Labor leader hits DOLE order on workers’ pay

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — Unfair, unreasonable and bereft of sympathy. This was how Noel Alisen, chairperson of General Alliance of Workers Association, described the order of the Department of Labor and Employment on the payment issues raised by the members of the First Arrastre and Stevedoring Services Employees Union to the agency.

Alisen said the FASSEU condemned the order issued by Labor Undersecretary Rebecca Chato and Regional Director Ponciano Ligutom to pay each workers of the First Farmers Holding Corporation at P91 per day, which he called as "starvation wage."

"The gist of the order that was implemented is oppressive and abusive because of its adverse effect on the members of FASSEU relevant to their means of livelihood," Alisen said in a statement.

The DOLE order is "a one-way ticket to slavery" because a P91 daily pay could not even buy a poor man's meal. "It is an insult to the dignity of the workers," he said.

Alisen also accused DOLE of violating the wage order mandated by the Regional Wage Board-Western Visayas on the daily minimum wage, which is P287 for non-agricultural/industrial/commercial, P255 for agricultural plantation and P245 for non-plantation workers.

It is ironic since Ligutom was the chairperson of the RWB, while Chato signed it, said Alisen, adding that labor laws is supposed to protect the workers but then it now protects the employer.

"This unfair labor practices only reveals the inequities existing between those who employ and those who seek employment, an inequity that is one step from slavery. Our labor laws are designed to preserve power and prevent justice," Alisen said.

Alisen then urged the workers "to fight against this new age of servitude reducing the workers to slaves through contractualization of labor."

He added: "Under this new era of slavery, the workers are subjugated in a ruthless cycle of exploitation and domination by the capitalist to generate more profit. This slavery reveals itself in the implementation of unjust orders and laws." (FREEMAN)