Casual government workers need protection

One of the biggest ironies of President Duterte’s war on illegal “contractualization” is the existence of hundreds of thousands of workers in government who have stayed in their positions for years, but continue to be unprotected by an employer-employee contract.

This is worse than “endo,” a practice prevalent in the private sector where workers are hired for less than six months and not renewed, therefore skirting the explicit rules of law that states that workers that stay on their jobs for six months or more should become permanent employees.

Endo, for end of contract, at the very least, does not give any false illusions to someone who had been hired for the job – even if this is still considered as an ethically unacceptable way of skirting labor laws.

In the government, it has been reported that half — or about 750,000 — of those employed in various national and local government offices continue to work in various positions (even in approved government posts) without the benefits enjoyed by government employees.

Most of these workers are covered by contracts in the bureaucratic jargon like “job order,” “emergency hiring,” and “memorandum of agreement,” all of which simply try to skirt the Civil Service law – or worse, to rip off the government of taxpayers’ money through the employment of “ghost employees.”

Available government data show that the national government paid over P20 billion in wages in 2014 to casual government hires, while the local governments disbursed close to P14 billion during the same year.

Ways of skirting the law

Contractualization in government is often resorted to as a way of bypassing Civil Service eligibility requirements that “preferred” hires do not have, or would likely not be able to acquire.

Other reasons for hiring would be to fill up “temporary” jobs, usually given to a relative or someone with connections to another government employee, but that unfortunately extends for years or as long as the hiring government officer holds office.

These temp workers are often “co-terminus” with their “backers,” and while their employment is with a tacit understanding and agreement of nil chances of full-time employment, the conditions are prejudicial to others who are qualified to take on the government position.

No employee-employer relationship

Still, there are those hired for approved government positions, but for one reason or another, have not been able to secure the full benefits of a local or national government worker because they had earlier signed a contract that specifically quoted a no “employer-employee” relationship.

This was largely the case with about a thousand contractual employees of the National Housing Authority (NHA), who overwhelmingly outnumbered the 800 regular employees of the government agency.

Some of them had started working as emergency hires, but continued in their oppressive positions for more than a decade without the benefits regular government employees enjoy, including retirement benefits.

Others were simply compelled to put up with the limitations of the contracts after recognizing and accepting the bureaucratic difficulty of justifying new government positions and the uncertainties of eventually getting the job.

Social activist Judy Taguiwalo, during the period when she was acting social welfare and development secretary, had acknowledged that there were 25,000 contract workers in her department, but only 200 unfilled positions available.

Taguiwalo had vowed to increase the number of available government positions for the DWSD, thereby absorbing in the bureaucracy those that had unfairly been excluded from enjoying full government employment benefits. Unfortunately, the Commission on Appointments rejected her appointment.

New law needed

Given the extent of unjust contractualization in the bureaucracy, the Civil Service Commission recently pushed for the creation of a new law that would address the practice of casual work hiring in government offices.

There are no government rules at the moment that inhibit national and local government offices and agencies from hiring workers through contract of services or job order or memorandum of agreement because of the no employer-employee relationship clause.

Last June, the CSC, Department of Budget and Management, and Commission on Audit issued the joint circular directing government agencies to review their structure and identify their much-needed manpower. The circular also specified that existing job order (JO) and contract of services (COS) of government workers would only be renewed until Dec. 31.

Corollary to this, there is also a move to speed up the creation of permanent positions that would allow qualified job order and contract of service workers to fill vacant positions in agencies.

The circular stipulates that hiring of COS workers shall be limited to consultants, learning service providers, and technical experts to undertake special government projects or job within a specific period.

Furthermore, the positions must not be related to regular functions of the agency, the expertise must not be available in the agency, or it is impractical or more expensive for the agency to undertake the service.

On the other hand, JO workers must be limited to emergency or intermittent work such as clearing of debris on the roads, canals; trades and crafts; and manual tasks such as carpentry, plumbing, painting, electrical and the like that are not part of the regular functions of the agency.

JO workers must also be paid an amount equivalent to the daily wage of comparable positions in government, plus a premium of 20 percent, while contractual workers should be paid the prevailing market rate.

Let’s hope the government will be able to sort out this issue soonest.

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