Philippine BPO workers file NLRC case against TTEC over dismissals
ILOILO, PHILIPPINES — More than 60 (business process outsourcing) BPO workers at TTEC’s Iloilo City operations filed an illegal termination complaint with the National Labor Relations Commission on May 4, alleging mass job cuts carried out without due process.
According to a report from The Manila Times, the Business Process Outsourcing Industry Employees Network (BIEN) says the Iloilo case is part of a broader pattern affecting an estimated 1,500 employees across TTEC’s Philippine sites.
TTEC workers file illegal dismissal case in Iloilo
The complaint was filed with NLRC Sub-Regional Arbitration Branch 6 in Iloilo City and names TTEC — formerly TeleTech — which operates customer experience outsourcing centers across multiple Philippine cities.
The complaint centers on two allegations: that TTEC terminated workers without following legally required due process procedures, and that the terminations were part of coordinated mass job cuts rather than individual performance actions.
BIEN has been collecting testimony from affected workers across the country since the cuts began — positioning the NLRC case not as an isolated grievance but as the formal legal face of a larger workforce dispute.
“Workers who have dedicated years of their lives to delivering quality service and generating profits for multinational corporations deserve respect, dignity, and security of tenure,” BIEN stated.
BIEN cites 1,500 affected workers across multiple sites
BIEN has received more than 200 testimonies from workers affected by TTEC job cuts across multiple sites nationwide.
Mass job cuts have been reported at TTEC operations in Cebu and Novaliches in addition to the Iloilo site, with BIEN’s estimated total of affected workers reaching 1,500 or more.
BIEN has called on DOLE to investigate the dismissals and take enforcement action — escalating the dispute from a labor commission filing to a government accountability demand.
Two hundred testimonies pointing to cuts across Iloilo, Cebu, and Novaliches — three major Philippine BPO hubs — support BIEN’s argument that the dismissals are a coordinated operational decision rather than site-specific headcount management.
“Taken together, these testimonies indicate not isolated incidents but a pattern of systemic abuse and labor rights violations that demand urgent government action,” BIEN stated.
For enterprise CX and BPO buyers with TTEC in their vendor portfolio, the NLRC filing adds a compliance dimension to sourcing decisions that now sits alongside the commercial AI disruption debate. How DOLE responds to BIEN’s enforcement demand will indicate how much weight the Philippines intends to put behind its labor standards framework.
