ADVERTISEMENT
970x220

Villanueva backs BPO workers’ call to extend Work From Home arrangement

Published Mar 10, 2022 15:54 pm  |  Updated Mar 10, 2022 15:54 pm

The Senate Committee on Labor and Employment on Thursday, March 10 advised the government to temporarily withdraw its ultimatum for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies to end work from home (WFH) arrangements of their employees or lose tax incentives.

Villanueva, committee chairman, said that “rising transport cost is a new development,” which should lead the government to extend its March 31 deadline for BPOs to terminate remote work.

The Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) has set the deadline for BPO employees to return to office as a condition for information technology and business process management firms in free ports and economic zones to continue enjoying tax perks and fiscal incentives.

“I believe that the rise in gas prices is exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, which makes the appeal to extend the deadline a very reasonable one,” Villanueva said.

He explained that both workers and BPO firms would bear the brunt of the order.

Forcing BPO workers to commute to work would mean “that money to put food on the table will now be spent at the gas pump,” he added.

“If government is scrambling to “soften the pain” of surging oil prices for many sectors like drivers and farmers, then 1.3 million BPO workers should be entitled to the same mitigation,” he said.

Despite plowing P1.5 trillion into the economy yearly, BPO workers “are not asking for billions of pesos in fuel subsidy,’’ he pointed out.

“They just want to be allowed to continue working from home. It is a mitigation measure that will not cost the government anything,” he said.

Villanueva disagreed with government claims that a return-to-work for call center employees would provide local micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) with a needed economic jolt.

“The location of their workstation has no bearing on their spending habits or the level of their savings,” he said.

In fact, by working at home, “BPO workers are keeping community enterprises alive.”

Villanueva supported industry calls to set back the deadline to return to onsite work until the lifting of the state of calamity, “to allow for seamless transition, for the sake of our workers.”

He said if industry earnings – and their contribution to the economy – have not been impacted by remote work, “then why revise a working arrangement that yields the same productivity?”

Villanueva earlier renewed his call to fully implement Republic Act No. 11165, or the Work From Home Law, which he sponsored and authored during the 17th Congress.

The measure recognizes work from home--or telecommuting--as an alternative work arrangement under the country's labor laws.

Related Tags

joel villanueva BPO INDUSTRY Senate committee on labor and employment work from home
ADVERTISEMENT
300x250

Sign up by email to receive news.