But that is water under the bridge now.

Some worse developments happened, and I’m now out of the company. Since the company is U.S.-owned, it was greatly affected by the U.S. recession.

It was good I had another job waiting, so I was able to continue paying our seemingly unending bills.  The Lord made a way for me.

We were given separation payments, but they were not as substantial as those given by multinationals.

Last January 29, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) released its advisory on flexible work arrangements, allowing companies to resort to several types of work schedules to cope with the effects of the U.S. recession.

DOLE emphasized that the flexible work arrangements were better than total closure or termination of a big number of employees.

Among the work arrangements approved are:

Compressed workweek

A workday is increased to more than 8 hours,  so the usual number of 6 work days per week can be reduced, but the regular total of 48 work hours per week is achieved. The increase in work hours per day is not treated as overtime and the addition should not be more than 4 hours. This work day reduction should not last for over 6 months.

(Our firm used this to reduce the building’s electric and other maintenance costs and at the same time help cut employees’ transpo and related expenses.)

Worker Rotation

Employees are given work alternately within the workweek.

Forced Leave

Employees are required to go on leave for several days or weeks using their leave credits if there are any.

(The “if there are any” phrase seemed to mean that firms are allowed to implement extended forced leaves even if the employees have no more leave credits to use.)

Last December, when many of us were put on forced leave, the firm clearly was trying to avoid paying our unusually high holiday payments, although the bosses did not admit it. Through the years, we always did our best to boost our individual production 7 days before the Christmas holidays to receive big holiday payments. Last December, the firm was always talking about costs, more costs and cost cutting.

Broken-time schedule

Work schedule is not continuous, but the regular total number of work hours within the week or day remains.

Flexi-holidays

Employees avail of holidays at some other days, but there should be no diminution of holiday benefits.

Other flexible work arrangements

DOLE allows companies and its employees to explore other alternative arrangements.

Grievances

Differences in the interpretation of  flexible work arrangements are resolved by the company’s grievance mechanism.

If the grievance mechanism is unable to fix the differences, the grievance is referred to the DOLE Regional Office which has jurisdiction over the workplace.

Notice Requirement

Companies are required to notify their area’s DOLE Regional Office of their implementation of any flexible work arrangement.

DOLE Advisory No. 2 Series of 2009

Signed by DOLE Secretary Marianito D. Roque                                              January 29, 2009

Actually, the boss didn’t use the term “forced leave.” And she refuses to call it so. She just explained that the Philippines branch needed to cut costs for the month of December so that the U.S. parent would not close the operations in Makati. Whew! She further said that the U.S. is contemplating consolidating the Philippine operations into a location where costs are lower.

I visited the site of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), but surprisingly I couldn’t find anything on forced leaves. It’s good the site accepts queries. So I sent the following query last December:

Sir/Madam: Does the Labor Code have provisions on forced leaves? I have searched all over the site and inside the Labor Code books/chapters and I can’t find something about forced leaves. Kindly please help me find them. And please email me the links. The only things that I’ve found on the Internet about forced leaves in the Phil. are discussions about it in tsikot.yehey.com forum. And of course, they’re not official views. I like to know if forced leaves are legal, as I was put on forced leave starting today together with about 13 others. We’re regular employees. My manager though doesn’t like to label it as forced leave because we’re not paid by the hour, but by the number of records we write. The managers argued that they need to cut costs for the month of December, which has a lot of holidays. Thanks a lot.

And hooray, the Legal Service of DOLE answered relatively fast!

Dear Ms. Nora:

Work days may be reduced on account of losses. The reduction in the number of regular working days is resorted to by the employer to prevent serious losses due to causes beyond his control, such as when there is a substantial slump in the demand for his goods or services or when there is lack of raw materials.  This is more humane and in keeping with sound business operations than the outright termination of the services or the total closure of the enterprise.

In situations where there is valid reduction of workdays, the employer may deduct the wages and living allowances corresponding the days taken off from the workweek, in the absence of agreement specifically providing that a reduction in the number of workdays will not adversely affect the remuneration of employees.  This view is consistent on the principle of “no-work-no-pay”.  Furthermore, since the reduction of workdays is resorted to as a cost-saving measure, it would be unfair for the employer to pay the wages and living allowances even on unworked days that were taken off from the regular workweek.

Thank you for writing.

Legal Service, DOLE

*Please be advised that this email address will only be used to answer email queries sent through our comments and inquiries section. Kindly send your questions through our comments and inquiries section in www.dole.gov.ph

Yesterday, when our project manager told us the news, I immediately felt angry. I felt betrayed. I felt ingratitude on the part of the employer. Although the managers admitted it only after some arguments between management and our group, the forced leaves were aimed to cut costs for the month of December.

As all of us Pinoys know, December is full of regular holidays. For hourly-paid employees, the computation is simple. They get 100 percent of their daily rate even if they don’t work on these holidays, as long as they were at work the day before the holidays.

In our firm, which is a U.S. based Indian-managed data conversion service provider, we’re not paid by the hour. We’re paid by the number of short articles that we write. We’re regulars and we get benefits most other employees in Metro Manila get.

Our holiday payments are computed by dividing by seven our total payments for the seven days before the holiday. This year, there are six holidays during the Christmas/New Year week: Dec 25, Dec 26, Dec 29, Dec 30, Dec 31, Jan 1.

Imagine if we produce work worth 1,000 pesos per day as what happens if we do our best?  We would get a total of 6,000 pesos from the holidays!

But that won’t happen now. We’re on forced leave.

The second part of this article is here: