontractor as a person or an entity with whom an employer or principal enters into a contract for the performance of the latter’s work.
Under the bill, when the contractor or subcontractor contracts to perform work that is necessary and desirable for the business of the employer, the employees or workers of the contractor or subcontractor shall be considered the employees of the employer and not of the contractor or subcontractor.
The bill provides further that the contractor, subcontractor, agency, person or intermediary shall be considered merely as agent of the employer or the principal who shall be responsible for the workers in the same manner and extent as if the latter were directly employed by the said employer or principal.
“It removes various obstacles to the extreme exploitation of workers which they have won through decades of struggles,” Casilao said.
Citing recent studies, Casilao said contractualization is extensive in the Philippines, with seven out of 10 firms implementing combinations of flexible work arrangements, and with estimates showing that contractuals now outnumber regulars among Filipino workers. As labor groups and advocates have described, contractualization is a dagger in the hearts of Filipino workers.
Casilao said large corporations such as Shoemart (SM); a retail company owned by Philippines’ richest Filipino, Henry Sy, is notorious for employing contractual employees with shortened employment tenures of 3 to 5 months.
In 2011, Casilao said the Philippine Airlines (PAL), the country’s flag carrier, has succeeded in outsourcing its ground operations that retrenched 6,000 regular employees in favor of contractual workers.
Casilao said majority of the country’s 37.6 million employed persons are either employed in contractual, temporary, probationary, seasonal and odd jobs. Based on official government data, an estimate of 44 percent of workers employed in various industries are not regulars.
He said the rate of contractual employment is also high in the construction sector at 81% and quarrying sector at 59%.
Casilao said contractual employment schemes can be viewed as the micro-economic firm-level aspect of the continuing and worsening economic restructuring of the world economy that is part of the macro-level liberalization, deregulation and privatization policies of neoliberal globalization.
Casilao said labor flexibilization pertains to innovations in work organization and employment schemes associated with the adoption of new production technologies and/or human resource management designed to extract greater profits prompted by increasing global competition and crisis.
“These profit maximization schemes include labor-only-contracting, subcontracting, hiring of casuals and contractuals, hiring of apprentices so that in the Philippines labor flexibilization is used synonymously with “contractualization” or “casualization” of labor,” Casilao said.
In the past decade, Casilao said contractual employment proliferated due to the neoliberal policies of globalization.
“In fact, a big chunk of locally-generated employment is attributed to contractual or temporary jobs across industries particularly in special economic zones, the service sector and industries concentrated on export-oriented production mainly of semi-manufactures with little value-added,” Casilao said.
The bill defines contractor or subcontractor as a person or an entity with whom an employer or principal enters into a contract for the performance of the latter’s work.
Under the bill, when the contractor or subcontractor contracts to perform work that is necessary and desirable for the business of the employer, the employees or workers of the contractor or subcontractor shall be considered the employees of the employer and not of the contractor or subcontractor.
The bill provides further that the contractor, subcontractor, agency, person or intermediary shall be considered merely as agent of the employer or the principal who shall be responsible for the workers in the same manner and extent as if the latter were directly employed by the said employer or principal.
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