DOLE asked to deputize unionists as labor and safety inspectors

CEBU, Philippines - Labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) has called on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to deputize unionists as inspectors to ensure enforcement of general labor and occupational safety and health standards.

Dennis Derige, PM-Cebu spokesperson said that if labor leaders can be deputized, the number of inspections can be multiplied overnight, enforcement can be strengthened immediately, and workers lives and limbs can be saved.

“We ask DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello to approve the pending proposal that union officers be accredited as labor inspectors to beef up the labor standards enforcement system," said Derige in a statement.

He said that in occupational safety and health, it is a basic tenet that accidents are not acts of divine providence but rather result from unsafe acts that are preventable by strict enforcement of safety rules.

Citing  deaths of workers in the recent blaze at House Technology Industries facility in Cavite, Kentex in Valenzuela, Hanjin shipyard in Subic and in several other construction sites natiowide, Derige said that the government  through the DOLE and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority must make policy changes regarding enforcement of labor standards and occupational health and safety.

Derige said that DOLE only has some 600 inspectors to cover around a million establishments nationwide.

Derige also said that in 2013, just around 40,000 enterprises were subjected to inspections, self-assessments and visits by DOLE.

He said that this number can easily be increased by deputizing union officers as labor inspectors.

Derige explained that even if just 10% of the 17,000 local union presidents are accredited, this is already thrice the present number of safety inspectors.

PM insisted that the DOLE has already allowed local government units to undertake technical safety inspections in order to complement its efforts and so there is no reason not to mobilize workers groups in labor enforcement.

 “All the DOLE has to do is train union officers in the labor inspection and enforcement process and then accredit them appropriately,” Derige added.

In the DOLE's Labor Standards Enforcement Framework, unions with collective bargaining agreements are given a role in self-assessment for their enterprises.

Derige further said that if unions play a responsibility in ensuring labor standards and occupational safety in their own workplaces, it does not take a leap of logic to allow them to do inspections on other enterprises as well.  (FREEMAN)