The massive damage resulting from Typhoon Odette included the infrastructure of factories in Metro Cebu, the Mactan Economic Zone in Lapu-Lapu City and the southern part of the province. As a result, thousands of ecozone workers are temporarily out of work due to the damaged factories. “Thus, we are appealing for aid for the affected workers from the government as well as the companies too,” stated Dennis Derige, spokesperson of the Cebu chapter of the Partido Manggagawa (PM).
PM welcomed the announcement from the Department of Labor
and Employment (DOLE) that it is extending assistance for some 25,000 informal
workers worth P100 million through the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced
Workers (TUPAD). But Derige asserted that affected workers in the formal sector
desperately need support too.
Citing informants from the Mactan Export Processing Zone
Workers Association (MEPZWA), Derige reported that the factory of the biggest
employer in the Mactan Ecozone has been damaged and as a result its more than
14,000 workers are without work until January 17. In contrast, just before
Odette hit the Philippines, those workers were supposed to work through the Christmas
holidays due to a large shipment of apparel. Another garment factory in the Mactan
Ecozone employing more than 3,000 workers was also severely damaged and their
workers too are on forced leave. Just these two companies already comprise almost
a fifth of the total 100,000 workers in the Mactan Ecozone.
“Even outside of the Mactan Ecozone, other manufacturing and
service establishments are not operating either due to actual damage from the
typhoon or the lack of electricity. For example, one food processing company is
closed in the meantime for lack of electricity and so its 130 employees are
temporarily jobless without an assurance when they will be back at work,”
Derige declared.
“It is the government that is in the position to provide
immediate relief both to workers in the formal and informal sector. Everybody
has suffered and no one must be left behind in the relief and rehabilitation effort.
We hope that the DOLE hears the plea of MEPZWA and other Cebu workers,” Derige insisted.
He added that “Nonetheless we also ask companies to provide
support to their own employees as they are more than capable. Just before Odette,
Mactan Ecozone locators were already operating normally. And for a decade and
half before the blip of the pandemic, business was booming for firms inside and
outside the Mactan Ecozone. But while productivity rose by 50% and revenues doubled
in 15 years, real wages have stagnated. At this dark hour of disaster, we call
on employers to share the fruits of labor with their workers.”
Derige cited that one unionized mining company in Cebu already gave a P5,000 ayuda to all of its employees and extended a P20,000 calamity loan payable in one year without interest. This should be a model for others, he asserted.
December 27, 2021
