Copy of covenant between VP Leni Robredo and labor alliance ALL4Leni

 

More chaos if DepEd and ChEd open classes unprepared as DOLE and DoTr

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) expressed fear that the August opening of classes can be more chaotic if the Department of Education (DepEd) comes unprepared as the Department of Transportation (DoTr) and Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

The start of General Community Quarantine (GCQ) regime was marred by chaos and confusion yesterday when DoTr implemented a mad experiment of denying safe and adequate mass transport system for thousands of workers who are called back to work by their employers. DOLE for its part failed to make provision of shuttle services mandatory to employers.

The group lambasted the government for the chaotic Monday that exposed thousands of workers to health and occupational hazards while those who failed to report to work were denied the much-needed income.

“Naniniwala kami sa kapasidad ni Sec. Liling Briones na ihanda ang pasukan pero kung ang hambog na si Tugade kung saan bilib na bilib ang Pangulo ay lumagapak sa malaking kapalpakan sa unang araw ng pasukan ng manggagawa, magiging delikado rin sa mga bata kung ang DepEd ay hindi masusuportahan ng maayos ng iba pang mga ahensya ng pamahalaan,” said PM Secretary General Judy Ann Miranda.

Miranda said the government may consider adjusting the calendar of School Year 2020 – 2021, now that the Senate is giving the President the power to adjust the school calendar.

“A new schedule will give the DepEd, teachers, parents and children more time to prepare for the blended modalities while the Department of Health (DoH) and health experts gather data and assess the impact of GCQ activities in the spread of Covid-19 virus,” explained Miranda.

The group presumes that a face-to-face mode will remain the dominant learning modality in schools as online and other distant learning modalities will be challenged by digital divide and readiness issues both for the public and private schools. If that becomes the norm, a multitude of workers and students out in the streets will make the GCQ regime more chaotic and unsafe.

“Mas nakaka-terrorize and ganyang sitwasyon kaysa sa kinatatakutang terorismo ng estado sa minamadaling anti-terror law,” added Miranda, referring to the proposed stronger version of anti-terrorism law that is being certified as urgent by President Duterte.

Partido Manggagawa also called on the government to come to the rescue of private schools to avoid mass layoffs of teaching and non-teaching personnel whose jobs and wages are dependent on the number of enrollees. “The government must consider a stimulus plan for them,” said Miranda.

PM received reports that teachers in many private schools will face reduced teaching loads while those in danger of shutting down has already started with their termination procedures.

2 June 2020

Workers First in the New Normal

The covid pandemic has exposed all the ills and contradictions of capitalism. The state has intervened massively in society to contain the infection and maintain the social fabric. Still the workers and the poor are disproportionately bearing the burden of the pandemic.

The lockdown has put millions temporarily jobless on a no work, no pay policy. The poor cannot earn a living as everyone is forced to stay at home. Assistance to the poor was not enough for everyone so political patronage and wanton discrimination reigned supreme. The health system is overwhelmed by the scale of the contagion since public health provision has suffered from budget cuts while private hospitals are out of reach of the masses.

Women are key frontliners as they comprise the overwhelming number in the care economy in general and the health sector in particular. And among working class families, women face an even heavier task just because of their gender. Even during the lockdown, the toil of domestic chores falls on the shoulders of women while a big part of the responsibility of provisioning for the family’s daily bread is also theirs. Violence against women and abuse of girls and children will increase with male breadwinners temporarily out of work and the family stressed to the limit due to financial hardship. Women will be forced into prostitution in the extreme of cases just to stave off hunger.

Finally, the government has exploited the pandemic to further restrict civil liberties and suppress democratic rights. An iron fist policy has dominated over a public health response. Thus the number of people arrested for violating the lockdown has far exceeded the number of people tested for covid. The situation in the Philippines is no different from other countries where authoritarianism is gaining ground.

A global recession, if not a depression, is looming. As in all episodes of capitalist crisis, the working class will be hard hit as the capitalist class will pass on the sacrifices to the poor.

The plight of the working class is deteriorating as capitalism struggles to recover from the covid pandemic and the economic crisis. But the present conjuncture is also an opening to reimagine a radical restructuring of society where the needs of people not profit come first.

