PETITION TO PASS HOUSE BILL NO. 11642 "NO TO FLOATING STATUS BILL"
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., President of the Republic of the Philippines; House of Representatives; Senate of the Republic of the Philippines
.png)
Why Is It Important to Sign and Support HB 11642?
Because floating status can put BPO workers in a situation where they remain employees on paper but are effectively left without work, wages, and certainty about their future.
House Bill No. 11642 responds specifically to the problem of floating status in the BPO industry. Its explanatory note points to reports gathered by BIEN from November 2025 to July 2026 involving 665 reports from 639 workers across 174 companies and 331 accounts, with floating status identified in 214 cases. The bill describes recurring situations where workers are placed on floating status after an account ends or changes, wait weeks or months for redeployment, and in some cases are eventually pushed toward resignation or termination.
Signing matters because:
Your job should not disappear just because a client account does.
BPO workers do not control client decisions, account pull-outs, downsizing, or changes in business demand. HB 11642 seeks to make sure workers are not made to bear the full burden of those decisions through indefinite or abusive floating arrangements.
Floating status can mean losing your income while still being tied to the company.
The bill recognizes the need to protect workers during legitimate redeployment periods by requiring continued payment of full salaries, allowances, and statutory benefits while redeployment pathways are ongoing.
Workers should be redeployed, retrained, and given a real chance to stay employed.
HB 11642 requires employers to exhaust available avenues for redeployment and retraining before resorting to retrenchment and separation. It also seeks to prevent assessment or interview processes from becoming arbitrary barriers to continued employment.
Security of tenure must be meaningful, not just something written in a contract.
The bill's explanatory note argues that security of tenure is undermined when employment can effectively be ended through prolonged floating status, unpaid waiting, or attrition. HB 11642 seeks to ensure that employment cannot simply be suspended into uncertainty until a worker is forced to give up.
The issue affects the entire BPO workforce.
You do not have to be on floating status today for this bill to matter to you. Any BPO worker can face account pull-outs, downsizing, restructuring, or loss of a client. Supporting HB 11642 means helping establish stronger protection before workers find themselves in that situation.
A simple reason to sign:
Because tomorrow, your account could be pulled out, your team could be downsized, or your employer could tell you to wait for redeployment. You should not have to choose between waiting without a paycheck and giving up your job.
Sign and support HB 11642. Say NO to floating status. Say YES to security of tenure, continued employment, and decent work for BPO workers.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., President of the Republic of the Philippines; House of Representatives; Senate of the Republic of the Philippines
From:
[Your Name]
We, the undersigned BPO workers, employees, and supporters of workers' rights, call on Congress to PASS HOUSE BILL NO. 11642, the “Prohibition of Floating Status and Protection of Employment Continuity Act.”
For too many BPO workers, losing a client account can mean losing their livelihood even while their employment contract supposedly remains intact.
Workers are placed on so-called “floating status,” “off-detail,” “standby,” “bench,” forced leave without pay, or involuntary leave without pay. In practice, this can mean being left without work and without wages while waiting indefinitely for reassignment. HB 11642 recognizes these arrangements and seeks to prevent employers from using them to undermine security of tenure.
The bill would prohibit employers from placing workers on floating status or similar arrangements when work remains available, when substantially similar positions exist, or when the employer is simultaneously hiring for the same or substantially similar work. It also provides safeguards for legitimate business causes, including employer obligations on notice, redeployment, retraining, financial support, and continuity of service.
For BPO workers, employment security cannot mean having a contract on paper while being denied work and wages in practice. When a client account ends or a project is downsized, workers should not be made to bear the full cost of business decisions they did not make.
We therefore call on Congress to:
PASS HOUSE BILL NO. 11642.
END THE ABUSE OF FLOATING STATUS.
PROTECT SECURITY OF TENURE AND CONTINUITY OF EMPLOYMENT FOR BPO WORKERS.
ENSURE THAT REDEPLOYMENT, RETRAINING, AND OTHER ALTERNATIVES ARE EXHAUSTED BEFORE WORKERS ARE TERMINATED.
PROTECT WORKERS FROM UNPAID, INDEFINITE, AND DISGUISED TERMINATION.
We believe that a worker who has contributed years of labor to an account or company should not be treated as disposable simply because a client contract ends.
No worker should be left waiting without wages. No job should be lost simply because an account was pulled out. Security of tenure must mean real protection.
We call on our representatives in Congress to hear the voices of BPO workers and support, pass, and enact HB 11642.