Bailout package for workers pushed

Veronica Uy

INQUIRER.net

November 13, 2008

Breaking News - NATION

MANILA, Philippines — With the global financial crisis threatening to cut
jobs in export-oriented industries, the government should look into a
“bailout and stimulus package” for workers and the poor, the Partido ng
Mangggagawa (PM or Workers’ Party) said Thursday.

Greg Janginon, PM chairman for Cebu, said the government must also declare a
tax rebate for all workers that would effectively give them the equivalent
of two months’ salary.

Eddie Jumao-a, secretary of the Neostone union, said the Social Security
System, the Government Service Insurance System, and the Overseas Workers
Welfare Administration should also set aside funds to subsidize for six
months private sector workers, government employees and overseas Filipino
workers who will be laid off due to the crisis.

He said this would allow them to get back on their feet again, finding
another job or setting up their own micro-enterprise.

Unlike the bailout and stimulus package in the United States, which puts
money in the hands of the "rich capitalists who engineered the crisis in the
first place," PM chairman Renato Magtubo said their proposals would put
money in "the hands of the workers and the poor…short of an unemployment
insurance."

He explained that doing so is not simply a measure of social justice, but a
viable solution to the economic slowdown.

"This would enable the poor and the workers, who comprise the overwhelming
majority of consumers, to continue buying necessities and keep the wheels of
production going," he said.

The US package, he said, is like “rewarding the criminals.”

"If there is a lesson to be learned from the present crisis, it is that it
is time to strengthen the real economy and shutdown the casino economy," he
added.

Noting that employees of export-oriented industries are starting to be laid
off, the former party-list representative is upset that the workers are
“being made to bear the brunt of a crisis that is not of their own making.”

Magtubo welcomed the labor department’s emergency employment program, which
facilitates the hiring of workers for short government projects like
building repair, and retraining. But he said this is not enough.

"There [were] already millions of unemployed even before the onset of the
crisis. With the crisis, the unemployment situation will worsen and a
massive public employment program must be established,“he said.”In form it will be similar to the ’patrabaho ng gobyerno’ [jobs from
government] program the presently exists. But in substance it will be
radically different," he added.

For one, Magtubo said, the patronage system must be excised from the public
employment program by putting it under the control of people’s organizations
instead of local politicians.

For another, he said the salaries, benefits, and working conditions should
conform to labor standards instead of the present setup where contractual
workers do the work for below minimum wages.

Magtubo warned of “labor discontent” if no labor safety net is forthcoming.

"As capitalists pass on the burden of the economic crisis to the workers,
the simmering labor discontent will erupt sooner than later erupt into
struggles and strikes," he said.

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 Group reports layoffs in Cavite export zone

Home > Nation > Top Stories

GMANews.TV

11/14/2008 | 11:00 PM

MANILA, Philippines - The militant Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) on Friday
warned that hundreds of workers are being laid off at the Cavite Export
Processing Zone and that some firms have started to reduce its workweek.

With this, the group called on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)
to release its data on recent permanent closures, temporary shutdowns and
work rotations.

At the same time, it appealed to Congress to initiate an investigation on
the effects of the economic crisis on the workers and compel the DOLE to
publish its records on the matter.

"The export processing zone (EPZ) in Rosario, Cavite, just like the export
processing zone in Mactan, Cebu is reeling from the consequences of the
recession in the US and the world. We know of at least four firms in the
Cavite EPZ that have reduced its workers or its working days since
September," said Dennis Sequenia, secretary-general of PM for Cavite.

Sequenia revealed that the three plants of American Power Conversion, an
electronics firm based in the Cavite EPZ with a total workforce of more than
5,000, implemented this November a reduction of its work week from the
normal 6 days to just 4 or 5 days.

"To be forewarned is to be forearmed. We anchor our demand on the principle
of transparency and for the purpose of so-called stakeholders having a firm
basis on which to base policy proposals so that workers can cope with the
effects of the economic recession," Renato Magtubo, PM chairperson, said.

Magtubo asserted that just like the case in Region VII, the DOLE-Region IV-A
did not give out any data on permanent closures, temporary shutdowns and
work rotations when requested by PM local leaders.

"The DOLE should not be surprised if it is accused of a coverup since it is
keeping its data from the public’s eye. Or if they have not collected any
information at all then they are sleeping on the job," asserted Magtubo.