Workers hold no nostalgia for the old normal of neoliberal capitalism characterized by insecure work, cheap wages, permanent joblessness, privatized services and lack of protection. Instead the working class must spearhead the framing of the new normal as a system where workers are valued for their wealth-creating labor and the people enjoy by right the things necessary for a decent life—full employment, a living wage, universal health care, quality education, social protection and a clean environment, a voice in their workplaces and society as a whole, among others.

A proper response to the covid pandemic should put the needs of the workers and poor first. The following four demands are just the most immediate but are necessary to transition to a new normal of workers first.

1.      Sufficient Aid for All

An income and employment guarantee for all. All jobless workers, formal and informal, should receive a wage subsidy at the prevailing minimum wage or P10,000, whichever is higher.

Aid delivery must be universal not targeted and discriminatory. This will solve the slow, confusing and bureaucratic targeted system of delivering government assistance to formal and informal workers. Support must be raised from the present level of P5,000.

2.      Aid beyond the period of the lockdown

Aid should not stop when the lockdown is lifted, especially since not everyone will be able to return to work immediately. Assistance should be extended to at least six months. This extended support must form part of the proposed stimulus package for the purpose of recovery from the crisis.

The stimulus must also provide a robust emergency employment program for workers who will become permanently unemployed due to the impact of covid and for returning migrant workers who will be displaced in their host countries. Likewise, the stimulus aid for businesses must be tied to compliance to labor rights and standards, and to grant of a voice for workers in their workplaces.

3.      Safety for workers returning to work

Workers returning to their jobs are key to restarting the economy. But the government and capitalists are more concerned more with the return on investments and less on the safety of workers. Unfortunately, even workers are tempted to risk their health and safety rather than face hunger due to joblessness.

Health and safety in the workplace and in transit must be ensured before workers are asked back to work. Mass testing must be done through the reliable Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) not the erratic Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) preferred by the government and capitalists. Personal protective equipment or PPE must be given free to workers. They must be remunerated with additional hazard pay. Full healthcare coverage for workers who will be hospitalized due to covid. Workers must have the right to refuse to work without penalty if health and safety is not guaranteed.

4. Humane not militarized response

Enforcement of the lockdown has been characterized by violence by state authorities, arrests of the poor and suppression of protests by the hungry. Duterte has repeatedly threatened to impose martial law even if the situation falls outside of the purview of the law.

The issue is framed as lack of individual discipline when in fact insufficient aid and repressive rules force the masses to desperately break the law. The order for people to stay at home will be problematic since people are going hungry for lack of assistance and they are treated as beneficiaries of philanthropy instead of claim holders of the right to aid in a time of crisis.

Partido Manggagawa

May 1, 2020

Workers ask factory to be reopened to make facemasks

In reaction to the statement of Trade and Industry Ramon Lopez yesterday that several companies are repurposing their facilities to produce personal protective equipment (PPE), workers of a garments firm that has been shuttered for the past four months are asking the government to reopen the factory to produce facemasks. In yesterday’s address by President Rodrigo Duterte, Lopez announced that at least 10 manufacturing companies agreed to repurpose and produce PPE’s, face masks and ventilators.

“We call on Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to facilitate a social dialogue for the reopening of Sejung Apparel so it can produce wearable facemasks and also put hundreds of workers back to gainful employment,” Jopay Odchimar, president of the labor union of Sejung workers.

Sejung Apparel Inc., a Korean-owned firm in the First Cavite Industrial Estate (FCIE) in Dasmarinas, shutdown in December last year. Last April 10, officials of the FCIE padlocked the factory gates.

“Reopening the factory will put 315 employees back to work to make PPE’s that are desperately needed at this time. We want to help others even as we lift ourselves by our own efforts. The government should not think twice about our appeal to reopen the factory and retool it for making washable facemasks,” Odchimar explained.

The DOLE has rejected the application for assistance to Sejung workers since the factory closure was not due to the covid quarantine. Ironically, the Sejung workers are also not qualified for the social amelioration for informal workers since they are technically still employed by the company.

Sejung workers have been embroiled in a long-running dispute since last year. The labor dispute is due to non-payment of 13^th month pay, last salary and union busting.

Sejung declared temporary shutdowns several times. The first shutdown in October last year occurred just one week after the union submitted a collective bargaining proposal and just three weeks after the union won a certification election. The company reopened but once more closed in December 12 and has remained shutdown since then.

