DOLE-7 bats for reforms ensuring inclusive growth

• Source:http://www.philstar.com/cebu-news/2016/04/08/1570729/dole-7-bats-reforms-ensuring-inclusive-growth
• Friday, April 8, 2016 12:00 am

By Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon (The Freeman)

CEBU, Philippines - Several reforms to ensure that inclusive growth have to be felt by the ordinary workers were implemented by the Department of Labor and Employment-7, the agency's head said.

Speaking before the First Cebu Employee/Labor Relations Congress yesterday, DOLE-7 director Exequiel Sarcauga said that using the Philippine Labor and Employment Plan 2011-2016 (LEP) as framework supports the Aquino administration's 22-Point Agenda on Labor and Employment.

The LEP, Sarcauga said, frames its priorities using the decent work pillars of rights at work, employment, social protection and social dialogue. It also provides a cross-cutting pillar on sustaining outcomes to cover government strategies complementary to the decent work strategies, he added.

The LEP highlighted that inclusive growth means equalizing access to development opportunities across geographic areas and across different income and social spectra, so that employment creation and expansion will concretely translate into poverty reduction.

Sarcauga said that among the strategies they adopted is concentrated on reforms toward better enjoyment of workers' rights alongside with employment facilitation efforts.

He cited the Labor Law Compliance System in Labor Standards Enforcement, the Two-Tier Wage System in Wage-Setting and Productivity and the Single Entry Approach. Freeman ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch:

"These are deemed first in the history of DOLE in terms of policy and program development in the area of guaranteeing workers' rights and benefits," he said.

Sarcauga added that the Philippines was recognized by the International Labor Organization and by the ASEAN as the first country to have instituted a transparent and unique technology-based system that combines developmental and regulatory approaches to labor laws compliance.

Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III in his speech said that managing employer-employee relationship is much more than just setting salaries and scheduling leaves of absences, planning company picnics or choosing uniforms.

Managing develops human resource, he emphasized.

"The challenge for HR managers is how to make employees more dedicated, more honest, more loyal and more productive," Davide said.