An Exemplary Filipino Company
San Miguel Corporation was given special recognition for being an exemplary Filipino company by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for its continuous and sincere efforts to help Filipino employees and workers. The Company was able to support its workforce by hiring and regularizing about 25,000 former workers of its thirdparty providers, strictly complying with labor laws, and helping over 70,000 in its nationwide network throughout the pandemic. This was done even as the economy and SMC’s businesses have yet to fully recover.
In particular, DOLE extolled SMC’s successful completion of its Business Reintegration program—where SMC ended its service agreements with third-party providers of noncore, auxiliary operations. It enabled some 25,000 workers to become regular employees with full benefits. The employees are under its newly established Operations and Maintenance (O&M) companies.
SMC’s Business Reintegration program, which had been ongoing even before the pandemic, is a clear manifestation of SMC’s sincere effort and determination to use its businesses as platforms for positive change and to bring about progress for many Filipinos.
DOLE also cited SMC for institutionalizing its Group-wide Labor Laws Compliance System to ensure and strengthen labor compliance among its businesses and contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers, and business partners. SMC’s strict adherence to labor laws and continuous efforts to ensure compliance, not only among its own companies but also from those in its network, is also a manifestation of the company’s respect for the rights of all workers and its core value of malasakit.
SMC’s numerous pandemic response efforts, aimed at helping its employees all over the country cope with the many impacts of COVID-19, also got the Labor Department’s nod. Apart from extending various economic assistance programs and implementing adequate health and safety protocols at all its facilities and offices, SMC also invested in putting up its own RT-PCR testing laboratory to ensure continuous COVID-19 surveillance testing of its employees. It also successfully implemented a nationwide “Ligtas Lahat” employee vaccination program, which saw the company hire over 100 medical professionals who were deployed to SMC employee vaccination sites nationwide and to vaccination centers of various LGUs to help with the nationwide vaccination drive. By January 2022, over 97% of SMC’s target, 70,000 individuals, were fully vaccinated, with booster administration beginning as early as December 2021.
SMC’s DOLE recognition is a testament to the Group’s unremitting efforts to help and support its employees, especially amid challenging times. It highlights SMC’s respect for the rights of all workers and its core value of malasakit.