PM-Kabataan statement on Marcos: REAL HEROES, REAL CHANGE

Presidentiables dared to offer policy steps to end endo

The partylist group Partido Manggagawa (PM) dared presidential candidates to propose policy steps to follow through on their commitment to stop contractualization. In a televised presidential debate last night, all five candidates promised to “end endo.”

“It is obvious that the presidentiables played to the crowd by declaring their intent to end endo but it was all too clear that they gave no concrete proposals on regulating much less eradicating the epidemic of contractualization. Either they have a shallow or erroneous understanding of the roots of contractualization,” averred Rene Magtubo, chair of PM and also its first nominee for the partylist elections.

“In deeds not by words should the presidentiables be judged on the issue of contractualization,” insisted Magtubo. PM, along with other labor groups, have been campaigning for the passage of the Security of Tenure bill that has languished in Congress for nearly a decade.  The bill seeks to regulate contractualization by setting a cap on the number of non-regular workers and amending provisions of the Labor Code on subcontracting and outsourcing.

The group noted that none of the presidentiables who are solons pushed for the Security of Tenure bill while those who are local executives employ job order workers, the equivalent of contractual employees in the public sector, in their city halls.

“Mar Roxas deserves special mention for countenancing the outsourcing of Philippine Airlines employees in 2011 while he was cabinet secretary and threatening to file economic sabotage against PALEA members who fought contractualization in the national flag carrier,” stated Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and also PM partylist nominee.

He added that the “Contrary to the misconception of a few presidentiables, contractualization is expressly allowed by the law and is merely regulated but not prohibited. Moreover, lax inspection and enforcement by the Department of Labor and Employment worsens the situation.”

“This stems from the view of government that employers have to be encourged to invest and shifting from regular to contractual labor is part of the package. Thus it is worrisome that even as the presidentiables profess desire to end endo, in the same breath they want to placate employers by providing more incentives. We won’t be surprised that whoever becomes president will simply cave in to the employers’ lobby on the alibi that contractualization is necessary to generate more investments,” Rivera elaborated.

April 25, 2016

We are Women, We are the Agenda – Partido Manggagawa

Women workers and poor led by the labor partylist group Partido Manggagawa (PM) marched in Mall of Asia and Mendiola today together with other feminist organizations to commemorate International Women's Day.

The agonies of having to endure ages of physical and emotional violence and living under the pain of deprivation due to economic marginalization are problems unique to women and that these problems should have long been addressed by the past and present administrations. 

 

But for PM, the official theme for this year’s Women Day celebration,“Kapakanan ni Juana, Isama sa Agenda,” speaks for itself:  Women remain at the margins and the call to include their agenda in this coming elections is an admission of repeated neglect recited creatively in positive tones.

 

“Bakit isali lang sa agenda gayong ang kababaihan mismo ang dapat agenda?  Women in production and reproduction suffer the worst kind of injustice in this country.  Aside from violence women also assumed the burden of dealing with poverty and poor delivery of social services such as high prices of goods, taking care of their sick and sending their children to school  without or short of basic provisions, among others,” stated PM Secretary General and partylist nominee, Judy Ann Miranda.

 

Miranda led the PM contingent who joined the local women activities held at the seaside grounds of a mall in Pasay, organized by the Samahang Magkakapitbahay sa Lungsod ng Pasay.   In her speech after the marches and Zumba dancing in Pasay, Miranda called on women living in poor communities to collectively pursue demands for decent jobs, universal healthcare,  facilities for child care, and even for free public laundry systems.

 

Aside from the Pasay activity, PM members also joined other groups in separate marches to Mendiola organized by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and Women March.

 

PM, which is running under the partylist election this May, explained that half (50%) of the country’s women working population (compared to 20 percent among men) remain inactive member of the labor force because of lack of jobs and the traditional pull of domestic work. The unemployment rate for women is also higher (35.9% in SWS 2013 survey) compared to men (21.2%).   Accordingly, the informal economy is made up mostly of women working in underpaid, irregular jobs of different types. 

 

“Kung hindi magbabago ang ganitong sitwasyon, si Juana ay mananatiling tagasilbi lang sa bahay.  Or once semi-skilled or unskilled women are given the chance to land a job, they are relegated to meticulous but low paying, contractual jobs in the service sector, or brave serving as contractuals in risky domestic work abroad,” added Miranda.

 

The partylist group said it is under this condition that women workers should be accorded decent jobs in the country and to have access to a wide range of social services and social protection such as reproductive healthcare, childcare facilities, and other forms of social security insurance, including living pension for elderly women.

