HRCC Members Jam-pack Business Forum on Labor Laws
by Paul Catiang

On the afternoon of August 1, 2005, Ms. Edith Bayoneta, Senior Consultant and Executive Director for the National Management Training & Research Center, spoke to a tightly packed Sequoia Room in the Richmonde Hotel, where members of the HRCC and employees and executives of John Clements Consultants, Inc. gathered to listen to her thoughts on labor laws. The veteran labor law consultant talked, with frank humor, about labor policies on recruiting and terminating employees and policies and restrictions on hiring part-time employees, both crucial issues in the call center industry.

The call center industry employs a large number of people, whether on a full-time, part-time, or per-project basis, and this diversity of employee types means a diverse number labor law applications will be needed. Moreover, this relatively new industry brings with it new labor practices which still need to be bounded by the law.

To begin with, Ms. Bayoneta was quick to emphasize one thing during the forum: contracts cannot override the mandate of the law. Naturally, this includes call centers, and the HRCC members were cautioned to ensure that their contracts were compliant in this regard, including arrangements unique to some companies.

Another interesting point brought up was the categories of employees who work in call centers. In other professional fields, apprentices are considered by law to be undergoing training approved by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), for which a company must have a permit. Apprentices are paid 75% of minimum wage, and their training must not exceed 6 months. Probationary employees, on the other hand, are regular employees who are on trial as to whether they are qualified for permanent employment. As there is no TESDA-approved training program for call centers as yet, call center trainees cannot be considered apprentices for the time being. While the probationary employee category may seem a more apt label, a training period isn’t included in its description. Regardless, the members of the HRCC were advised that, to be on the safe side, their training programs do not exceed six months.

These issues and a few more were answered by Ms. Bayoneta in her talk that day. While the assigned hour for the talk went by quickly, all the attendees agreed that the time was hardly enough to answer all the questions they had. Given the complexity of labor law and the constantly changing professional environment, more questions—and hopefully, business fora answering them—can be expected in the future.