Status of Compliance to Dole-Department order 174 of Selected Fast food Establishments in Cabanatuan City, Philippines

This research paper determined the status of compliance to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Department Order (D.O.) 174 of selected fast-food establishments in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. The researchers find this important, especially to the large fast-food corporation, as this will be able to eliminate possible penalties that the DOLE may impose on them once proven violating the said D.O. with regards to labor contractualization. The methodology used in this research is an evaluative-descriptive survey with a guided questionnaire as the main instrument. The study involved 15 purposively chosen respondents. Findings of the study indicated that some of the fast food restaurants in Cabanatuan were still non-compliant to some o f the requirements under D.O. 174. This stemmed from duplication of work between regular employees and 3 party employee arising from the agency, in terms of directing and controlling 3 party employees as stated in the DOLE Department order which prohibits the principal on direct involvement for non-regular employees. The study recommends that the management of selected fast-food establishments should conduct a thorough review of the content of Department Order-174 and develop and empower their team leaders through capability building programs so that they will be firm in their designation and can perform their duties and responsibilities effectively. Keywords— Business, compliance, DOLE Department 174, fast-food establishments, status.


INTRODUCTION
Contractualization has been a system long practice by a lot of co mpanies in the country, especially large co mpanies who want to keep their profits up. In the Philippine context, contractualization "is a work arrangement whereby workers are only hired for about five months without security of tenure, monetary, non-monetary and social protection benefits."The amendment of the Phil. Labor Code, which is more co mmonly known as Herrera Law [1].Contractualization of labor in the Ph ilippines weakens the traditional power and concept of the unions (Macaraya, 1997). With the Philippine membership to the World Trade Organization, contractualization was used to attract the investor in the form of a huge army of cheap, docile labor [2]."Endo contractualization" refers to a short term emp loyment practice in the Philippines, it is a form of contractualization which involves co mpanies giving their workers temporary emp loy ment that last less than six months, while "5-5-5-" refers to contractual workers that are terminated after five months, and then rehired again for another five months or repeated hiring of contractual workers [3]. It is noted that Labor Code mandates the emp loyers have to regularize the employee once the emp loyee has completed a six-month continues work. Thus, at then of the fifth month, employees' contract is terminated, where the employee will be asked not to report for a day or two, which will them be proceeded with another five-month contract. The Department of Labor and Emp loyment ("DOLE") has long defined "endo" as a hiring practice deliberately resorted to prevent workers from acquiring regular status done through repeated short-term arrangements by one principal through the same or difference contractors [4] Consistent with President Rodrigo Duterte's campaign promise to end fixed-term emp loyment, more co mmonly known as "endo", the Department of Labor and Emp loy ment ("DOLE") launched a rev iew of Depart ment Order ("D.O."). In the interim, before the issuance of a new order, the DOLE released two issuances on 25 July 2016:D.O. No. 162, series of 2016. Labor-only contracting, wh ich is prohibited, refers to an arrangement where the contractor or subcontractor does not have substantial capital. The contractor or subcontractor does not exercise the right to control the performance of the work of the employee." [5].
Under the Philippine Labor Code, the leg itimate labor contractors are the employer of the workers. The relationship between these two is also covered by the labor code. In the thriving industry of subcontracting, the man ifold rights of the workers are increasingly being violated [6]. To end 'endo.'" The march ing order to end the contractualization is not an easy task to undertake. The problem o f endo involves three parties in general: the enterprise that uses the labor; the labor service supplier who hires and supplies the labor; and the laborers who are hired. Under the current setup, as contractualization has developed, the company using the labor is not the direct hirer of the worker. The enterprise in need of labor services uses the labor service provider to hire workers. By using the labor service provider, the productive enterprise develops no direct employer-emp loyee relat ionship with the worker [7] In this study, the researchers attempted to describe the status of co mpliance of selected fast food establishment in Cabanatuan to the DO 174.Specifically, it aimed to determine theprocess of acquiring emp loyees andthe current emp loyment status of selected fast-food establishments in Cabanatuan City after the implementation of DOLE Depart ment Order 174. Likewise, it described the duties and responsibilit ies of different types of emp loyees and the challenges encountered by the company during the implementation of DO 174. The first-hand knowledge and personal experience of the respondents would shed light on the problem posed herein.

