The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) celebrates the Talent Association of GMA’s (TAG) victory in getting the Supreme Court to rule that the talents of GMA are the broadcast giant’s employees. The GMA employees’ victory further exposes contractualization’s violation of labor rights.

After 11 years of legal battles, the Third Division of the Supreme Court ruled that the 94 GMA talents and members of TAG, who come mostly from GMA’s News and Public Affairs department, are regular employees. It has also ruled that GMA illegally dismissed 50 of the talents whose contracts it did not renew or whom it terminated and that GMA should pay these talents separation pay and backwages.

We have supported TAG from Day 1. We have condemned contractualization in the country’s biggest media companies and demanded contractuals’ immediate regularization. We are glad that the Supreme Court has made this precedent-setting decision that favors workers’ labor rights not only in the media industry but in all industries.

The ruling shows that it is right to fight contractualization, a wholesale attack on labor rights. Contractuals receive lower wages, are denied benefits, can be retrenched anytime, and are therefore denied their right to unionize, collectively bargain, and strike. Contractuals are mainstays of workplaces with the worst working conditions. Women contractuals cannot access maternity benefits.

The ruling also shows that fighting contractualization is difficult for workers. GMA talents had to make the difficult decision of suing their home network. They had to suffer from contract termination or outright termination and the financial insecurity that followed. They had to wait for 11 long years before finally getting the justice that they deserve.

We reiterate our call for the junking of contractualization and the regularization of contractuals, who comprise the majority of the country’s workers. We support all efforts in this direction, from labor inspections to detect and counter illegal contractualization, to court cases asserting employer-employee relations in workplaces, to proposed legislation to junk contractualization altogether.

We are calling on Filipino workers to fight contractualization in their workplaces and at the level of government policy. We make special mention of workers in special economic zones, who are forbidden from exercising their constitutionally mandated rights by these zones’ policies that exempt them from the basic labor laws and standards of the country.

The GMA talents’ victory shows: workers can and do win!