The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) calls on the government to protect workers’ rights to health and safety amidst the effects and continuing threat of the southwest monsoon and typhoons on the country.

Apart from its tone of address, the government’s incomplete suspension of work in the previous days highlights its failure to fully embrace workers’ rights to health and safety. This is disgraceful and alarming for a country that has a typhoon season.

Workers rights are indivisible, but Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jonvic Remulla told private sector workers (“namamasukan”) that their work suspension depends on employers, as these know the demands of the business (“nakakaalam ng kinakailangan ng hanap-buhay”).

Workers rights are indivisible, but employees of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector were, as in the past, required by their employers to report to work. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) did not exercise its power to declare “imminent danger” in affected BPO workplaces.

These government actions are horrible for the country’s workers. The government should not continue to ignore what all Filipinos know: heavy rains, winds and floods pose immense danger to workers. Heavy rains and strong winds should mean work suspension, and work from home or safer work arrangements should be explored.

The country’s Occupational Safety and Health Law (Republic Act 11058), as workplace safety NGO Institute for Occupational Health and Safety Development (IOHSAD) points out, is the latest iteration of workers’ rights to safety and health in the workplace.

The OSH Law states that “The worker has the right of refusal to work without threat or reprisal from the employer if, as determined by the DOLE, an imminent danger situation exists in the workplace that may result in illness, injury or death, and corrective actions to eliminate the danger have not been undertaken by the employer.”

It is imperative for the DOLE, the DILG and the entire government to appreciate and uphold all workers’ right to health and safety in the workplace, part of the right to humane conditions of work enshrined in the country’s 1987 Constitution, of the right to safe and healthy working conditions enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.