Labor sector’s Christmas wish-list for P-Noy: Empower Workers

23 December 2011, Quezon City—In the spirit of the Christmas season, the Associated Labor Unions-TUCP National Vice President Gerard Seno is grabbing this opportunity and issuing this statement as labor sector’s wish-list for President Aquino to be doing for workers’ sake by January 2012:

At the heart of every Filipino family unit is a working and toiling parents who aspire for their children’s future be far better off than what they are today.

The ALU-TUCP believes that labor and workers’ welfare are in the heart and mind of President Aquino.

Now that there are four years left into his 6-year term, we, the workers, therefore, are reminding President Aquino that today is the time to begin devoting all his energies towards beginning to rebuild and empower every Filipino family by:

1. Either reduce the prices of basic commodities and electricity rates to protect the erosion of family income or increase the current daily wage rate by approving into law the across the board wage increase petition in Congress;

2. Address Philippine government’s multi-institutionalized failure to make the Philippines competitive in the region due to the following factors: endemic corruption in the bureaucracy particularly the illegal smuggling, the high-cost of operating a business in the country, inadequate infrastructures for quick and free flow of goods, worsening security and order, and government’s assignment of all workers’ social benefits to employers.

3. Certifying as urgent/priority the pending job security of tenure bill;

4. Uphold labor tripartism participation in formulation of key government policies and frameworks;

5. Protecting informal economy workers particularly the domestic workers. Ratify ILO Convention 189 or Domestic Workers Convention;

6. Make sure a full implementation of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 that champion the freedom of association and collective bargaining;

7. Ratify International Labor Organization’s Maritime Labour Convention of 2006 (MLC, 2006). The Maritime Labour Convention of 2006 was adopted by the ILO in February 2006 as a response to the global nature of workers’ employment in the maritime industry, to comprehensively address the working and living conditions of seafarers and to set out the minimum standards for decent work for domestic seafarers. Alan A. Tanjusay, ALU Policy Advocacy Officer