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Bayan Muna Alternative Labor Code pro-worker, pro-labor
Workers group challenge local and foreign big businesses to a public debate over proposed Labor Code Amendments
Labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno today said that the joint manifesto on the proposed Labor Code Amendments issued by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industries (PCCI) and various foreign business groups aim to pressure legislators to water down House Bill 5996 or the Alternative Labor Code Proposal filed by Bayan Muna Party List in Congress.
“We challenge ECOP and other business groups to a national public debate over the proposed Labor Code revisions. If they want to know the common position of workers on the Labor Code issue, we encourage the conduct of a public forum between workers and employers to be facilitated by the Bishop-Business Conference (BBC).”
KMU Chairman Elmer Labog said, “elite employers groups are raising hell over Bayan Muna’s proposed revisions to the Labor Code since House Bill 5996 reflects pro-worker revisions in the present Labor Code and aspires to provide better condition for workers. Bayan Muna’s version was drafted based on initial consultations with major labor unions and workers organizations nationwide. It is definitely not anti-labor, anti-employment and anti-investment. We in KMU express our full support to HB 5996 and other bills that seek to give urgent economic relief for workers, particularly the P125 wage bill now also pending for approval in Congress.”
“We urge our legislators to withstand the pressure tactics broached by business groups and look further on the role and interest protected by ECOP and Chambers of Commerce in the local economy. These groups represent big importer and exporters that put on the market loads of cheap and imported consumer products, thus killing local entrepreneurs in the Filipino retail business.They are speaking for their own selfish concerns.”
“Furthermore, ECOP is an adjunct of big foreign investors whose only interest is to preserve the backward and pre-industrial and foreign dependent character of the domestic economy. Unlike workers, big businesses have no direct contribution in national industrialization. In fact, they have profited greatly by exploit our cheap labor force and natural resources.”
“ECOP President Donald Dee and his cohorts are all hypocrites, they have no right to talk on behalf of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Majority of local SMEs went bankrupt due to rigid competition with foreign companies and products brought in by ECOP members. This translated to massive retrenchment and job loss,” ended Labog.