March 8, 2016

Workers’ march at Ayala calls on pols to address wages & jobs

Press Release

October 7, 2015

Several hundred workers from labor groups under the coalition Nagkaisa are marching this afternoon along Ayala Ave. to dramatize the call for job security and a living wage as their way of commemorating World Decent Work Day. The marchers will assemble at the Makati Fire Station at 3:00 pm and then will march by 4:00 pm around the country’s premier business district.

The militant Partido Manggagawa (PM) is challenging politicians to spell out platforms addressing voters’ urgent concerns on the erosion of wages due to inflation and the generation of regular jobs.

“Everyday we see candidates declaring their intent to run but we hardly hear their platform for workers and the poor. Para lumawak ang tuwid na daan, manggagawa naman! Para walang maiiwan, manggagawa naman! Ang Makati, hindi lang dapat paraiso sa mga negosyante, manggagawa naman! We dare the national candidates to state what concrete steps they will do to resolve the problem of wages and jobs,” averred Rene Magtubo, PM chairperson.

 “Concretely, we are asking candidates to make a stand on the security of tenure bill meant to regulate the abusive practice of contractualization. And also their commitment to achieving a living wage through a combination of wage hikes, basic goods discounts, tax exemptions and social security subsidies,” Magtubo clarified.

For this year, the World Decent Work Day has a theme of “End Corporate Greed.” The call for decent work is given a local flavor by a recent survey that reveals the most pressing issues of Filipino voters are inflation, wages and employment.

“What is the use of economic growth if wages are frozen, and jobs are not enough and contractual in status? Para sa totoong pag-unlad, manggagawa naman! Handa ba ang mga kandidato na salubungin ang Apat na Dapat?,” Magtubo argued.

He listed the Apat na Dapat as “1. Mababang presyo, 2. Sapat na sweldo, 3. Regular na trabaho,  at 4. Matinong serbisyo publiko.”

“In PAL, more than 5,500 workers have been retrenched in a series of mass layoffs since 1998 and they were all replaced by agency contractuals in a brutal outsourcing scheme meant to bust unions. Yesterday contractuals, called talents, in GMA-7 won their regularization case. This followed a similar move in 2010 by ABS-CBN talents for recognition as regular workers. From malls to factories to offices, contractuals are supplanting regulars. So we ask the candidates, ok ba silang endo pa more?,” Magtubo ended.

BPO workers group challenges candidates on issues

Press Release

August 14, 2015

Inter-Call Center Association of Workers (ICCAW)

A BPO workers group today challenged presidential candidates to commit to a platform of demands and issues of employees in the sector. The challenge came a day after news came out on an hour-long meeting that Mar Roxas had with some BPO workers in Cebu City.

“We hope that candidates Mar Roxas, Jojo Binay and Grace Poe, even if she had not yet announced formally, will seriously engage with BPO workers on their demands and not be content with shallow photo-ops. And the dialogue with BPO workers should lead to a firm commitment to concrete policy and executive actions, rather than end in vague promises that will be easily forgotten once the elections are over,” argued Rosie Hong, Inter-Call Center Association of Workers (ICCAW) president.

ICCAW is one of only a few workers associations in the BPO industry. It was founded in Cebu in late 2012 as a result of the fight of workers of Direct Access, a call center that unceremoniously shutdown and left its 600 employees without jobs and with unpaid wages and benefits. ICCAW has since expanded nationwide with organizing groups in Metro Manila, Iloilo City and Bacolod. With a full-pledged chapter in Cebu, ICCAW sits as the labor representative in the Cebu City tripartite body on the ICT industry.

“A case in point is candidate Mar’s ‘charm offensive’ with BPO workers in Cebu City’s IT Park. He was very concrete in promising a ‘caravan’ of government offices for faster processing of work-related requirements but in contrast he was obviously ambiguous and non-committal on the issue of workers security of tenure,” Hong elaborated.

“Security of tenure is not contradictory to the volatile nature of outsourced accounts. Contracts with overseas clients may come and go but the BPO company remains so it cannot deny security of tenure to its employees whose skills are portable and usable to different accounts,” Hong insisted.

Among ICCAW’s platform is the demand for industry-wide standards for wages, benefits and entitlements that must be well above the minimum mandated by law and commensurate to profitable dollar-earning nature of the BPO industry. ICCAW seeks to be an industry-wide organization for employees in the call center and business process outsourcing sector, and be a voice for industry workers’ concerns, grievances, demands and interests.

Hong ended with “Instead of a charm offensive and photo-ops, we prefer to engage with candidates on a policy debate and issue discussions. For example, we are interested to hear if any of them believe that contractualization is good for the BPO sector and we are more than willing to discourse with them on such issues.”