Semirara Mining and Power Corporation (SMPC) workers account for 90 percent regularized employees in Antique, the province’ Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Provincial Director Melissa Navarra said in an interview Thursday, May 2.
These SMPC workers used to be in either probationary status or were under a contractual working setup before they were finally regularized by the Consunji Group member.
According to Navarra, around 1,670 employees received tenure security in their jobs last year.
“The other employees who were regularized were by the hospitals or cooperatives,” Navarra said in a report by the Philippine News Agency.
The DOLE Antique director added that the agency is continuously urging establishments and businesses in the province to make voluntary regularization of their employments, acknowledging President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s call to stop the “end of contract” scheme better known as “Endo.”
Compared to urban areas such as Metro Manila which has big companies that hire many workers, Antique only hosts small companies which allow DOLE to more easily emphasize the need for employees’ voluntary regularization in the province.
SMPC is engaged in thermal coal extraction and power production. It has its 55-square-kilometer surface open cut mining operations in Semirara Island in Antique, 350 kilometers south of Manila.
