Senator Raffy Tulfo is proposing a one-strike policy for abusive employers who are not complying with the country’s minimum wage law and are not giving the benefits due to their workers.
During the Senate Committee on Labor hearing, Tulfo said employers should immediately be penalized and obliged to pay when a worker presented strong evidence against them.
The Vice Chairperson of the Labor Committee lamented that the country’s current labor law appears to be toothless because non-compliant employers are not afraid of it due to lack of implementation.
“Dapat one-strike policy ang pairalin laban sa mga isinusumbong na mga tiwaling employer sa DOLE,” the legislator said.
“Ito na ang dapat na bagong patakaran. Wala nang marami pang satsat!”
“Kapag may iprinisentang matibay na ebidensya ang manggagawa laban sa kanyang amo na hindi nagbibigay ng tamang pasweldo at benepisyo, kailangan agad-agad patawan ng parusa si amo at obligahin na magbayad. Ito na ang dapat na bagong patakaran. Wala nang marami pang satsat!” the lawmaker added.
“The employers facing complaints should immediately pay the employees without complaining.”
Apart from the penalty such as a higher fine, for example, the senator said that the employers facing complaints should immediately pay the employees without complaining.
Under the current policy which Tulfo criticizes, when an employee reports his erring employer to DOLE, the worker still needs to go through tedious and long process despite presenting strong evidence that his complaint is legitimate.
He shared that DOLE would start by issuing a letter to the employer asking for explanation, and if said employer fails to respond, it would still be given another chance to reply.
Tulfo said this process is being exploited by abusive employers because for them, it is a way to delay the worker’s chance of getting justice.
He added that another policy that is favorable to abusive employers is the rule stating that the complaint of workers should still need to undergo mediation, which could reach up to three hearings.
And if they cannot reach an agreement during mediation, DOLE will then forward the complaint to the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) which will only exhaust the money of workers because said worker needs to go back and forth to NLRC.
Worst case scenario, the case could last up to decades before getting resolved.
That’s why in the new system proposed by Tulfo, he wants this lengthy anti-poor process to be removed.
According to him, the Rules of Procedure in DOLE will be revised in such a way that employees must immediately pay workers who managed to present overwhelming evidence that he was abused.
