TRADE UNION CONGRESS OF THE PHILIPPINES (TUCP)
COUNTRY REPORT
(by AWATU-TUCP President and TUCP Vice President TEMISTOCLES S. DEJON, JR.)
The TUCP
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) --with 1.2 million members from 30 federations
from all sectors, including government employees --is the biggest confederation of labor federations in
the Philippines.
TUCP is an affiliate of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and its Asia-Pacific Regional
Organization (ITUC-AP). TUCP serves as Secretariat of the ASEAN Trade Union Council (ATUC) which is
composed of 15 National Centers in 9 ASEAN Countries.
TUCP is dedicated to building democratic organizations run/led by members; strengthening the workers
movement, building skills/capacities; instilling nationalism, solidarity, equity and social responsibility;
promoting equal rights and opportunities for all; and Improving conditions of work and life of workers
and their families, including those of non-members.
TUCP programs include Organizing and Membership Recruitment; Labor Law Reform; Monitoring
Compliance with Core Labor Standards; Workers’ Education; Collective Bargaining; Cooperatives;
Gender Equity; Organizational Effectiveness and Development; Civic Advocacy; Occupational Safety and
Health; Social Protection; and special concerns including Protection of Migrant Workers; Green Jobs and
Sustainable Development; Elimination of Child Labor; Protection of Workers in the Informal Economy;
Reproductive Health, Climate Change, and Productivity and LMC, among others.
TUCP operates a Workers’ College for skills training; implements socio-economic projects (including
organic fertilizer production); and carries out employment facilitation for union members and their
families in the country and overseas.
Multi-National Enterprises in the Philippines
From 2004 to 2009, over thirty countries put their companies in the Philippines. These include Australia,
Belgium, Bermuda, Br. Virgin Island, Canada Cayman island, PR China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong
Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan,
Korea, Luxemburg, Malaysia, Manx,
Nauru, the Netherlands, Norway,
Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland,
Taiwan, Thailand, UK, and the USA,
among others.
In 2009, the total approved foreign
direct investments (FDI) in the country
was 121,815.9 million pesos
(www.dti.gov.ph) in the following
industries: agriculture,
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communication, construction, electricity, finance and real estate, gas, manufacturing, mining, services,
storage, trade, transportation, and water.
MNEs continue to shape the development of industries in the Philippines, particularly in the information
technology enabled services, such as business process outsourcing (BPO), software, call centers,
animation, and medical transcription. “By the mid-2000s, there were already a number of hallmark
foreign MNEs in each of the sectors, including Accenture for software services; Sykes, Convergys, and
PeopleSupport for call centers; and Texaco and American International Group (AIG), which had shared
services facilities for their internal BPO work . Most of the ITES sectors have registered healthy, if not
rapid, growth rates, with BPO as a whole growing 227% between 2004 and 2007. Call centers have been
growing especially rapidly, with employment at many call centers (including foreign MNEs like Sykes,
Convergys, and PeopleSupport) growing by rates of 100% or more between the early and mid-2000s.”1
Incentive schemes and special concessions2 are provided by government to MNE firms that choose to
locate in the country.
With the exception of educational programs and incentive schemes to influence where firms choose to
locate, government policy has not been a major factor at the firm level, either in terms of strategy or the
ability of firms to upgrade and/or increase their value added. The firms may have benefited from local
government policies to improve software talent and language capability (e.g., Japanese), but the better
firms did not gain from the central government’s policies of targeting selected firms for benefits.
The Philippines Labor Marker
Employment
The Philippines has a total labor force of over 62 million in July 2011: 65% are full time workers and
34.1% are part-time. The number of unemployed persons in July 2011 was estimated at 2.8 million or an
unemployment rate of 7.1 percent. The
underemployed, on the other hand, was
estimated at 7.1 million, or an
underemployment rate at 19.1 percent.
Employment grew but at a slower pace on the
average, at 2.9% annually, over a 10-year
period. The average unemployment rate for
the past 10-year period (2001-2010) is 9.11%.
Economic expansion has not been matched by
growth in employment.
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ADBI Working Paper Series No. 313, October 2011
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Fiscal (i.e. income tax holidays, tax and duty free importation of raw materials, capital equipment, machineries,
etc.); and non-fiscal incentives (i.e. simplified import-export procedures, visa privileges, etc.), and local policies for
skills building, etc.
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As manifested in the ITES sector, MNEs play a main role in the employment generation and placement
of workers in the country.
