Nestle Philippines: legal complaint against labour-only contracting at Nescafe co-packer
In 2001, the Union of Nestle Workers Cagayan de Oro Factory (UNCWF) requested that the Labour Department investigate "labour-only" contracting by Nestle's co-packer COFIPAC.
The union argued that COFIPAC was not contracted by Nestle as a coffee packing company to pack Nescafe products, but was hired only as a "labour-only contracting" firm. The Labour Department inspection team found that the complaint was true, and that 3 companies: COFIPAC, FEDCON and SCF General Manpower Services were providing labour-only contracting to Nestle - even though Nestle claimed that they were indepenent third party contractors (which means they should have their own plant and equipment, not just labour). The investigation also found they were producing the same products as regular employees directly employed by Nestle. So the case went to court and is still in process. On 12 May 2005 the union filed a complaint in the National Labour Relations Commission regarding this case and is waiting for a response.
UNCWF reports that every day 20 contractual workers are brought into the plant on "standby" - just in case regular workers don't come to work or if extra hands are needed. The contractual workers (supplied by FEDCON labour hire agency) only get paid if there is work today, otherwise they are on "standby" all day without pay. In response the union has demanded that regular workers be given priority when positions need to be filled. At the same time the union just succeeded in negotiating the phasing out of the use of 100 daily contractual workers in the plant.