Phase 2 ongoing. Activities under the second phase are as follows:

• Building the Capacity of Employers to Sustain Compliance by Strengthening Social Dialogue Committees at the Workplace.

1. Development of a toolkit for utilizing workplace social dialogue mechanisms, specifically Labor Management Committees (LMCs) and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Committees, to promote labor law compliance among enterprises;

To promote voluntary compliance at the workplace level, ECOP believes it is important to capitalize on existing social dialogue mechanisms in the workplace, specifically through Labor Management Committees (LMCs) and Occupational Safety and Health Committees. These mechanisms are crucial in preparing as well as sustaining compliance.

1. Designing training programs on social dialogue mechanisms to promote labor law compliance;

The toolkit on social dialogue mechanisms shall be implemented for key focal persons from ECOP chapters and BMOs.  This training program shall also be an avenue for gathering inputs to proposed guidelines for enterprises on establishing and strengthening LMCs and OSH Committees.

1. Documentation of best practices on labor law compliance;

Enterprises who participate in ECOP capacity-building programs will be encouraged to implement their local level action plans and supported by ECOP through provision of technical advice and linkages among others. Their experiences, both good and bad, shall be documented and disseminated by ECOP to serve as models for other enterprises.

From this regulatory approach of labor inspection embodied in Article 128, the Department of Labor and Employment issued Department Order No. 57-04 or the Labor Standards Enforcement Framework in 2004. It aims to build a culture of compliance among employers based on voluntary compliance through the following approaches: 1) self-assessment, 2) inspection, and 3) advisory service.

To further improve compliance with labor laws, the Department of Labor and Employment issued DOLE DO 183-17, which updated the DO 131 – B series of 2016. The overarching goal is to foster a culture of voluntary compliance with labor laws among establishments by improving working conditions, employer-employee relationships, and productivity.

With the new LLCS, surprise inspections are evident. Labor Laws Compliance Officers (LLCOs) will lay down information on labor standards as well as a toolbox of DOLE’s programs and services which will address the training and technical needs of establishments. The LLCS has three approaches: joint assessment, compliance visit, and occupational safety and health investigation. ECOP, together with social partners, took active part in developing and finalizing the document through the Tripartite Industrial Peace Council.

As part of its core advocacies, ECOP promotes good corporate citizenship by educating and informing our constituents on the minimum requirements of the law and the duty of employers to comply specifically with labor laws. We encourage employers to be conscious about new policy developments that will affect the day to day operations of their business.

To further expand the reach of this advocacy of fostering a culture of voluntary compliance, ECOP sees the need to capacitate its chapters and various business membership organizations (BMOs) across the regions, on employer engagement in the LLCS

A culture of voluntary compliance, when partnered with social dialogue at the ground level, further fosters industrial peace and harmonious labor-management relations.

In line with educating its chapters and BMOs in complying with labor laws, ECOP believes that the following strategy is crucial in building its capacity as an organization of employers to better assist their members towards complying with labor laws; and preparation for joint assessments.  This strategy shall consist of two phases:

• Phase 1 – Building the capacity of employers to engage in various modes of assessment,
• Phase 2- Building the capacity of employers to sustain compliance by strengthening social dialogue committees at the workplace

To capacitate employers on the basics of Philippine labor law standards to facilitate their compliance to the Labor Laws Compliance System (LLCS)

Specific objectives:

1. To develop tools that will facilitate understanding and implementation of LLCS at the enterprise level especially among small and medium enterprises (SME) in the regions
2. To capacitate business membership organization (BMO) partners and ECOP chapters in implementing a service on LLCS
3. To create a pool of trainers and experts on LLCS
4. To enhance labor management councils/committees (LMC) as partners in implementing LLCS at the enterprise level

Designation: Training and Development Manager

Mobile No.:

E-mail Address: [email protected]