Fight against inequality is continuation of Bonifacio’s struggle—Partido Manggagawa

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) called on workers to fight inequality as the continuation of the struggle of Andres Bonifacio. On the occasion of this year’s commemoration of Bonifacio Day, thousands of workers from different labor groups are coming together to a big rally at Mendiola.

Members of PM are joining the major mobilizations in the cities of Manila, Cebu, Bacolod and Davao. Chapters of PM and groups Aguila, National Federation of Labor, Pwersa and Kilos Maralita from Metro Manila, Calabarzon and Central Luzon are gathering at Blumentritt along Espana at 9 am. The groups will then link up with the Nagkaisa labor coalition march from Welcome Rotonda to Mendiola where they will hold a program up to noon.

Yesterday PM unveiled what it called “Panalo ang Pinas” and “Laban ng Pinoys” medals to express its message of fighting social inequality amidst economic growth. Scores of PM members trooped to Liwasang Bonifacio yesterday wearing symbolic medals that parodied the issues facing workers such as rampant contractualization and low wages, and the people such as government corruption and rice importation.

“For the last decade, the economy has doubled but real wages have remained stagnant. This means workers have not shared in the wealth that labor has produced and instead capitalists have monopolized it. If Bonifacio were alive today, he will be leading a new revolution against worsening inequality,” stated Judy Ann Miranda, PM Secretary General.

She added that “Endo and regional wages are among the key instruments by which government in collaboration with capitalists have kept workers from partaking in the fruits of their labor. Thus the campaign of workers to end endo and abolish regional wages are major struggles of the labor movement at present.”

PM is also condemning the repression of labor strikes that are breaking out as contractual workers demand regularization. The group also denounced the government for the slow action in resolving the killing of union organizer Dennis Sequena last June. The group reiterated its demand that the government allow the International Labor Organization to conduct a High Level Mission to probe the killings of labor activists and the suppression of freedom of association and collective bargaining. ###

Photos of the activity yesterday can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/10157637737124323?__xts__[0]=68.ARAn6-GMxwARR7qpY1oScEC3ekZbxGpX5IrLSegz0XHYB2CyraT4YSP0hKOdWPClp--TcQdtTe9raovNypx2qx7grv30G_34JfRBD7g1ITPn3sid-1Of2C9XtjX4j7NPaka9Q1sNY0K2IevrDpR52FOSp_KSmyXD6vyUAmc8sj5Ln9VNgKBwAPrfJTsUlaZQxNQXj0iRfmLveuLuSldbgAnCbdxLPZtAGI3p7zuxbNAootVv7Xh2haUKlXTcX61sB8NHDZyMll5x_PjUMnczvMSsTKUyNy40AG4rhJ6RD36eZFwD_qIgTEhDHEK1GWrK-qRaoeappLTVtV7fK7Wq&__tn__=-R   

November 30, 2019

Meralco meter readers to hold protest as notice of strike matures

MEDIA ADVISORY

August 1, 2016

Contact: Dennis Sequena @ 09301803072

WHAT: Protest by a hundred Meralco meter readers to coincide with mediation meeting called by DOLE

WHEN: Tomorrow, August 2, 2016, 2:00 p.m.

WHERE: NCMB Imus @ MYP GBY Building, Bayan Luma 7, Aguinaldo Highway

DETAILS:  Meralco meter readers employed by its subcontractor Calapar Services Inc. are gearing up for a strike by holding a protest action tomorrow. The rally coincides with a mediation meeting called by the DOLE between the management and union. Some one hundred Calapar employees and their supporters are expected to participate in the protest.

The collective bargaining negotiations at Calapar is presently deadlocked over the issue of wage increases and the notice of strike filed by the union expired yesterday. The last remaining requirement for the holding of a work stoppage is a strike vote by union members.

Calapar services Meralco customers in the whole province of Cavite and the cities of Las Pinas and Paranaque. Meter reading was formerly done by Meralco employees but were outsourced to contractors like Calapar in the mid-1990's.

Sanofi med reps all set for strike if “fair deal” not reached

Sanofi med reps prayer rally at DOLE Calabarzon in Calamba, Laguna

The restive med reps of pharmaceutical firm Sanofi Aventis declared their readiness to go on strike should the make or break mediation meeting today produce no breakthrough in the deadlocked collective bargaining negotiations. Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz called for the mediation in  bid to avert a work stoppage at the Philippine subsidiary of the French-owned global giant.

“If it takes a strike to make management realize that it is the labor of their employees that creates their profit, then we are all set for it. Still we hope that Secretary Baldoz can broker a fair deal today. A fair deal, a decent collective bargaining agreement should mean a salary that we deserve,” insisted Lei Lucido, president of the Sanofi Aventis Employees Union (SAEU).

While SAEU representatives attended the mediation at the Department of Labor and Employment, scores of union members with their supporters picketed outside. The highlight of the protest was a flash mob by several med reps who danced while wearing Guy Fawkes masks. The masks have become an icon of anti-corporate protests since it was popularized in the movie “V.”

Since October last year, bargaining talks have been deadlocked over ten items from salary hike to hospitalization plan. The notice of strike filed by the med reps union matured two weeks ago.

“A strike is the Rx for deadlocked negotiations over a wage increase. This may be our first time to go on strike but we are ready as ever. We appeal to management to hear our reasonable demand for a salary hike which is a mere drop in the bucket of Sanofi’s income,” argued Joseph Corpuz, SAEU officer.