“For more than four months, the DOLE provincial and regional offices did not act on a clear case of labor standards violation despite undertaking an inspection in December 19. The case has dragged on for so long that the covid pandemic and the resulting quarantine further aggravated the sufferings of workers,” Odchimar explained.

April 25, 2020

Contact Jopay Odchimar @ 09755769603

Employers asked for paid leave as ecozones close in Cavite

Photo from Cavite Economic Zone Administration

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called on employers to grant paid leave to workers affected by the closure of ecozones in the province of Cavite. “Foreign investors should shoulder temporary losses due to the covid pandemic,” asserted Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.

The biggest export complex in the country, the Cavite Economic Zone in the town of Rosario, shuttered last night while the First Cavite Industrial Estate in Dasmarinas will close at 5:00 pm today. “We estimate that some 100,000 workers from the two ecozones are affected by the lockdown,” Magtubo said.

He added that “Employers have benefited from recent economic growth without sharing the bounty with their workers. This was revealed in a Department of Finance study showing labor productivity grew by at least 50 percent, yet real wages were stagnant from 2001 to 2016. Moreover, foreign investors in the ecozones enjoyed tax breaks and other privileges for years. Now that there is a crisis, employers are morally obliged not to pass on the burden to their hapless workers.”

PM also stated that other factories have shutdown earlier, such as Yazaki-EMI in Imus and Eurotiles in Silang, both of which stopped operating since March 18 and are implementing a no work, no pay policy. The group averred that other workers—in factories like metal firm Taifini in Silang which are still producing—are suffering from walking long distances due to lack of transporation.

Magtubo insisted that “We cannot accept that workers are the last to benefit from economic progress but the first to sacrifice in time of crisis.”

The group is proposing the following mitigation measures to lessen the impact of covid on workers and the people:

1.      Release of a DOLE order—not just labor advisory—to mandate prior negotiation with workers before any flexible work arrangement is implemented;

2.      Paid leave for workers to be shouldered by employers and the government;

3.      Pay for workers put on forced quarantine to be shouldered by employers and the government;

4.      Implement work from home arrangements, in applicable jobs, without diminution of wages and benefits;

5.      Provision of personal protective equipment for all health and allied workers in the frontline of covid response;

6.      Living pension for senior citizens since the elderly are more prone to infection;

7.      Shift build-build-build budget to health in order to build more hospitals, provide testing and treatment facilities, hire more health workers;

8.      Health tax on the wealthy—as part of CITIRA—to fund universal health care.

March 20, 2020

DOLE aid to workers: “Small token na, unreachable pa”

Photo from Manila Bulletin

With closed roads and empty offices, how could a home-quarantined worker avail of the P5,000 token assistance announced by DOLE early this week?

Nobody knows and nobody can, according to the labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM).

“Not only is the aid very small. It is also practically unreachable,” stated PM Chair Renato Magtubo, explaining that given the lockdown measures enforced by security forces on the roads and the paralysis in the non-frontline government offices, the chance of getting this relief while on quarantine is almost impossible within that period.

The DOLE guidelines, Magtubo said, provide for a two-week processing time in approving employers’ request for assistance based on flexi-work arrangements they will undergo as required by DOLE.

But the labor leader said, that is only possible if employers would really apply for the program out of concern for their workers. What would happen if employers and their staffs are also locked out? And assuming their applications are approved, how can workers avail of that aid if they are not under ATM payroll or with most of banks also in skeletal operations?

There are so many questions to ask, but for Magtubo, a labor leader and who is now a city councilor of Marikina, the draconian restrictions imposed by the lockdown policy must be tamed by the ease in availing social assistance in this time of crisis.

“Napakaliit na nga ng ayuda, long distance love affair pa ang sistema,” lamented Magtubo.

One option the PM is proposing is for Sec. Bello together with all other labor officials to join local officials in distributing this aid package as DOLE’s other program of providing temporary employment for the informal sector affected by the lockdown is likewise implemented at the barangay level.

“But the most logical way and which impact is more universal for those in the formal sector is for DOLE to order all employers to provide paid quarantine leaves to all their workers. In this way the state fund intended for them can be utilized to assist informal workers such as displaced drivers, vendors, community help workers, among others,” concluded Magtubo. 

