Labor group Federation of Free Workers (FFW) urged Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Sunday to share inspection reports of the regional offices on contractualization and regularization of workers to the unions.

According to the group, the social partners need to be involved in the fight against the epidemic of contractualization as well as update local unions and federations on these investigations.

“The unions need to be informed of the order of regularization so that they could act when employees ordered to be regularized are terminated from employment,” said the FFW.

It was cited by the FFW that regional offices of the DoLE conducted inspections in accordance with the visitorial and enforcement power of the secretary of labor. However, unions in the workplaces of inspections were not furnished copies of the findings. The federations which requested inspection were also not given a copy of the results.

“DoLE directed a number of companies to regularize their employees but these company refuse to follow the directive,” the group said.

“In fact some of them defy the regularization order by dismissing these employees to avoid further complication but such termination runs contrary to the provision of Executive Order 51 issued by President Duterte on 1 May 2019 — the termination of employees, while the order of regularization is on appeal will make the order final and executory,” it added.

Moreover, the FFW also urges Congress to prioritize the proposed Security of Tenure bills against the rampant endo and other forms of exploitative contractualization which have been of epidemic proportions that victimize millions of workers until now — despite Duterte’s posturing to end these illicit schemes.

The FFW disclosed that it is handling a number of cases involving employers that terminate their workers after the DoLE regional offices issued regularization orders for their contractual employees.