Senate approves bill ending ‘endo’

MANILA, Philippines — In the remaining days of the 17th Congress, senators approved on third and final reading yesterday the Security of Tenure Bill, which seeks to end the practice of illegal labor contractualization, commonly known as “endo.”

Sen. Joel Villanueva, chairman of the committee on labor and employment and principal author of Senate Bill 1826, said the measure strengthens the prohibition on labor-only contracting and clarifies ambiguities in existing laws that have allowed employers to skirt the ban.

“We longed for this day to come, especially our workers who have suffered because of the evils of endo, a practice which corrupts the dignity of labor,” Villanueva said.

“We want to give all workers peace of mind when it comes to their employment status, that no worker can be dismissed without just or authorized cause and due process,” he said.

Villanueva said the committee made sure it took into account the concerns of various stakeholders in drafting the bill.

He said the bill “protects the interests of all parties concerned.”

Under the measure, labor-only contracting exists when any of the following instances occur: the job contractor merely supplies, recruits and places workers to a contractee; the workers supplied to a contractee perform tasks/activities that are listed by the industry to be directly related to the core business of the contractee; the contractee has direct control and supervision of the workers supplied by the contractor.

The bill also classifies workers under four employment types: regular, probationary, project and seasonal. Project and seasonal workers have the same rights as regular employees like the payment of minimum wage and social protection benefits, among others, for the duration of their employment.

“The provision trims down the employment arrangements and addresses the current practice of misclassifying employees to prevent them from obtaining regular status,” Villanueva said.                     

The bill calls for all contractors to obtain a license to engage in job contracting from the Department of Labor and Employment.

Making contractors submit themselves to licensing allows the department to scrutinize their capacity to adhere to existing labor laws and regulations, and to gauge their ability to provide for their employees, Villanueva explained. – With Alexis Romero