By ILOILO City – Militant labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) – Panay staged a picket protest Wednesday in front of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) VI condemning the proposed compressed work week scheme of congress.
Roxanne Javellana, spokesperson of KMU-Panay, said the activity is a nationwide coordinated protest action against the Congress-proposed 10-12 working hours a day in 4-day workweek scheme.
Javellana added that the proposed scheme is contrary to the Congress claim that workers will have “longer rest days“ equivalent to 3 days.
“This scheme is designed to lengthen the number of hours of workers for further capitalist exploitation of the worker’s labor and its resulting superprofit.”
Moreover, Javellana stressed that the 3-day rest from work is without pay, a scenario which will only aggravate the deplorable state of the Filipino workers. She pointed out that this also means bastardization of the historical victory of the worker’s movement for the 8-hour workday.
President Duterte’s rhetoric championing of the Filipino workers have seen its end in DOLE’s implementation of D.O. 174 or the legalization of contractualization and the failure to address a decent living wage among millions of workers and the urgency of national industrialization in the country. (KMU-Panay | Panay Today)
