Cavite EPZA workers picket factory anew to protest lockout

The restive workers of an electronics subcon in the Cavite EPZA, the country’s biggest export zone, have once more setup a picketline in protest at the lockout of union members and union busting. The Seung Yeun Techonology Industries Corp. (SYTIC) was supposed to have shutdown yesterday but starting last night, non-union workers went back to work at the factory.

“We want our jobs back as regular workers. Management has admitted in a conciliation meeting that SYTIC has existing orders to fulfill from its multinational electronics customers for the next several months and thus there is no valid reason to shutdown. The closure of SYTIC is feigned not real, is temporary not permanent. It is just a maneuver to bust the union, deny us our regular jobs and continue its violations of labor standards on payment of wages, overtime pay, health and safety, and illegal deductions,” averred Frederick Bayot, president of the SYTIC Workers Association.

The SYTIC workers are demanding the reopening of the factory, their return to work as regular employees and recognition of the newly-formed union. They are manning a picketline round the clock to protest the illegal lockout and guard against an attempt to runaway shop.

Management announced that there was no more work at the SYTIC factory starting yesterday. However, SYTIC union members refused to accept the separation pay offered by management and were escorted out of the factory while non-union workers were later allowed back to work in the night.

Bayot added that “We suspect that management will try to transfer machines and tools to a non-union location. Management has already shipped out half-finished goods to a warehouse where scabs will work on them for the next few days.”

“We won the first round of the fight. We will win the second as well,” he insisted. An earlier five-day strike in April by SYTIC workers ended in a victory with 18 workers, who were illegally terminated for union activities, reinstated back to work. However, the company later filed for permanent closure which the union is contesting is a union busting scheme.

Cavite EPZA workers who participated in the Labor Day mobilizaton pledged support for the “round two” of the fight of SYTIC workers. “Ang laban ng SYTIC workers ay laban ng lahat ng EPZA workers,” insisted Rene Magtubo, chair of the militant Partido Manggagawa and its partylist nominee. The former union president of Fortune Tobacco Corp. committed to mobilize solidarity from the labor movement in the country and abroad.

SYTIC manufactures plastic products that provide protection to integrated circuits and electronic components from physical and electrostatic discharge during storage and shipping. Its three biggest customers are ON Semiconductor Philippines Inc. in Carmona, Cavite, Analog Devices General Trias Inc. in the Gateway Business Park in General Trias, Cavite and Texas Instruments factories in Baguio and Clark ecozones. All are local subsidiaries of US multinational companies. ON Semiconductor is a spinoff of Motorola. SYTIC also supplies to Cavite-based factories of local subsidiaries of US electronics companies Maxim Integrated and Cypress. It exports part of its production to C-Pak Cergas in Malaysia.

May 5, 2016

Cavite EPZA electronics subcon on verge of strike anew

A factory in the Cavite EPZA, the country’s biggest export zone, which supplies parts for big US electronics companies is on the verge of another strike as workers voted to authorize a work stoppage. A majority of the union members at the Korean-owned Seung Yeun Technology Industries Corp. (SYTIC) voted yes in the strike ballot yesterday.

Just after participating in the Labor Day commemoration held by the militant Partido Manggagawa (PM) in the town of Rosario, a stone’s throw away from the Cavite EPZA, SYTIC workers authorized the holding of a strike in response to union busting and illegal closure by management.

An earlier five-day strike in April by SYTIC workers ended in a victory with 18 workers, who were illegally terminated for union activities, reinstated back to work. However, the company later filed for permanent closure which the union is contesting is a union busting scheme.

“In the conciliation meeting called by the Department of Labor and Employment last Thursday, it was manifested by management that SYTIC has orders from its multinational electronics customers for the next several months and thus there is no valid reason to shutdown. It is as clear as the summer sun that closure is a maneuver to break the newly-formed union. We won the first round of the fight. We will win the second as well,” averred Frederick Bayot, president of the SYTIC Workers Association.

“Management is offering a separation package and then rehiring of the present workforce as contractuals for the succeeding months of operation. SYTIC workers are now dealing with the complex crime of union busting and labor contractualization,” Bayot eleborated.