Core Labor Standards
The Philippines is one of the only three (3 --Cambodia and Indonesia) countries in the ASEAN that have
ratified the eight (8) core conventions -- C87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to
Organize (1948); C29 on Forced Labor (1930 ); C105 on Abolition of Forced Labor (1957); C138 on
Minimum Age for Employment (1973); C182 on Worst Forms of Child Labor (1999); C100 on Equal
Remuneration (1951); and C111 on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) (1958).
Pertinent laws (Labor Code, Department Orders, Guidelines, etc.) and structures are in place for the
protection of workers’ rights, such as good working conditions, decent wages, social protections, and
the right to join unions and bargain collectively, among others. However, there is a substantial gap
between law and practice.
Only five percent (5%) or 1.975 million of the total workers employed in 2009 are organized. This
represents only ten percent (10%) of all wage and salary earners. The total union members covered by
collective bargaining agreements (private enterprises) or collective negotiation agreements (public
sector) is only 12.5%. Of the 10 registered national centers, five (including TUCP) are TUCP-affiliated
Consultation or Social Dialogue Mechanisms
At the national level are the following tripartite social dialogue mechanisms:
o The Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (TIPC) composed on government, labor, and employer
representatives. It serves as the policy-recommending body to the President on labor-related
concerns.
o The TIPC Executive Committee (TEC) which serves as the technical support group for the TICP, where
discussions are initially done and position papers or documents are provisionally adopted.
o The National Efficiency and Integrity Board (NEIB) which monitors the efficient, transparent, and
corrupt-free implementation of programs, including behaviors of DOLE officials and personnel.
Corresponding EIBs are also installed in various bureaus, attached agencies, and regional offices of
the Department of Labor and Employment.
o The Tripartite Monitoring Body which is tasked to investigate and monitor progress of trade union
rights violations.
At the industry and regional levels are Industrial and Regional Tripartite Councils. Among the existing
ITCs those in the sugar industry, clothing and textile, transportation, information and communication
technology (ICT).
At the enterprise level, collective bargaining serves as the most efficient social dialogue mechanism to
improve workers’ welfare and secure trade unions rights. The labor-management councils (LMC) serve
as consultation mechanism between labor/union and management representatives, in between
collective bargaining. Other opportunities for workers’ participation at the enterprise level include
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committees that are mandated by labor law and other standards, e.g. safety and health committee,
family welfare committee, etc.
Challenges
There are significant gains and improvements in the implementation of decent work principles
(particularly in the rights at work component). These include
- the creation of tripartite integrity boards in concerned government agencies (tripartite monitoring
and evaluation of agency performance)3;
- computer-based records and tracking of developments in cases and net-based stakeholder access to
these records; and
- 30-day mandatory conciliation of all labor cases
However, these and other policy reforms (particularly in the area of FOA and CB), fail to address equally
important issues and current challenges to union organizing including
- employers’ assaults on security of tenure and CBAs/CNAs
- labor representation in tripartite bodies and government agencies, dealing with the economy and
labor-related issues, as well as in government-owned and controlled corporations, and government
regulatory bodies
- protection of rights of government employees and their security of tenure, including those who
have been in non-regular, productive service for years and years
- former labor department’s officials who continue to exert influence on certain aspects of laborjustice, including in organizing cases and outsourcing processes
- absorption of workers and respect for unions/CBAs in the privatization of government assets
- the appearance of (accredited) paralegals to handle even non-member cases
- slow action on long pending ILO observations and recommendations on Philippine laws, regulations
and practices
- full representation of public sector unions, with voting power, in the Public Sector Labor and
Management Council
- use of cooperatives in replacing the work of regular, union-member workers
Three Priority areas of future action
1. Decent employment --to enhance trade union participation in the generation/creation of decent
and green employment, as a way to address increasing poverty, as response to one of the
millennium development goals (MDGs), and contribute to sustainable and environment-friendly
development.
2. Protection of vulnerable workers --through advocacy and lobbying for the passage of the Security of
tenure Bill that is pending in Congress to address the concerns of contractual workers.
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TIPC Resolution No. 3-A, Supporting the Creation of a National Efficiency and Integrity Board under the National
Tripartite Industrial Peace Council as Monitoring and Oversight Body, approved on September 2, 2010
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3. Organizing, including capacity-building for organizing to rebuild and strengthen the waning number
of organized labor.
4. Labor Code revisions –to harmonize the country’s laws with core labor standards. This action include
advocacy for the ratification of priority ILO Conventions, i.e. on Domestic Workers, Maritime Labor,
Maternity Protection, and ILO Framework on Safety and health.
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