The newest members of Senate were proclaimed earlier today, and if that got you groaning (same), here’s something to somewhat soften the blow: Senate Bill No. 1826, also known as the Security of Tenure Bill, was approved on its third and final reading today, with 15 affirmative votes.
The bill was initially filed almost a year ago (on May 29, 2018) by senators Koko Pimentel, Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, JV Ejercito, Migz Zubiri, Grace Poe, Joel Villanueva, Loren Legarda, and Richard Gordon. Of this list, Aquino, Ejercito, and Legarda are to end their terms next month.
The bill, sponsored by Villanueva, aims to “give all workers peace of mind when it comes to their employment status, that no worker can be dismissed without just or authorized cause, and due process,” the senator said in a report by the Inquirer.
Aside from ending contractualization, the bill includes provisions such as requiring job contractors to obtain licenses from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). The bill also seeks to amend portions of the Labor Code to ensure that employees can only be terminated from their positions with just cause and due process, that all employees shall be deemed regular (except for probationary employees), including project and seasonal employees. It also seeks to put a cap on the length of probationary employment to six months.
Now that we have this bill in place, it’s time for the next step: actually going after the corporations who still refuse to regularize their employees. It’s 2019, we’ve got newly elected officials in place. Hopefully we start seeing changes.