The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) raises the alarm over the union rights violations exposed by Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) employees in the January 21 hearing of the Senate labor committee headed by Senator Raffy Tulfo. We demand that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and the Labor Department investigate the violations and protect BPO employees’ union rights.

In the hearing, Sarah Prestoza, president of the Unified Employees of Alorica, said that when she and her workmates formed a union in 2015, the management of the BPO company requested that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) dissolve the union. When DOLE rejected the request, Alorica Philippines terminated the union officers, who then filed cases of illegal termination before the DOLE. The department, however, archived the complaint.

Prestoza also said that BPO employees’ confidential contracts forbid them from joining unions or any organization, and that DOLE, when conducting labor inspections, does not interview employees and only listens to claims made by BPO companies.

We in CTUHR are glad that the plight of the Alorica workers is getting a hearing at the national level through the Senate. We were with the Alorica workers when they were forming their union and their experience served as a warning to BPO employees not to form their unions. The DOLE’s actions towards the Alorica workers’ union should be investigated so that the wrong can be made right, and BPO employees’ right to form unions can be respected and protected.

The Alorica workers’ experience is the experience of many workers. The DOLE is taking the side of employers when it prolongs the handling of cases of illegal termination and union busting or when it outright junks these. It is taking the side of employees when it turns a blind eye to the very contracts that workers are forced to sign, at the risk of joblessness, and to workers’ working conditions.

The BPO industry is the country’s sunshine industry, employing 1.8 million Filipinos. It is one of the industries in the country that has the greatest capacity to respect workers’ union rights. As part of international business networks, it should be familiar with and guided by international labor rights conventions and standards. It should therefore respect Filipino workers’ Constitutionally-mandated right to freedom of association.

We support the BPO Industry Employees’ Network (BIEN) and the country’s BPO workers in pushing for the Magna Carta for BPO Workers. Laws are mere scraps of paper if workers will not claim their rights, but BPO workers are claiming their rights. A new law is needed to affirm BPO workers’ constitutionally-mandated rights in the face of violations by BPO companies and DOLE’s non-enforcement.