Deteriorating quality of work bodes deeper crisis for workers this year – KMU

Workers stand to suffer from a deeper crisis this year due to the government’s continuing efforts to cheapen and contractualize the labor force instead of providing regular and decent jobs, labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno said today.

KMU said of the total 38.2 million workers, more than 25 million are either jobless or without regular work. This means that three out of five workers suffer from lack of jobs, corporate layoffs and from the government’s implementation of intensified contractualization and other flexible labor schemes.

“The growing number of workers in contractual or part-time work in the country hints at a growing number workers who are more vulnerable to the lingering economic crisis, since they are not covered by social protection measures and formal labor rules,” said Roger Soluta, KMU secretary general.

Early last year, the government implemented DOLE Advisory No. 2, which licensed more brutal labor flex schemes like forced leave, job rotation and reduced workhours. Since its implementation, more and more workers are reported to resort to odd and informal jobs to augment slashed wages, which arise from reduced time of work.

“A year after the peak of widescale retrenchments and labor flex schemes, workers continue to tread the downward path to deeper crisis due to government’s failure to chart strategic programs for generating stable jobs. What it has done so far is to collaborate with capitalists in peddling part-time and low-quality work via ‘job fairytales,’” Soluta said. 

Soluta said the additional 944,000 jobs generated last year, which the labor department claims, is even short of the total number of new graduates seeking work (which is around 1.2 million) plus the number of retrenched workers last year (which is around 70,000), notwithstanding the government’s penchant for twisting jobs data.

“And even if considered true, the 944,000 jobs generated last year obviously cannot provide a decent and stable living, since these jobs are highly contractual, low-paying and without any social protection,” he added.

Soluta said it is disturbing that the government flaunts Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Program (CLEEP) as a major success in job generation. 

“Working under CLEEP is even worse than working as contractual in a fast food chain, since the contract under CLEEP expires after three months. But perhaps the emergency employment in the aftermath of typhoons is far even worse, as workers who lost their jobs were offered menial work lasting for only two weeks,” he said.

KMU said the steadily growing number of Filipinos leaving the country each day, which is now at around 4,100, “starkly speaks of the dismal failure of the government to generate decent domestic jobs.”

“Given this abysmal state of labor, Filipino workers at home and abroad should unite in fighting and asserting decent and stable jobs and in thwarting further attacks to livelihood,” Soluta said. #