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[av_heading heading=’‘Endo’ in government’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’18’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
EDITORIAL
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
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DO YOU know that the government has been the biggest practitioner of “endo” (end of contract or labor contractualization)? If the Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list were to be believed, the number of casual employees and personnel on Contracts of Service (COS) and Job Orders (JOs) in government ballooned to 721,282 as of July 2016.
Majority of these workers are at the forefront of delivering social services like social workers and personnel for the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program under the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and clerks and other administrative and support personnel under the Department of Education. They are left suffering, deprived of job security, decent salaries, and benefits.
To address “endo” in government, ACT part-list solons filed House Bill 7415 which aims to prohibit all forms of labor contractualization in the public sector by providing security of tenure and civil service eligibility for all non-regular employees who have worked continuously for at least six months in the government, including the national government agencies, local government units, state universities and colleges and government-owned and controlled corporations and all other government instrumentalities.
The move is a wakeup call for the government. Labor contractualization, in all its forms, goes against the constitutional mandate to promote full employment for all. Employees in both the public and private sectors must be regularized. There is no way that the private sector will stop with “endo” if the government itself sets such a bad example. It should therefore prohibit and penalize the abuse in the use of contracts of service and job orders and grant regular items all qualified contractual workers. Joint Circular 1, s. 2017 issued by the Department of Budget and Management, Civil Service Commission and Commission on Audit allows government agencies to hire JOs and COS instead of ending contractualization in the public sector! The joint circular contains loopholes that pave the way for government agencies to continue hiring COS and JO workers even for regular functions and duties of the agency. This issuance, combined with the government’s so-called rightsizing program, will leave thousands of state workers jobless.
Job security and decent wages are the top demands of the Filipino people. It would do well for the government to fulfill its promise to end labor contractualization both in the public and private sector.
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