DOLE advisory on workplace vaccination: More questions than answers

By issuing DOLE Labor Advisory No. 03-21, our friends in the department where I worked for 20 years, retiring as DOLE undersecretary, have succeeded in confusing the employers much more than clarifying the many issues related to workplace vaccination. DOLE failed to answer many relevant and important questions:

Is it mandatory for all employers to have all their employees vaccinated? Are the micro enterprises with one or two employees covered? Are employers of Kasambahays included? Who shall pay for the vaccines for contractual workers, the principal employers or the agencies and the contractors? If the employers are willing but do not have the means to pay for the expensive vaccines, what help will DOLE or any government agency provide, if any? Would DOLE or any such government agency impose any penalty or sanction if the small employers fail to have their workers vaccinated? Is there no distinction between giant conglomerates and small-time and start-up operations? There is no question if the employer is a giant corporation like San Miguel or a behemoth company like the SM Malls, but what about the carenderia of Aling Tacing or the fish stall of Manoy Berting?

How about these Grab drivers and delivery boys? If they need to be vaccinated, and I think they should be, then who are their employers for purposes of paying for the vaccines? How about security guards, are the security agency owners required to have them vaccinated considering that they are assigned in various client companies? Are the client companies not the ones who should bear the cost because if these people are not vaccinated they are bound to be contaminated? How about cooperatives which are on hand-to-mouth operations, are they compelled to pay for these rather expensive vaccines? How about barbers shops and beauty parlors? Is there an employer-employee relationship between the owners and the barbers and beauticians and manicurists? What I know is that they are partners, not employers and employees, the owners are the capitalist partners, and the barbers and beauticians the industrial partners.

Now, just a friendly question, with malice towards none, how about applying the same standards and rules to DOLE itself and to other government agencies? The government imposes too many obligations on employers of these countries. They impose high taxes, license fees and other confiscatory levies and custom duties for imported materials and services. They require too many obligations on employers even on matters that the companies have no fault about. They obligate employers to give solo parents leave, violence against women and children leave, two months full pay for women workers who undergo surgical operations for mastectomy, hysterectomy, and ovariectomy, and maternity leaves of 105 days plus 15 days for solo mothers. But why are government agencies making use of job order workers and denying employer-employee relationships with such unfortunate workers who have no SSS and other social safety nets?

DOLE inspectors are very fast and peremptory in denouncing small and struggling firms as labor-only contractors and micro and start-up agencies as labor-only contractors, even summarily ordering principals to absorb the employees of legitimate agencies. But in their backyard, they have thousands of job orders and casuals who will never become regular employees. Is this what they call walking their talk? Secretary Bebot Belo is my friend, and he is a very good man. But he should seriously look at these issues and resolve them forthwith.