Philippines
Answer ... The 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law (Republic Act 1121) governs the maternity leave of all female workers in the government and private sector, regardless of their civil status or the legitimacy of their child.
The Paternity Leave Act (Republic Act 8187) provides for the paternity leave of all married male employees in the private and public sectors.
The Solo Parents’ Welfare Act (Republic Act 8972) sets out the leave benefits for solo parents. The law provides for specific criteria before an employee can be considered as a solo parent and avail of the benefits provided thereunder.
Philippines
Answer ... The 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law provides women with 105 days’ maternity leave with full pay and an option to extend for an additional 30 days without pay. If the woman is also considered as a solo parent under the Solo Parents’ Welfare Act, she is granted an additional 15 days’ maternity leave with full pay.
If a female worker has suffered a miscarriage or undergoes emergency termination of pregnancy, she is instead given 60 days’ maternity leave with full pay.
The Paternity Leave Act affords married men paternity leave of seven days with full pay for the first four deliveries of the legitimate spouse with whom he is cohabiting.
The Solo Parents’ Welfare Act provides parental leave of seven working days every year to any qualified solo parent employee who has rendered service of at least one year.
Philippines
Answer ... The Philippine Constitution recognises the rights of workers in both the private and public sectors to self-organise and to collectively bargain. However, certain employees are excluded from forming or joining unions. In the private sector, the Labour Code prohibits top and middle management employees and confidential employees from joining, forming or assisting unions. Supervisory employees are not eligible for membership in unions formed by rank-and-file employees, and may only join and form unions of their own.
Executive Order 180/1987 states that in the public sector, the following are not allowed to form unions:
- high-level employees whose functions are normally considered as policy making or managerial, or whose duties are of a highly confidential nature;
- members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines;
- members of the Philippine National Police;
- fire fighters; and
- jail guards.
The Labour Code defines a ‘legitimate labour organisation’ as any union that is duly registered with the Department of Labour and Employment. Such legitimate labour organisations have the following rights:
- to act as the representative of its members for the purpose of collective bargaining;
- to be certified as the exclusive representative of all employees in an appropriate collective bargaining unit for the purposes of collective bargaining;
- to be furnished by the employer, upon written request, with its annual audited financial statements, including the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement;
- to own property, real or personal, for the use and benefit of the labour organisation and its members;
- to sue and be sued in its registered name; and
- to undertake all other activities designed to benefit the organisation and its members, including cooperative, housing welfare and other projects not contrary to law.
Philippines
Answer ... The Philippine Data Privacy Act and its implementing rules provide for the data protection of employees. The law mandates that personal information may be collected and processed only for legitimate and specific purposes and when the employee has given his or her consent. The information collected may be retained only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was obtained.
The employee can also request that the information collected be corrected or removed upon discovery that the information is:
- incomplete;
- outdated;
- false;
- unlawfully obtained;
- used for unauthorised purposes; or
- no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.
The employer is mandated to secure the integrity of the information collected and may be found criminally and civilly liable if there was:
- unauthorised processing; or
- improper disposal, malicious disclosure or breach of the information collected.
Philippines
Answer ... The Labour Code explicitly recognises the following contingent worker arrangements:
- casual;
- project; and
- seasonal.
Jurisprudence recognises another arrangement, which is the fixed-term arrangement.
Casual employment contemplates the performance of work which is incidental to the usual trade or business of the employer, where the employee is not considered a regular employee, project employee or seasonal employee.
Project employment is an arrangement where the employment has been fixed for a specific project and the employee’s services are coterminous with the completion of the project.
Seasonal employment is an arrangement whereby an employee is engaged to render work for a season. The seasonal employee engages in work that is seasonal or periodic in nature, and employment is for the duration of the season.
Fixed-term employment is an arrangement whereby both the employer and employee voluntarily and knowingly agree on a definite period of employment, and the employment terminates after the expiry of the specified period.
Department Order 174-17 regulates job contracting and subcontracting arrangements. Job contracting and subcontracting arrangements involve a trilateral relationship between the principal, the contractor and the contractor’s workers. In this arrangement, the principal farms out to the contractor or subcontractor the performance or completion of a specific job, within a pre-determined period.