By Leslie Ann G. Aquino
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) on Sunday lamented the prevailing trend among employers to put on "floating status" some of their employees.
TUCP Spokesman Alan Tanjusay said based on their monitoring, many companies are talking of putting their employees on floating status amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
"They said they will put on floating status their workers in the meantime because of the pandemic," he said in a virtual forum Sunday, June 21.
Tanjusay said this means that many employees will have no salaries, no SSS, no Pagibig, no PhilHealth for months.
"For six months, they are on floating status. They are floating while we are still under quarantine period," said Tanjusay.
"The workers do not know what will be their status after six months," he added.
Tanjusay said the problem is the Labor Code also does not say as to who should pay the SSS, Pagibig and Philhealth during that span of floating status.
"So there seems to be that trend. I think all companies, 25 to 75 percent of their employees are on floating status," he said.
With this new terminology from capitalists, Tanjusay said they are having a difficulty looking for a law or regulation that must be applied so that they can negotiate for at least 50 percent salary as well as continuing SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-Ibig benefits for workers.
"We are currently in a vacuum. What does floating status really mean? Our labor lawyers are still searching for a jurisprudence that we can apply with regards to worker safety nets," he said.