Churchpeople-Workers Solidarity (CWS) Statement
Photo from CWS FB page.
President Duterte has been in office for almost two years but the Filipino people are still asking “where is the promised change?” Obviously, change has not come. Workers’ legitimate just demands for living wages, decent work, and secured jobs have again, fallen on deaf ears.
Duterte’s promise of “ending all forms of contractualization” remain unfulfilled. The Department of Labor and Employment Order 174 paved the way for a society where not everyone has the opportunity to work and to be “anointed with the dignity of work”. The 70,000 “regularized” workers that DOLE Secretary Bello boasted are being regularized through labor contractors and not through their principal employers. This bogus regularization only benefited profit-hungry manpower agencies who squeezed the workers dry of their hard-earned money and deprived workers the capacity to work, to create and to have dignity.
Instead of scrapping all forms of contractualization, a new law which seeks to institutionalize flexible working schemes such as the compressed work week is not only a betrayal to the workers but also intensifying their exploitation and oppression. Long working hours is detrimental to the health and well-being of the workers. The compressed work week bill will legalize slave labor and will only result to wage cuts, massive lay-offs, work-related diseases and even workplace deaths.
Duterte has betrayed the working class people. After almost two years in office, workers have come to realize that they could not put their trust on a President who claims to be for the poor but is relentless in trampling the rights of the poor people. It is apparent that the workers had no other recourse but to rely on their collective effort. Only through collective struggle will they achieve their legitimate and just demands. And church people should be with this just struggle.
As Pope Francis rightly pointed out: “the poor not only suffer injustice but they also struggle against it! They are not content with empty promises, excuses or alibis…. the poor will no longer wait; they want to be protagonists; they organize themselves, study, work, claim and, above all, practice that very special solidarity that exists among those who suffer, among the poor.”
Church people, Struggle with the Workers for dignity of human work, job security and just wage!
End all forms of contractualization!
