Employers, labor cool to work from home

MANILA, Philippines — Employers are perplexed by the crafting of a law allowing telecommuting or work-from-home, with even labor groups cool to the move.

“It is already being practiced. Two multinational companies I know are already practicing this for the past three years,” Employers Confederation of the Philippines president Donald Dee said over the weekend.

“It is in fact acceptable in our practices, so I really don’t understand what is the objective in passing this new bill. What is there that will improve the position of the workers. I wonder why they are doing it. Our position is that this is already being practiced,” he added.

The House of Representatives approved last month on second reading House Bill 7402, or the Telecommuting Act, while its counterpart measure in the Senate, Senate Bill 1363 or the Telecommuting Act of 2017, was passed last year.

The bills seek to adopt a work-from-home program for employees that will free them from the daily traffic stress and costly transportation.

Dee said the work-from-home scheme is not applicable to all industries.

“If we are talking about workers, it will be of no help. How will you run machineries if you work from home? There’s no such thing. And how will you watch your production?” he said.

“Now this helps in the offices and I’m all for it because you save on transportation costs, traffic, and even healthier for office workers because they don’t have to spend too much time commuting,” he added.

A recent global study recently found that companies in the Philippines are recognizing that moving away from the traditional office schedule of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. is better for their businesses.

The IWG Flexible Working Survey has revealed that in the Philippines, businesses recognized that offering flexible work strategies to their employees provided them with significant benefits such as productivity enhancement, staff retention and job satisfaction, alongside other financial and strategic advantages.

Labor groups lukewarm to telecommuting

But the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) are less than enthusiastic to the proposed telecommuting, saying that while it may benefit employees, their rights to organize and bargain could be compromised.

“Flexible work scheme may save urban workers from an average two to four hours daily agony and disease-causing stress caused by commuting through traffic jams and poor mass transport system, cut fuel, transport and parking expenses and improve work-life balance. (But it) may also deprive workers of their right to organize themselves as a union and to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits,” said ALU executive vice president Gerard Seno.

Seno added that when the bill is passed into law, its implementing rules and regulation (IRR) should ensure that employers will uphold the workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain under a telecommuting setup.

“Workers’ social protection insurance and exposure to occupational safety and health hazard caused by overwork and fatigue must also be addressed effectively in the preparation of the IRR,” he said. – With Sheila Crisostomo