19 March 2020

Lockdown order lack guarantees for workers’ welfare, civil liberties

Photo from autoindustriya.com

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) asked that guarantees be put in place in the so-called ‘community quarantine’ imposed on Metro Manila in order to protect workers’ welfare and civil liberties.

“President Duterte’s order to lockdown Metro Manila for 30 days opens the way for workers’ rights and civil liberties to be violated. Freedom of assembly should not be sacrificed since community organizations and civil society groups should be able to meet and deliberate on urgent matters including a proper covid response,” stated Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.

He added that “We wanted to hear President Duterte mobilize public and private resources, especially health personnel, to combat covid but instead all we heard is the mobilization of police and soldiers. Will checkpoints be manned by health workers with test kits or just police with guns?”

Magtubo explained that “Workers’ welfare is also bound to be sacrificed in the lockdown order that lacks clear guidelines and a labor-first perspective. Workers living outside NCR are supposed to allowed to enter and leave the capital as long as they have company ID’s. But informalization of labor—like the practice of endo—means there are numerous workers without proper ID’s and employment contracts. Many construction workers who are employed on an informal basis do not have proper documentation. Finally, informal workers like street vendors obviously do not have ID’s. The lockdown means they will not be able to travel to work and earn a living which will lead to health issues and vulnerability to covid.”

The group reiterated its call for the DOLE to issue an order mandating a worker-first policy on the employment impact of covid. “We do not accept management prerogative in implementing dismissals or flexible arrangements like forced leaves or work rotation. First of all, the DOLE must issue a determination that there is a real impact on the company. After which, any flexible work arrangement must be negotiated with duly-elected workers’ representatives or the union in case the company is organized,” Magtubo insisted.

 The group also proposed the following concrete measures:

1.      Paid leave for workers to be shouldered by employers and the government;

2.      Pay for workers put on forced quarantine to be shouldered by employers and the government;

3.      Implement work from home arrangements, in applicable jobs, without diminution of wages and benefits;

4.      Provision of personal protective equipment for all health and allied workers in the frontline of covid response;

5.      Living pension for senior citizens since the elderly are more prone to infection;

6.      Shift build-build-build budget to health in order to build more hospitals, provide testing and treatment facilities, hire more health workers;

7.      Health tax on the wealthy—as part of CITIRA—to fund universal health care.”

March 13, 2020

DOLE must issue order on covid embodying worker-first policy—labor group

Photo from Inquirer.net

In the face of reports of actual and potential mass layoffs due to covid, the labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to issue a department order on covid embodying a “worker-first” policy. “In view of DOLE’s own report of 300 employees jobless due to closure of tourism companies and more than 4,000 workers put on flexible work arrangements, a DOLE order is an urgent necessity. But order must put the interests of workers first. Manggagawa naman,” asserted Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.

He added that “We do not accept management prerogative in implementing dismissals or flexible arrangements like forced leaves or work rotation. First of all, the DOLE must issue a determination that there is a real impact on the company. After which, any flexible work arrangement must be negotiated with duly-elected workers’ representatives or the union in case the company is organized.”

The group stated thousands of workers are affected by actual and threatened mass layoffs, starting with the high profile dismissal of 300 employees at Philippine Airlines allegedly due to the impact of the covid epidemic. PM’s chapter in Cebu has reported that workers are being laid off or put on forced leaves in the Mactan Cebu ecozone. Likewise, hotels and restaurants in Region 7 are reeling from reduction in tourism.

Magtubo insisted that the DOLE’s existing advisory on flexible work arrangement must be replaced with a department order. “An order has the force of regulation that companies are mandated to follow while an advisory has no teeth and practically useless. Violation of the order should be subject to penalty.” he explained.

The group also proposed the following concrete measures:

1.      Paid leave for workers to be shouldered by employers and the government;

2.      Pay for workers put on forced quarantine to be shouldered by employers and the government;

3.      Implement work from home arrangements, in applicable jobs, without diminution of wages and benefits;

4.      Provision of personal protective equipment for all health and allied workers in the frontline of covid response;

5.      Living pension for senior citizens since the elderly are more prone to infection;

6.      Shift build-build-build budget to health in order to build more hospitals, provide testing and treatment facilities, hire more health workers;

7.      Health tax on the wealthy—as part of CITIRA—to fund universal health care.

March 11, 2020

DOLE asked to issue order on covid embodying worker-first policy

Photo from Philstar.com

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to issue a department order on covid embodying a “worker-first” policy. “In the face of an increasing number of mass layoffs by companies due allegedly to covid, a DOLE order is an urgent necessity. But order must put the interests of workers first. Manggagawa naman,” asserted Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.

