DOLE’S ‘big brother, small brother’ partnership takes off
THREE big companies based in three towns in the province have signed up for the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) KAPATIRAN-WISE-TAV, a “big-brother, small-brother” reform program that aims to improve working conditions in medium-, small- and micro-scale enterprises.
DOLE Region 1 Director Henry John Jalbuena said separate memoranda of agreement (MOA) were inked with Team Energy in Sual, San Miguel Corporation in Binalonan, and Ginebra San Miguel in Sta. Barbara.
The KAPATIRAN-WISE-TAV aims to transform small companies, defined as those employing 1-99 workers, into occupational safety and health compliant establishments with the help of the big companies based on a voluntary “brotherhood” concept.
Under the program, the big companies called the ‘Big Brothers’, in cooperation with the DOLE, local government units and other agencies, will assist at least 10 of their sub-contractors, service providers or suppliers, called the ‘small brothers’, in improving work conditions until the latter become capable of serving as big brothers themselves.
Representatives of the ‘big brothers’ will have the authority to visit the ‘small brothers’ to determine existing level of compliance to safety standards and what assistance are needed for improvements.
“In effect, DOLE’s authority to conduct plant visits is delegated to the big brothers,” Jalbuena said.
The participation of the three big companies will benefit 49 sub-contractors involving 4,233 workers.
MORE VOLUNTEERISM
Meanwhile, the cities of Dagupan and Urdaneta have adopted the voluntary code of good practices in their respective hotel and restaurant industry in line with DOLE’s advocacy for volunteerism.
The code allows self-regulation among industries by complying with a set of flexible rules pertaining to employment, human resource development, social protection, family welfare and other programs which will be mutually beneficial to both labor and management.
One of the major thrusts of the code is to enhance labor-management relations through social dialogue and the adoption of conciliation-mediation as priority mode of dispute settlement. (PIA/Venus Sarmiento with report from DOLE)
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