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Monday, September 4, 2017
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THE HOUSE of Representatives passed House Bill (HB) 6152 or the Compressed Work Week to supposedly promote business competitiveness, work efficiency and labor productivity. It will allow 4-day-12-hours work week, with corresponding overtime payment only if work exceeds 48 hours a week. Some quarters are happy. Some are not.
Has there been a thorough consultation and discussion on this HB? In summary, there are the concerns: HB 6152 could worsen working conditions and increase the number of overworked Filipinos. Reducing the number of work days but making workers labor for longer periods of time does not provide a work-life balance. It will only expose them to more stress, fatigue, other illnesses and accidents. Extended working hours could have detrimental effects on the employees’ health and well-being. And while wages are pegged at very low rates, workers will be forced to look for alternative sources of income during their supposed rest days to compensate for what they will lose as overtime pay. Hungry stomachs cannot enjoy a three-day rest.
HB 6152 appears to backpedals the gain of workers’ struggle that catapulted the more than century-old International Labor Standards and the Philippine law stipulating that eight hours/day is the normal working hours. This victory was in recognition of the physical, emotional, mental, social and even economic pressure the human body can bear for a period of time, without destroying it. It was on recognition that workers are not slaves, that they are humans innate with dignity. These reasons were factored in deciding that optional corresponding overtime payment in excess of eight-hour work is paid higher than regular hour to compensate for the additional stress that it caused.
While a 48-hour or 72-hour rest day a week sounds enticing and considerate under HB 6152, progressive labor groups say it is deceptive as it completely ignores the fact that workers and their families have to eat and to support household expenses, even on rest days. They say income reduction will negatively impact on a family’s basic needs.
Labor groups wonder, too, if our legislators have factored the current pervasive and illegal company practices of forcing laborers to work 12 to 16 hours everyday. They say HB 6152 is only a step away towards institutionalizing the modern slavery that workers, particularly contractual workers in manufacturing, services, and special economic zones, are subjected into.
In March of this year, Sen. Grace Poe spoke of filing a resolution to look into the dramatic rise of overworked Filipino workers to more than eight million as indicated in the Philippine Statistics Authority data on “Decent Work in the Philippines.” Expressing alarm on the situation of overworked workers, she says “Too much work kills.” Such observation is very relevant to this debate regarding the compressed work-week.
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