He added that “We do not accept management prerogative in implementing dismissals or flexible arrangements like forced leaves or work rotation. First of all, the DOLE must issue a determination that there is a real impact on the company. After which, any flexible work arrangement must be negotiated with duly-elected workers’ representatives or the union in case the company is organized.”

The group stated thousands of workers are affected by actual and threatened mass layoffs, starting with the high profile dismissal of 300 employees at Philippine Airlines allegedly due to the impact of the covid epidemic. PM’s chapter in Cebu has reported that workers are being laid off or put on forced leaves in the Mactan Cebu ecozone. Likewise, hotels and restaurants in Region 7 are reeling from reduction in tourism.

Magtubo insisted that the DOLE’s existing advisory on flexible work arrangement must be replaced with a department order. “An order has the force of regulation that companies are mandated to follow while an advisory has no teeth and practically useless. Violation of the order should be subject to penalty.” he explained.

The group also proposed the following concrete measures:

1.      Paid leave for workers to be shouldered by employers and the government;

2.      Pay for workers put on forced quarantine to be shouldered by employers and the government;

3.      Implement work from home arrangements, in applicable jobs, without diminution of wages and benefits;

4.      Provision of personal protective equipment for all health and allied workers in the frontline of covid response;

5.      Living pension for senior citizens since the elderly are more prone to infection;

6.      Shift build-build-build budget to health in order to build more hospitals, provide testing and treatment facilities, hire more health workers;

7.      Health tax on the wealthy—as part of CITIRA—to fund universal health care.”

March 10, 2020

Ilustrado class failed this nation – labor group

PRESS RELEASE

30 November 2013

 

The ilustrado class failed this nation, the labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) declared on the 150^th birth anniversary of the plebeian hero, Andres Bonifacio. 

The group, which joined the broader labor coalition Nagkaisa! in a march to Mendiola today, compared the country’s present rulers -- the corrupt, traditional politicians (trapos)  -- to that of the ilustrados and “lahi ni Legazpi” described then by Bonifacio in his “Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog”, as a race we allowed to live “most bountifully and lavishly” while we ourselves suffered deprivation and hunger.

PM Chair Renato Magtubo made this parallelism in the face of unaddressed problems of poverty and inequality in the country under the more than a century of uninterrupted rule of elite regimes. “Today, an elite club of 50 richest Pinoys controls more than half of our nation’s wealth, their combined wealth equivalent to a year’s income of 31 million minimum wage earners. While the elite live bountifully and lavishly, majority of our people remain jobless, homeless and hungry,” stated Magtubo.

Bonifacio day rallies were also staged by PM in Cebu City where workers marched around downtown Colon and in Bacolod where factory and agricultural workers held a program at the city plaza.

The labor leader added that the gaping inequality and deepening poverty in the country is made worse by the devastating impacts of climate crisis and the government’s inability to effectively respond to them as manifested in the case of Yolanda.

Magtubo pointed out further that even the “haring bayan” or “sovereign people” concept which was the idea of democratic rule by Bonifacio during that time, remains a dream as the country continues to be ruled by ilustrados which metamorphosed into what is called today as “trapos.”

“These trapos do not have the vision of Bonifacio’s ‘kasaganaan and kaginhawahan’ (abundance and prosperity) as their concerns revolve around selfish greed,” said Magtubo, pointing to the high level corruption scandals involving high officials of the land. 

The labor group averred that the situation could have been different today had Bonifacio and the Katipunan movement gained complete freedom from colonial powers and democratic institutions were formed and truly ruled by the sovereign people.

“Unfortunately the old colonialism was only supplanted by modern globalization in which processes are captured by imperialist nations.  And the country’s rulers just changed clothes,” explained Magtubo.

The struggle, he said, continues with workers willing to carry on with the tasks of realizing Katipunan’s vision of kalayaan, kasaganaan, at kaginhawahan.