Wage hike is loose change in face of rising inflation—Calabarzon workers

Calabarzon workers slammed the hike in minimum wages in the region as “loose change that will be wiped out by rising inflation.” Several labor groups active in Calabarzon trooped this afternoon to the main gate of the Cavite Economic Zone, the country’s biggest government-managed export processing zone, to protest low pay and union busting.

The regional wage board in Calabarzon ordered pay hikes of P14 to P21.50 thus increasing minimum wages to P303 to P400 depending on the area. The minimum wage hike takes effect tomorrow. The last wage hike in the region was in July 2016.

“A 4.6% rise in prices will erase the P16.50 minimum wage increase in Rosario. From 2.9% last December, inflation has steadily risen to 4.3% this March. By the time the wage hike is implemented tomorrow, it will not redound to any real wage improvement,” asserted Dennis Sequena, coordinator of the Cavite chapter of Partido Manggagawa (PM).

More than a hundred members of labor groups PM, Sentro, Samahang Nagkakaisa ng Cavite, and Katipunan ng Manggagawang Pilipino picketed the Cavite ecozone. The mass action is also a buildup to the massive labor unity rally of workers for the Labor Day commemoration on Monday.

“Workers in the Cavite ecozone are organizing to improve their wages and working conditions but capitalists are illegally busting unions and harassing workers,” Sequena explained.

Last week, garments factory Dong Seung Inc. at the Cavite ecozone terminated en masse all 16 union officers including the union president. In response, the union filed a notice of strike and a strike vote will be held tomorrow. Yesterday management did not attend the mediation meeting convened by the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB).

Meanwhile, a complaint for harassment was filed by the union at another apparel company, Jisoo Garments Manufacturing Corp. Jisoo workers are alleging that management is behind a falsification case filed against union officers. The case came just after a certification election was held in the company. Among the grievances of workers at Dong Seung and Jisoo that led to unionization was that salaries for all workers, new or old, including people who have worked for several years, remained stuck at the minimum level.

PM also criticized the two-tiered wage system in Calabarzon for being an instrument for cheapening wages. Sequena insisted that “In the two-tiered system, the minimum wage is just a floor wage that will be supplemented by productivity-based increases. But companies in the Cavite ecozone do not provide for productivity pay hikes even though labor productivity has continuously grown as measured by the annual GDP growth.”

April 27, 2018

Strike at Korean factory exposes bankruptcy of new wage system in Calabarzon

Press Release

February 11, 2015

A strike broke out today at a Korean-owned metal factory inside the Cavite Economic Zone, the biggest in the country, due to a dispute over wage increases during collective bargaining negotiations. The militant Partido Manggagawa (PM) explained that the dispute exposes the bankruptcy of the two-tiered wage system being implemented in Calabarzon for the past few years.

“The two-tiered system pioneered in Calabarzon sets a very low floor wage—the new name for the minimum wage—and only productivity-based schemes allow workers to receive above the floor wage. But at Tae Sung and other export zone factories, despite yearly profits, capitalists refuse to share productivity gains to its workers. Thus most Tae Sung workers earn no more than the floor wage despite their company supplying metal parts to big electronics and auto multinationals like American Power Conversion, Honda, Caterpillar, Mitsubishi, Siemens and Deif of Denmark,” argued Wilson Fortaleza, PM national spokesperson.

Production at Tae Sung is now paralyzed as all regular workers for the 6:00 a.m. morning shift are now picketing company gates. Tae Sung's human resource manager has talked to the picketing workers and she was told that only a collective bargaining agreement will make them go back to work.

Fortaleza added that “How can a two-tiered wage system work—in which productivity-based pay are dependent on negotiations—when the vast majority of workers are unorganized and the few unionized are disadvantaged by weak enforcement of labor laws and the willing connivance of government officials—from the Labor Department to the local government units—with foreign and local capitalists? No wonder inclusive growth remains elusive and instead inequalities prosper despite the much-vaunted economic growth that is monopolized by big capitalists.”

The Tae Sung Employees Association, the union at the Korean factory, alleges that the company has been engaged in bad faith bargaining for the past seven months of negotiations. The union has reduced its wage demand from P100 each year for three years to P25 in a bid to reach an agreement but the Tae Sung management has barely moved from insisting on no increases to offering merely P5 each year for three years. Aside from wages, almost all provisions in the union contract proposal have been rejected by Tae Sung. Since 2011, Tae Sung has been earning annually more than USD 10 million, according to the union.

Aside from being hardline in negotiations, the union claims that Tae Sung is attempting to weaken the union by firing eight union members, including one union officer, and suspending others including the union president and vice president.