'Environmental frontliners': Gov't urged to grant hazard pay to garbage collectors
MANILA, Philippines — Garbage collectors who handle potentially dangerous waste also deserve to be given hazard pay like frontliners from the medical field, an environmental health organization said.
In a letter to four department secretaries, the EcoWaste Coalition recommended that appropriate hazard pay should be given to household waste collectors and healthcare waste collectors during the duration of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.
The lack of clear-cut regulations for the disposal of waste from households and the increase of infectious waste from healthcare facilities justify the provision of hazard pay for garbage collectors, the organization stressed.
“As frontliners from the environmental sector in the country’s determined efforts to prevent and control COVID-19, we believe that garbage collectors are entitled to hazard pay—regardless of their employment status—due to the risk they face in the performance of essential waste management services, which can be considered hazardous, especially under the extraordinary circumstances brought about by the coronavirus outbreak,” Eileen Sison, EcoWaste Coalition president, said in the letter.
“Without their indispensable service, we may be faced with even more environmental and health hazard from uncollected waste,” she added.
Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Administrative Order 26, which grants a maximum of P500 pay for government personnel who still report for work regardless of their employment status. However, the same entitlement may not apply to most garbage collectors who are often hired by waste management companies contracted by local government units.
EcoWaste coalition urged the Department of Labor and Employment, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Budget Management “to use moral suasion to strongly encourage employers of garbage collectors” to grant them daily hazard pay during the duration of the community quarantine.
“As some waste management companies and/or LGUs may be unwilling or financially constrained to offer hazard pay, we urge the national government to take on such responsibility with urgency as a humanitarian gesture in these most trying times,” Sison said.
The national government extended the enhanced community quarantine that has upended the lives of millions and shuttered businesses until April 30. The lockdown was originally intended until April 12.
The Philippines on Monday recorded a total 3,660 confirmed coronavirus cases and 163 deaths.
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