II.
METHODOLOGY This study used a quantitative type of research wherein current practices in terms of emp loyment is compared with the requirement stated under Department Order 174 to determine the compliance of selected fast-food establishments. A total of 15 purposively chosen employees of selected fast-food establishments served as respondents of thisstudy. They were chosen purposively based on the following criteria [8]: they have prior learning or knowledge on DOLE Depart ment Order 174, and they were directly h ired, wh ich belonged to the middle -level management. This study used two types of techniques to be able to generate information. The first technique that was used to gather information was through Questionnaire. Ques tions were constructed based on Department Order 174 of 2016.

III.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 3.1. Process of acquiring employees of selected fast-food establishments in Cabanatuan after the i mplementation of DOLE DO 174. Through Agency 2 6 Total 15 15 Table 1 shows that 22 respondents answered that their workers were d irectly h ired by the company, wh ile 8 of them were h ired through an agency. It simply means that the majority of the emp loyers were getting their manpower through direct hiring. About DO 174, an employee who is directly hired by the Principal is subject for regularization after its probationary period or after 6monthsunless otherwise, the emp loyee incurred any co mpany violat ions that are subject for termination. On the other hand,employees hired thru a legitimate agency are an automatic regular member of that agency.

Current empl oyment status of selected fast-food establishments in Cabanatuan City after the implementation of DOLE DO 174.
n/a n/a n/a n/a     As shown in Table 5, 100% of the respondents answered that their co mpanies do not face difficulties on directly disciplining/correcting workers . Before the imp lementation of DOLE DO 174, the management was directly correct ing workers. When the tripartite set up was made in co mp liance with DOLE DO 174, selected fast food establishments experienced several problems in d isciplining emp loyees specifically the third party employees because it is inconsistently done by the Team Leader that was selected by the Agency. Based on Table 6, 53.33% of the respondents said that the top level management of their co mpany was directly involved in terms of performance appraisal, directing, controlling on those workers who are not directly hired and 46.67% of them have answered that their top-level management was not directly involved in terms of performance appraisal, d irecting and controlling workers who are not directly hired. It is shown in DOLE Depart ment Order 174 under Section 5. Absolute Prohibition against Labor-only contracting; b) the contractor or subcontractor does not exercise the right to control over the performance of the work of the employee. In comparison to the result, it clearly shows that fast-food companies had challenges in executing performance appraisal, d irecting and controlling workers who are not directly hired, therefore violating the article on Section 5.

IV. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings of the study, the following the researchers concluded that the majo rity o f the emp loyees working on fast food chains were hired directly by the companies. The fast-food establishments in Cabanatuan City contractual emp loyees were eliminated. Likewise, the results of this research showed that there were still duplication of work that appeared to be non-compliant of Section 6; F of DO 174 which states that "requiring the contractor's/subcontractor's employees to perform functions which are currently being perfo rmed by the regular emp loyees of the principal is declared prohibited for being contrary to the law or public policy". In accordance to the implementation of the said Depart ment Order, relaying or giv ing of info rmation needed has now became co mplex due to the new hierarchy that was made wherein all the informat ion must be relayed through team leaders fro m cooperative which serves as the middle man, and they should be the one relaying it directly to third-party emp loyees. With this matter, it was found out that the top level management was still d irect ly involved in terms of performance appraisal, d irecting, controlling on workers who are not directly h ired and in correct ing/disciplining third-party emp loyees. With this, selected fast food chains have clearly d id not comply on DO 174 Sect ion 5:B of the Absolute Prohibition against Labor-only Contracting which states that "an arrangement where the contractor or subcontractor does not exercis e the right to control over the performance of the work of the emp loyee is totally prohibited" [9].
Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the following are thus recommended: Conduct a follow-up research which is related with this study to further validate and monitor the consistency and compliance of fast food co mpanies with the Depart ment Order 174 and sustain the current and right procedure of regularizing direct ly hired emp loyees. Further, there should continue practice of co mpliance with Depart ment Order 174 regarding the elimination of contractualization on respective companies. A thorough understanding and review of Depart ment Order 174 shall be made by the companies to be able to make accurate decisions given available informat ion [10] and co mpare it with their existing practices. Lastly, the e mpowerment of team leaders must be implemented. The Area coordinator fro m Agency should be the one responsible to study and explore the performance [11] of the perfect person qualified for the position. With the help of the top management level, credible, reliab le and responsible team leaders could be developed through engaging them in training and capability buildings that will help them be competent and perfectly fit their designation.