Following its intensified campaign against illegal contractualization this year, the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) is now eyeing to crackdown on erring employers in three new industries in 2017.
DoLE said it will soon initiate a nationwide audit for healthcare, construction, and tourism sector after receiving numerous complaints of labor violations in the said industries.
Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III disclosed he already constituted the inspection team for the healthcare sector to look into to the reported illegal practice of some erring hospitals to use its on-the-job (OJT) trainees to fill-up its regular job positions.
“There are OJTs doing regular work without any pay… There are some nurses who will go to hospitals to be trained and they will be the ones to pay for their training. What kind of policy is that?,” Bello said in a press conference last week.
He said the team will also check the reported underpayment of nurses in the private sector.
Labor Undersecretary Dominador Say said they will use the outcome of their assessment to come up with a new Department Order to serve as a policy guideline for the healthcare sector the same way they did for the contractors.
“We already have a specific DO for security business so it is not likely we will issue a new DO for the hospital industry because of the significant number of healthcare workers, who will be affected,” Say said.
Bello said they will also do the same process for the construction and tourism industry to ensure both are complying with government regulations in the implementation of labor and health standards.
For the construction sector, Say said the output from their assessment will be used to update their DO 19 (Series of 1993). (Samuel P. Medenilla)