Trade Unions in the Philippines
By Lilybeth G. Ison
A coalition of some 32 large trade unions on Tuesday warned the incoming administration against naming a key management lawyer to head the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), calling the imminent appointment “unacceptable and an insult to workers.”
“We need a Secretary of Labor whose heart and mind belong to workers, not somebody wholly beholden to the corporate sector and their highly paid law firms,” said Jose “Jun” Umali, president of the National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE), a federation allied with the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP).
He said NUBE had learned that a key management lawyer would be designated as DOLE Secretary.
Umali did not name the nominee, except that he is a fraternity brother of Liberal Party (LP) Senator-elect Franklin Drilon at the University of the Philippines.
“We must stress that whoever is named Secretary of Labor will be the only voice of workers in the new Cabinet. If the post goes to a management lawyer, then labor will be totally deprived of any representation whatsoever in the new administration’s highest governing body,” he said.
“It is bad enough the labor courts are now swamped with former management lawyers. Now, we may also have to contend with a new Secretary of Labor who has built a career lawyering for management,” he noted.