Rene Magtubo, PM chair and partyist nominees, added that “Would the presidentiables who all promised to end endo offer their help to the SYTIC workers facing the threat of contractualization? Sino ang may tapang, may puso may talino at may malasakit para sa mga manggagawang bagong biktima ng epidemya ng kontraktwalisasyon?”

In the commemoration of Labor Day by the PM chapter in Cavite yesterday, some 1,000 factory workers and urban poor assembled to demand regular jobs, a living wage, lower prices and decent social services. The four workers’ demands is dubbed by PM as “Apat na Dapat.”

Cavite EPZA workers who participated in the Labor Day activity pledged support for the “round two” of the fight of SYTIC workers. “Ang laban ng SYTIC workers ay laban ng lahat ng EPZA workers,” insisted Magtubo. The former union president of Fortune Tobacco Corp. committed to mobilize solidarity from the labor movement in the country and abroad.

SYTIC manufactures plastic products that provide protection to integrated circuits and electronic components from physical and electrostatic discharge during storage and shipping. Its three biggest customers are ON Semiconductor Philippines Inc. in Carmona, Cavite, Analog Devices General Trias Inc. in the Gateway Business Park in General Trias, Cavite and Texas Instruments factories in Baguio and Clark ecozones. All are local subsidiaries of US multinational companies. ON Semiconductor is a spinoff of Motorola. SYTIC also supplies to Cavite-based factories of local subsidiaries of US electronics companies Maxim Integrated and Cypress. It exports part of its production to C-Pak Cergas in Malaysia.

May 2, 2016

SYTIC workers fight continues as company plans to shutdown

 

The workers of Seung Yeun Technology Industries Corp. (SYTIC), a subcontractor for big US electronics companies and is based in the Philippines’ biggest export zone, are once more facing a fight in their exercise of freedom of association. After 18 workers earlier dismissed for union activities were reinstated as part of an agreement to end a five-day strike, the management of SYTIC is pushing through with the shutdown of the company. Last April 25, management filed for permanent closure.

The SYTIC labor union , which comprise a majority of the workers and is in the process of being certified as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent, asserts that the closure is illegal because it is intended to subvert the exercise of freedom of association and bust the union.

In response, the SYTIC union has called for negotiations with management about the impending closure and the reported takeover by its customer C-Pak Pte Ltd, a Singaporean company. Moreover the SYTIC union is calling for the absorption of the present employees into the new company, should the takeover push through. C-Pak Pte Ltd is owned by the group Dou Yee of Singapore.

The Labor Department has called for a conciliation meeting on April 28 in an affort to resolve the brewing labor dispute. In the meeting, the union will table its twin demand of absorption of the present employees and their participation in the transition talks between SYTIC and C-Pak. The union’s call to participate in the transition talks is in line with the provision of the Philippine Constitution that workers shall be afforded the right to participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits.

April 26, 2016

Protest vs union busting at Korean-owned Cavite factory

MEDIA ADVISORY

April 1, 2016

Contact: Dennis Sequena @ 09301803072

Protest vs union busting at Korean-owned Cavite factory

WHAT: Protest against union busting at Korean-owned factory

WHEN: Today, April 1, 2016, 11:00 a.m. onwards

WHERE: Seung Yeun Technology Industries Corp., Cavite ecozone, Rosario, Cavite

DETAILS: Twenty two workers of Seung Yuen Technology Industries Corp. (SYTIC), majority of whom are elected union officers and the rest union members, have been retrenched in a blatant attempt at union busting in the country’s biggest export zone, the Cavite ecozone in the town of Rosario. Workers will launch their protest starting at 11:00 a.m., escalate into a lunch break noise barrage and continue for the rest of the day.

The workers have recently formed a union in an effort to address workplace problems including violations of labor standards.  Among the most egregious violations are that part of their wages are not paid in cash but in the form of meals, non-payment of overtime due to an illegal compressed workweek schedule and the lack of a company nurse, doctor and hospital bed.

SYTIC is a Korean-owned plastics company that is part of the electronics industry supply chain. The two biggest customers of SYTIC are ON Semiconductor Philippines Inc. in Carmona, Cavite and Analog Devices General Trias Inc. in the Gateway Business Park in General Trias, Cavite. Both are local subsidiaries of US multinational companies.