Labor group asks garment exporters group to name brand leaving the Philippines

Retrenched Mactan Apparel worker. Photo from PIO Lapu-Lapu City

 

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called on the Confederation of Wearables Exporters of the Philippines (CONWEP) to name the global brand which it said pulled its orders from the Philippines. A few days ago, CONWEP Executive Director Maritess Jocson-Agoncillo was quoted in a news story that the unnamed global brand is shifting all its orders to Vietnam and Cambodia.

 

“We ask CONWEP to name the brand so that the 4,000 workers who have lost their jobs can demand an explanation from this multinational company. Corporate social responsibility dictates that global brands be transparent to their stakeholders, especially workers who have been loyally making garments for multinational companies,” stated Dennis Derige, spokesperson of the PM Cebu chapter.

 

Last month, the PESO of Lapu-Lapu confirmed that more than 4,000 workers were retrenched by the factories Mactan Apparel and First Flory. Both are locators in the Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ) in Lapu-Lapu City, Metro City. Mactan Apparel is part of the Sports City conglomerate, the biggest employer in MEZ. Another 4,000 workers were laid off across the different Sports City garment factories at the height of the pandemic in September 2022 and then 4,000 more in September 2020.

 

“While we welcome the assistance of the Lapu-Lapu PESO and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) so that the laid-off workers can engage in livelihood projects, we cannot hide the bitter truth. Shifting from formal regular work to vulnerable, insecure informal work is a huge step backwards. The normative goal is transitioning from informal to formal work. The decent work diagnostics of the DOLE and the International Labour Organization clearly states that for growth to be inclusive, the country needs to increase formal regular employment,” explained Derige.

 

PM has been pushing for a public employment program to generate jobs and a more robust unemployment insurance provided by the Social Security System. “For workers of Mactan Apparel and First Glory, guaranteed public employment is a better option in the short-term to self-employment as home-based workers, which is the livelihood program of DOLE. In the long-term, it is imperative that we have industrial policy that promotes the domestic economy instead of dependence on foreign investments which is footloose and unregulated. As CONWEP themselves admit, global brands can shift their orders on a whim thereby upending the jobs of thousands of workers overnight,” Derige insisted.

Press Release

August 7, 2023