Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2000, published 89th ILC session (2001)

Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) - Philippines (Ratification: 1953)

The Committee notes the Government’s report and recalls its previous observations regarding the discrepancies between the national legislation and the requirements of the Convention, which are as follows:

Articles 2 and 5 of the Convention

-  The need to review the requirement that at least 20 per cent of workers in a bargaining unit are members of a union (section 234(c) of the Labour Code).

-  The requirement of too high a number of unions (ten) to establish a federation or a national union (section 237(a)).

-  The prohibition of aliens, other than those with valid permits, if the same rights are guaranteed to Filipino workers in the country of the alien workers, for engaging in any trade union activity (section 269) under the penalty of deportation (section 272(b)), and the provisions of the Department Order No. 9 amending the rules implementing Book V of the Labour Code, which confirms such restrictions.

Article 3

-  The need to render more flexible Rule 11(3)(f) of Book V implementing the Labour Code which provides that officers of a union operating in an enterprise must be employed in that enterprise.

­-  The need to amend section 263(g) of the Labour Code which allows the Secretary of Labour and Employment to submit a dispute causing or likely to cause a strike or lockout in "an industry indispensable to the national interest" to compulsory arbitration, thus bringing an end to a strike or in an acute national crisis, and which empowers the President to determine the industries indispensable to the national interest.

-  The following provisions which provide disproportionate sanctions for participation in an illegal strike: the dismissal of trade union officers and the penal liability to a maximum of three years (sections 264(a) and 272(a) of the Labour Code) and the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death for organizers or leaders of any meeting held for propaganda purposes against the Government, the word "meeting" being understood to include picketing of labour groups (section 146 of the revised Penal Code).

While the Government practically reiterates the same arguments it has been making for many years in respect of the abovementioned discrepancies, the Committee further notes the Government’s reference to the ongoing comprehensive review of the Labour Code for which a Congressional Commission on Labour has been formed.

The Committee therefore refers to its previous detailed observations and urges the Government to amend its legislation on the abovementioned points upon which it has been commenting for many years.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 2001.]