The nation's attention is on politics. Nobody is focusing on the labor front. Unknown to the top national leadership, including the president, is a new wave of labor activism now unfolding in our industries. There is an on-going protest being staged by the Philippine Airlines Employees Association, and there are a series of concerted actions undertaken by unions in both big global companies and small domestic firms. The issues range from contractualization, the so-called ''starvation wages'' and unfair labor practices, to a lot of labor standards and labor relations questions that need to be addressed immediately.
Chairman Jose Ma. Sison of the National Democratic Front has issued a call sometime in August for the renewal of politicization and indoctrination of the working class, starting in the highly-industrialized areas of the Metro Manila, the Laguna, Cavite and Rizal industrial zones, including the economic zones and industrial estates. This call for a renewed organizing and agitation has given impetus to the local union leaders' more aggressive efforts to organize the workers, and to conduct teach-ins and indoctrination sessions.
The issues of contractualization has become the rallying cry among contractual workers. They too are being organized in order to resist management prerogatives and employers' initiatives to save on labor costs. Companies now are being barraged with many petitions for the conduct of certification elections. The already organized working forces are raising many high demands for negotiations including wages way beyond the affordability levels as determined by various industries. Thus bargaining often leads to deadlocks and eventual notices of strike.
The National Conciliation and Mediation Board is being besieged with an unusual volume of cases for conciliation, and at the rate things are heating up, we do not believe that DOLE can still claim that there is industrial peace in the country today. In the last SONA by President Aquino, he highlighted the sterling record of his administration in achieving an almost zero-strike level. This year, that record is being shattered and there will be more and more turbulence in the labor front.
The incumbent DOLE Secretary was a former conciliator of labor disputes when she started her career in the then Bureau of Labor Relations in the seventies and the 80s. She should very well know that today's many manifestations of labor unrests need to be addressed with a sense of urgency, while trying to maintain a balance between her mandate to protect the rights of labor, on the one hand, and the need to assure employers that they can expect a more balanced approach in labor relations.
Added to this upsurge of labor activism is the perennial inefficiency of our arbitration agencies, like the NLRC, in handling and deciding labor cases. It takes more than twenty years for a simple illegal dismissal case to resolve from the Labor Arbiter, the NLRC, the Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court. All these converging challenges must be met with a decisive, urgent, and firm action. Or else, we shall go back to the post-EDSA days of turbulence and uncertainties.