Tripartism sounds mundane or esoteric, but its application has a profound impact in promoting harmony between labor and management that is key to ensuring workplace efficiency and productivity. Through social dialogue, workers and employers, representing their respective interests, and the government, representing public interest, could shape beneficial labor, social and economic policies and programs of the government that will eventually enhance productivity and national competitiveness.
According to the Labor Code: “Tripartism in labor relations is hereby declared a State policy. Towards this end, workers and employers shall, as far as practicable, be represented in decision and policy-making bodies of the government”. (Article 289)
A National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council (NTIPC) has also been created by Republic Act 10395. Headed by the Secretary of Labor and Employment, it is composed of 20 representatives appointed by the President from each of the labor and employer sectors, respectively. Employer representatives are nominated by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP).
A tripartite council is also organized in regional and industry levels. One of its most important functions is to submit to the President or to Congress views, recommendations and proposals on labor, economic, and social concerns.
There are agencies in the government that are tripartite in composition. These bodies are classified into the following categories: first: consultative bodies at the national and local levels; second: policy-making national government agencies primarily serving the labor sector, such as the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Technical Education Skills Development Authority, Philippine Overseas Employment Administation, PhilHealth, and the like; third: quasi-judicial bodies such as the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC); and fourth: quasi-legislative bodies, such as the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) in all regions of the country.
Has tripartism achieved its mandate?
There are some who say that tripartism functions like a debating club, with neither workers nor employers getting what they want, as it is the government that always gets what it wants. To be fair, in labor relations, there is always a clash of workers’ and employers’ interests, rights and prerogatives. The government, particularly the DOLE, is the nexus in this trilateral relationship that tries to strike a proper balance by promoting social dialogue.
Social dialogue is the essence of tripartism, with consensus building as the mechanism for reaching a compromise, or bridging opposing positions. Both social partners win some, lose some. In international relations among nations, diplomatic talk is better than war. Similarly, in labor relations, social dialogue is the better alternative than locking out, striking or going out into the streets to demonstrate.
Resolutions jointly signed by all tripartite parties or department orders signed by the Secretary of Labor after a long, tedious, sometimes, spirited exchange of ideas, signifies attainment of a consensus, or substantial agreement, on labor and social policy issues.
A concrete example of a contentious issue that has undergone spirited debate is the practice of contractualization. Labor’s cry of “creeping casualization” of the labor force reverberates in the halls of the ILO in Geneva, and in many ILO fora in the ASEAN region. The cry rose into high crescendo in the 2016 presidential elections when almost every candidate promised to end it if elected.
Realizing, perhaps, that aside from being a world-wide phenomenon, contractualization is allowed by law, then President Duterte reneged on his campaign promise to end contractualization “immediately”. Then Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III clarified that what the former president meant was “no more unlawful or illegitimate contractualization.” To placate labor, a draft department order was tossed to NTIPC for discussion. It was the longest-discussed labor issue in the tripartite body’s history, as it took nine months before it was finally signed into Department Order 174 on March 16, 2017.
Did it mollify labor’s demand? Labor was not happy with the outcome. But it made life harder for fly-by-night service contractors who are prone to violate laws on labor standards by increasing their required minimum capitalization to P5 million and imposing a hefty registration fee to P100,000. It also changed the status of the contractual employees as regulars in the service contractors with security of tenure and right to organize unions.
As a consensus-building body, tripartism, in my view, has substantially achieved its purpose.
(The author is vice-president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines.)