The MKP Struggle: In a Time of Global Change, Some Wins Still Matter

By Sonia P. Soto

There are struggles you cannot fully understand unless you hear them from the people who lived through them.

When I sat down with Jose Eleuterio Pinlac of the Manggagawa sa Komunikasyon ng Pilipinas (MKP), the story did not begin in the courtroom. It began on the shop floor—at a time when the nature of work itself was quietly being transformed inside PLDT.

Back in the 1990s, the language sounded harmless enough: restructuring, efficiency, modernization. But for workers, these were not abstract concepts. They meant something very concrete—uncertainty.

“When you’re contractual, you have no security,” Pinlac said.

What happened inside PLDT was not unique. It was part of a much larger shift. The Philippines, like many countries, was moving deeper into a global economic model shaped by liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. Companies were under pressure to become leaner and more competitive. And inside workplaces, this translated into one thing: flexibility—often at the expense of stability.

Contractualization became the tool of choice.

This is where MKP drew the line.

The fight was neither quick nor simple. It stretched over decades—through organizing on the ground, negotiations with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and eventually, legal battles that reached both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

At one point, DOLE ordered the regularization of thousands of workers—widely reported to be in the range of over 7,000—an indication of how deeply contractual labor had penetrated core operations.

Then came a critical legal affirmation.

The Supreme Court ruled that functions such as installation, repair, and maintenance—core to a telecommunications company—cannot simply be outsourced to avoid regular employment. The principle was clear and consistent with long-standing labor doctrine: contracting is allowed, but not when it becomes a way to perform essential business functions without granting workers the rights of regular employees.

That matters.

In a global environment that increasingly favored deregulated labor markets, the ruling stood as a reminder: efficiency cannot be used as a blanket justification to weaken labor rights.

But here is where the story becomes more complicated—and more honest.

While the case moved through the legal system, the workplace itself did not stand still. Technology evolved. Business models shifted. Some jobs disappeared. Others were reconfigured. For many workers, even victory came late.

This is the uncomfortable truth.

Contractualization is not just the result of a single company’s decision. It is embedded in a broader system—one that has been reinforced over decades by policy choices and legal frameworks. Under the Labor Code, contracting is not illegal per se. It only becomes unlawful when it crosses into labor-only contracting or displaces core functions.

And that is precisely why the problem persists.

The law draws the line. The system learns how to work around it.

In a recent appeal to Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the union’s call is simple: implement the Supreme Court ruling. That is not a radical demand. That is the bare minimum.

But the MKP story forces us to confront a harder question.

What happens when enforcement lags—and the structure that created the problem remains intact?

Across industries, the same pattern continues. Contractual and non-regular work arrangements remain widespread, reflecting an economic model that prioritizes flexibility while leaving workers to absorb the risks.

So the challenge today is not just legal. It is structural.

If work has changed, then protection must change with it—becoming more deliberate, more responsive, and, frankly, more enforceable.

Let’s be clear.

There are reasons to be angry. Decades of struggle should not end in partial victories and delayed justice.

But there are also reasons to recognize what has been achieved.

Because the MKP fight is not just about PLDT.

It is about drawing a line—one that says there are limits to how far flexibility can go before it erodes dignity.

And in a time when the world of work continues to shift beneath our feet, that line still matters.

On Labor Day, that is worth remembering. #