Social dialogue and tripartism

Beyond the Enterprise: Social Dialogue and Tripartism for Better Policy Making

Tripartite constituents gathered together to explore industry-based collective bargaining, tripartism and social dialogue in the Philippines. The approach adopted the training workshop format to provide venue for continuing discussions that generated recommendations, building on the outputs and policy proposals of previous consultations. Previous consultations explored sample models of multi-employer bargaining in different countries and the feasibility of applying elements of these models to the Philippines.

The objectives of this capacity-building activity were:

  • To introduce participants on social dialogue and good faith collective bargaining and use these processes as strategic means to continuously promote sound and productive labour-management relations at the enterprise level.
  • Enhance the capacity of selective tripartite social dialogue to formulate labour relations reform proposals in the Labor Code.
  • Facilitate the agenda setting of tripartite partners in selected industries, in terms of identification of priority issues and key proposals.

 Mr David Tagjman and Atty Benedicto Ernesto Bitonio, both ILO Consultants, facilitated the activity through the use of interactive role plays and workshops.

 

Several policy reform measures and recommendations were raised that may impinge on Philippine mechanisms on social dialogue and collective bargaining that could address industry-specific contexts. The participants also identified initial priority agenda for the key industries. Around 37 participants represented industry players from banking, education, manufacturing, construction, automotive, maritime, agriculture and mining as well as members of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC) and the Tripartite Executive Committee.

The industry players and the TIPC arrived at a common ground to review or revisit the more than 100 Voluntary Codes of Good Practices (VCGPs).

The BLR recommended that the next step should be a write shop activity for an industry-based collective bargaining bill or an amendment to DO 40.

Similar to the activity on “Promoting Collective Bargaining and Social Dialogue at the Enterprise Level”, this is also a continuation of the Consultation-Workshop on Policy Reforms and Collective Bargaining held in the early part of the 2015.

 

The activity was a joint collaboration between the ILO Country Office for the Philippines (ILO CO-Manila) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).