Bureau purpose and mandated functions
- Section 2(a) requires the Bureau to ensure the proper enforcement of all existing laws and all future laws relating to labor and capital in the Philippine Islands.
- Section 2(a) directs the Bureau to promote legislation that will establish the material, social, intellectual, and moral improvement of workers.
- Section 2(b) directs the Bureau to acquire, collect, compile, systematize, and periodically submit to the Secretary of Commerce and Police statistical data on labor conditions and related economic and social indicators.
- Section 2(c) requires the Bureau to inspect shops, factories, railways, tramways, vessels, industrial and commercial establishments, and other labor centers, whether public or private.
- Section 2(c) authorizes the Bureau to take proper legal steps to prevent exposure of workers’ health or lives, and to assist workers in obtaining just compensation and indemnity prescribed by law for injuries from accidents in the course of duty.
- Section 2(d) requires the Bureau to secure the settlement of differences between employer and laborer and to avert strikes and lockouts by inducing parties to submit differences to arbitration.
- Section 2(e) authorizes the Bureau to organize one or more employment agencies in towns within the Philippine Islands that it deems necessary or advisable.
Statistical reporting duties to the Secretary
- Section 2(b) requires periodic submission of statistical data to the Secretary of Commerce and Police on workers’ hours and wage, including the number of employed and unemployed workers.
- Section 2(b) mandates data collection on workers’ place of birth, age, sex, civil slums, and moral and mental culture.
- Section 2(b) requires reporting on married workers’ estimated family numbers, houses rented, annual rental property owned, and the value of such property.
- Section 2(b) requires reporting on cost of living, amount of labor required, and the estimated number of persons dependent on workers’ daily wages.
- Section 2(b) requires reporting on the probable changes among persons employed and workers’ conditions across shops, factories, railways, tramways, industrial and commercial establishments, and other labor places, including penal institutions.
- Section 2(b) mandates reporting on workers’ safety and health, measures adopted to avoid accidents or ensure reparation, and accident statistics including:
- the number of accidents,
- their causes, and
- the action taken in each case.
- Section 2(b) requires data on the conditions and certainty of wage payment, savings banks with working classes, and various labor-related organizations and disputes (including corporations, strikes, suspensions of work, causes, and remedies).
- Section 2(b) requires data on mutual benefit associations, workers insurance societies, associations for collection of statistics, cooperative production, other labor organizations and their effects on labor and capital, and private employment and labor assistance agencies (including complaint, defense, and consultation agencies for laborers).
- Section 2(b) further requires reporting on private employment, and the commercial, industrial, social, educational, moral, and sanitary conditions of the working classes and the permanent prosperity of industries, including for laborers born in foreign countries: date of arrival and length of stay in the Philippine Islands.
Inspection authority over labor workplaces
- Section 2(c) requires inspections of shops, factories, railways, tramways, vessels, industrial and commercial establishments, and other labor centers, whether public or private.
- Section 2(c) authorizes the Bureau to take proper legal steps to prevent exposure of workers’ health or lives.
- Section 2(c) requires assistance by proper legal means to secure just compensation for labor and indemnity prescribed by law for injuries from accidents occurring during performance of duties.
Labor dispute settlement and arbitration
- Section 2(d) requires the Bureau to secure settlement of differences between employer and laborer.
- Section 2(d) requires the Bureau to avert strikes and lockouts by inducing submission of differences to arbitration.
Employment agencies in towns
- Section 2(e) authorizes the Bureau to organize one or more employment agencies.
- The Bureau may establish such agencies in towns throughout the Philippine Islands that it finds necessary or advisable.
Director powers: oaths, subpoenas, affidavits
- Section 3 authorizes the Director of Labor (by and with approval of the Governor-General) to administer oaths.
- Section 3 authorizes the Director to issue subpoenas and subpoenas duces tecum.
- Section 3 authorizes the Director to receive and take affidavits and the testimony of witnesses and experts.
- Section 3 limits these powers to investigations authorized by the Act.
Leadership structure and compensation
- Section 4 provides for one Chief and one Assistant Chief for the Bureau.
- Section 4 provides that the officials are appointed by the Governor-General, with the consent of the Philippine Commission.
- Section 4 establishes the titles Director of Labor (Chief) and Assistant Director of Labor (Assistant Chief).
- Section 4 provides that the Director of Labor exercises the powers and performs the duties imposed on the Bureau.
- Section 4 provides that the Assistant Director of Labor performs the Director’s duties during the Director’s absence or disability, and performs other duties required by the Director.
- Section 4 sets annual salaries at:
- PHP 7,000 per annum for the Director of Labor, and
- PHP 4,000 per annum for the Assistant Director of Labor.
Effectivity date and publication rule
- Section 5 provides that the Act takes effect on its passage.
- The Act is enacted on June 18, 1908.