MANILA, Philippines – The SM Group maintained yesterday it strictly adheres to labor laws and regulations in the conduct of its business.
It issued this statement following widespread criticism the group was among the companies that hired workers only on a per contract basis.
SM strongly denied it has only 355 regular employees out of its more than 90,000 employees.
“The fact is the 373 is merely the number of employees of SM Investments Corp. (SMIC), the holding company. Group-wide employee head count as of 2015 is 94,516, employed in various companies under the SM Group which include companies engaged in banking, financing, property, retail, malls, hotel, resorts and entertainment,” SM said.
“Our store operations are manned by regulator employees. All of our employees are compensated at or paid above government mandated salaries and benefits,” it added.
Aside from its employees, SM also has vendors inside its stores.
“These vendors are required to comply with all labor laws and regulations particularly on the rights, salaries, benefits and security of tenure of their employees,” SM said.
Church-based organizations claimed it is standard practice in the SM Group to hire and fire workers after five months.
“There are many young people that are employed by SM who come to us saying that they are contractual workers,” said Catholic priest Rudy Abao, a convenor of the Church-Workers Solidarity.
SM was founded by tycoon Henry Sy, the richest Filipino with a net worth of $13.7 billion according to Forbes.
Sy built his SM retail fortune from a footwear shop in Manila in 1958.