Aside from the American Power Conversion, Sequenia also said that the
following factories all based in the Cavite EPZ have been affected by
reduced orders from the US:

• Daeyoung: 1,000 workers were laid off last September after it merged with
Greever, another garments firm which absorbed only 500 of Daeyoung’s
workforce

• Daijen: retrenched 400 workers after it was absorbed by Jeonlim,
another garments firm, last October

• Headline: reduced work week to just 5 days since October; garments
firm with more than 300 work force

Jobert Onte, president of the United Cavite Workers Association that
organizes among the export zones and industrial estates of the province,
argued that the epidemic of mergers and rotation by garments and electronics
firms in the Cavite EPZ are coping mechanisms by capitalists as the huge US
export market contracts.

"Workers are the last to benefit from an economic boom but now we are the
first to be sacrificed in the midst of a global recession that was sparked
by high rollers in the casino capitalism of Wall Street,"he said.

Sequenia also disclosed that the recent reduction in workers and workdays
are on top of an earlier wave of closures and rotation by factories in EPZ
about six months ago.

He cited the cases of Cavite Apparel with a workforce of 600 that reduced
its workweek to just 2 days and is offering voluntary retirement for its
senior workers, and Ultimate Fashion which closed down and threw its more
than 300 employees out of work.

The PM chapter in Cavite also received initial reports that a Levi’s
subcontractor in the Dasmarinas technopark will have no work for the coming
week due to reduced export orders.

"Women are the overwhelming majority of the workers in these garments and
electronics factories and most of them are the breadwinners of their
families. It is the responsibility of the state to bailout them out in their
hour of need," Onte insisted.

Magtubo, former party-list representative for three terms, called on the
Senate and House Labor Committees to open an investigation on the issue for
the purpose of formulating measures for legislative and executive action.

Congress must seriously consider the call for a subsidy for workers who will
be laid off due to the crisis, for tax breaks for all employees as a form of
economic stimulus, and for a thoroughgoing reform of the public employment
program so that the four million unemployed Filipinos can have jobs," he
said.

"No new employment is being created as old jobs are being shed. We have
noticed that the job ads in the leading dailies have been reduced to just a
few pages in recent weeks. The layoffs in the export-oriented firm of Cebu
and Cavite are just the herald of a major unemployment crisis. The worse is
yet to come unless we act now to save the workers," emphasized Magtubo.

PR/GMANews.TV

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/133634/...

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 Cebu traders start laying off workers

NQUIRER HEADLINES - REGIONS

Kristine L. Alave

Philippine Daily Inquirer

November 14, 2008

MANILA, Philippines – Export companies in the regions are feeling the pinch
of the global recession and women workers are taking the first hit, a labor
group said Thursday.

Partido ng Mangagawa (PM) said layoffs have started in the processing zones
like those in Cebu province. It noted that seven companies in Cebu have
reduced their workforce or working hours, due to the slow demand from the
United States and Europe.

Renato Magtubo, PM chairperson, said data from their Cebu members belied
Labor Secretary Marianito Roque’s claim that Philippine companies have not
retrenched workers due to the financial crisis.

"The Department of Labor is merely looking the other way. Labor Secretary
Roque has eyes, but he does not want to see,“he said.”While government and business nitpick about the difference between a
slowdown and a recession, the initial effects of the perfect economic storm
are already being felt by workers in the export-processing zones," he added.

PM labor officials in Mactan Export Processing Zone and nearby industrial
estates said thousands of workers, mostly women who work in garment firms,
have been affected by the recession.

Most of those displaced were women workers.

Greg Janginon, PM-Cebu chairperson, said 500 workers were displaced when
garment firm Altamode temporarily shut down. He said the regional office of
the labor department had no clue on Altamode’s temporary closure.

According to PM, the other companies in Cebu that cut down their working
hours or number of workers were:

– Cosonsa Manufacturing Inc., a furniture factory in Mandaue City, that
exports to United States, China and Europe. PM said 200 workers were
affected when it reduced its working days to four instead of five last
October.

– Arkaine Industries, a furniture factory in Jagobiao, Mandaue City. It shut
down last month, displacing 200 employees.

– Giordini del Sole, a furniture factory in Mandaue City that sells to local
and foreign markets, has released a memorandum Thursday cutting down its
working days to five from six. About 500 workers will be affected.

– Paul Yu, a lamp shade factory located in Cebu, is leaving the Mandaue
Export Processing Zone (Mepz) II for the town of Carmen. The relocation will
affect 200 workers.

– Maithland Smith, a garments factory in Mepz that laid off 50 workers who
were retrenched last October.

– Neostone, a furniture and stone casting factory in Mandaue City, closed
last September, displacing 40 employees.

PM said the government should prepare a package to help the workers who will
be jobless because of the recession.

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