(Eagle News)– Senator Leila de Lima has slammed a proposal in the House of Representatives to place newly hired workers in a two-year probationary status before they are regularized.
In a statement, De Lima said the “ominous fog for a” proposal by Probinsiyano Ako party-list Rep. Jose Singson Jr. “will not only enshroud the actual issue – the abusive ENDO practices – but will also expose our workers to labor malpractice and put them in an employment situation where the attendant abuse is extended to two years, where predatory employers are served even more, and where the precipice and pitfalls are around to deliver our workers to the rocky bottom.”
“If workers had been made to fall short in finishing their probationary period when it was shorter, how much easier would it be for unscrupulous employers to apply the same trick when the period is longer?” she asked.
She said the proposal for the two-year probationary period for workers was “not a solution at all to the long-time woes of Filipino workers.”
“Pahahabain pa nito lalo ang paghihirap ng mga manggagawa. This is a mindless and heartless proposal, and at the core, anti-workers. Worse, it is antithetical to the long overdue anti-ENDO or security of tenure bill,” she said, as she chastised those behind the proposal.
“Perhaps those against the anti-ENDO bill and the forces behind this new proposal should be taught, in the words of Dickens, to shake hands every day with common sense and (labor) justice,” she added.
The Employers Confederation of the Philippines said over the weekend that it was still studying whether the proposal, which is pending in the House Committee on Labor and Employment, would be beneficial.
