Binay’s “Sales Lady Bill” deemed counterproductive

CEBU, Philippines - Local retailers lamented on the possible impact to the productivity and competitiveness of the Filipino labor force and shopping industry once the senate bill that seeks additional rest periods for sales ladies will be enacted.

Senator Maria Lourdes “Nancy” Binay has recently filed a bill seeking to further grant female employees in malls and similar establishments 15-minute breaks for every two hours of “uninterrupted and continuous duty” in addition to their regular rest periods.

The bill that was proposed by the neophyte senator amends the provision of Section 132 of the Labor Code that only provides for “seats proper for women” which they could avail of “when they are free from work and during work hours, provided they can perform their duties in this position without detriment to efficiency.”

Prince Warehouse Club president and chief executive officer Robert Go described the Sales Lady Bill as a “counterproductive bill” that could aggravate the already-low productivity of the Philippine labor force compared to other Asian neighbors.

“This kind of bill is not helping the industry and even the workers themselves since it lowers the productivity further and promotes laziness,” he told The FREEMAN.

He cited for instance, an employee in a melamine machinery in Taiwan could manage to operate two equipments at the same time.

This is opposite, he added, in the Philippines wherein an equipment is operated by two workers since they could not cope with the speed of the machinery.

He then said that the efficiency level in Taiwan is four times higher than in the Philippines.

“This is no difference than those sales ladies in the malls and department stores. The productivity is much lower than our counterparts in Asia. If you go around some of the department stores here in Cebu, you will notice many are talking and doing nothing especially during the lean hours of 8 to 11 am and 2 to 4 pm. Only a few stores are busy especially on weekdays from Monday to Thursdays,” Go stated.

He added that mall employees are already given 15-minute snack breaks at 10 AM and at 3 PM along with their one-hour lunch break from 12 to 1 PM.

Once another 15 minutes will be added every two hours, he said that there will already be a total of seven breaks out of an eight-hour workday given the four 15-minute breaks every two-hour interval that sum up to an extra one-hour break.

Go also said that the Sales Lady Bill may also disrupt store programs and tempt more shoplifters to come often.

“In fact, there are now more than ten times more shopliftings reported almost every day which also leads us to another counterproductive bill which states that minors cannot be sent to jail for shoplifting. Today all shoplifters are below 18 years old and they come back almost every day,” he continued.

He said that studies show that employees are productive on their first four hours of work and become more efficient if they are concentrated in their work for the next four hours.

He added that this is in contradiction to having breaks every after two hours of work.

“This is a bill with lack of study and evaluation. Our bills should be aimed to improve the livelihood of people through creation of jobs and promotion of work ethics, not a bill for popularity but is actually decaying the growth of our economy,” he said.

Meanwhile, a source from a local retail chain who requested not to be named said that the bill could be likely biased to the female employees.

He added that this will also cause headache to the human resource department in terms of monitoring floor performance of these employees who will be affected with the proposed measure.

“How can they monitor the fifteen-minute recess every after two hours as being consumed? How can the remaining employees manage to entertain customers who pass by their area of responsibility? In the course of an 8-hour duty, would this mean that an employee is now just working for seven hours or do the employers have the right to add an additional hour's work from the employee,” he said.

He also expressed concern that the bill may lead other companies to prefer male employees rather than female workers, thus affecting the livelihood and general welfare of the latter.

Go, on the other hand, pointed out the possible tension that will arise from the male employees who would likewise demand similar number of rest periods in a working day.

Such contention was clarified by Binay who emphasized the immediate passage of her proposed bill, stating that males have more advantage in terms of physical condition and work tolerance compared to women who suffer working in standing position for long periods of time. /JOB  (FREEMAN)