He added that “Aside from robust revenues due to sales quotas achieved by med reps for the past two years, Sanofi has bagged the contract for anti-dengue vaccines. For this year alone, the government is buying PhP 3 billion worth of vaccines from Sanofi. Health Secretary Janet Garin has been quoted as saying that the anti-dengue vaccine is expensive because it is a monopoly of Sanofi.”

Renato Magtubo, chair of Partido Manggagawa (PM), explained that “Labor groups are supporting the fight of Sanofi med reps not just because their demand for a wage hike is justified given employee productivity and company profitability. But also because the fight for a living wage is a cause of all workers. Ang laban ng Sanofi med reps ay laban ng lahat ng manggagawa.”

PM and the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) were among the groups which joined SAEU in the protest today at DOLE. Other labor groups like the Bayer Philippines union, Federation of Free Workers and the Industri-ALL global union have also participated in the Sanofi med reps mass actions.

Since last week, SAEU has held daily protests in cities across the country in preparation for the strike. Pickets and prayer rallies have been organized in the Sanofi office in Makati, and the cities of Angeles in Pampanga, Calamba in Laguna, Cebu, Bacolod, Iloilo and Davao.

Photos and videos of protests and events can be accesses at Facebook page "Sanofi Aventis Employees Union"

January 25, 2016

Sanofi Aventis Employees Union (SAEU)

Strike at Korean factory reveals myth of APEC’s “inclusive growth”

Press Release

February 12, 2015

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) today slammed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) theme of “inclusive growth” as a myth as it cited the strike at a Korean factory in Cavite as microcosm of labor’s plight. An APEC senior officials meeting just concluded last weekend in Clark, Pampanga.

“APEC, which includes the Philippines and South Korea, is all about investor rights and none about labor concerns. Thus its call for inclusive growth is just a marketing gimmick in the face of worsening inequality amidst economic development. A case in point is this Korean investor in the Philippines which refuses to share productivity gains to its struggling workers,” insisted Wilson Fortaleza, PM spokesperson.

The strike at Tae Sung Philippines Co. Inc. in the Cavite economic zone entered its second day. A marathon mediation meeting yesterday failed to break the deadlock in negotiations. The union Tae Sung Employees Association asserts that management remains intransigent in bargaining and refuses to meet workers demands halfway. Another mediation session is scheduled this afternoon.

Fortaleza explained that “Tae Sung is earning more than USD 14 million (PhP 600 million) annually since 2011 but it is merely offering its 250 unionized workers a pittance of P3 million in wages and benefits or just half of one percent of the fruits of their employees’ labor!”

He added that “Tae Sung is the rule not the exception among investors in Philippine export zones and all across the industrial areas of Asia and the Pacific. Cheap labor and precarious work means a regime of exclusion and belies APEC’s lip service of inclusive growth.”

Production at Tae Sung remains paralyzed as regular workers are outside the factory picketing. Aside from bad faith bargaining, the union alleges 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. Workers have set up tents and a picketline outside the Tae Sung factory.

“Most of the Tae Sung workers earn just the floor wage of P315 plus allowance of P25.50 which is not even half of the cost of living in Calabarzon, which hardly differs from Metro Manila which we estimate is at least P1,000 per day for a family of five,”  Fortaleza argued.

Workers voice stand against pork barrel, patronage politics in Ayala rally

PRESS RELEASE

4 October 2013

  

The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said that the Million People March Part 2 in Ayala today will be an opportunity for workers to “register their voice against the pork barrel and patronage politics.” “Both the venue and protest date are significant to workers. The Ayala district is home to at least one million blue and white collar job workers.  Beginning today workers in NCR are due to receive a P10 crumb from the new Wage Order,” stated PM Chair Renato Magtubo.

Insisting that “Through the system of withholding taxes on our salaries and wages, and VAT on the goods and services we buy, workers do not only pay the right amount of taxes on time, we also disproportionately provide a greater share of our income to the national treasury,” the group expected Makati employees and workers to participate actively in the protest.

Magtubo said workers are enraged at how billions of pesos of taxes that were paid out of workers’ productivity are appropriated by corrupt politicians among themselves. “The new economic formula called Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), since illegal, is nothing but contraband smuggled into the pockets of lawmakers for a special job well done,” said Magtubo, referring to the additional allocation to lawmakers on top of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) after the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The labor leader and former party-list representative added that DAP, as explained by Malacanang, is a stimulant for ‘miscarriage’ and not for ‘growth’ since its implementation is worse than the PDAF. “The best thing it was able to achieve was boost the spending spree or personal savings of politicians not the purchasing power of ordinary workers,” Magtubo concluded.

PM is advocating the rechanneling of funds freed by the abolition of pork barrel to universal social protection such as universal healthcare, mass housing, public education, public employment, climate programs, and other services. Magtubo appealed to anti-pork protesters “Not to stop at abolition and push for an alternative fund distribution system in which social services will be as accessible as a right and not subject to the patronage of politicians. The anti-pork protest should develop into a movement for universal social protection and also converge with the anti-epal, anti-trapo and anti-dynasty advocacies of the last elections. Such is a roadmap towards lasting political change in our country.”

Upon its issuance last month, PM described the P10 wage order an insult and a classic case of bigay-bawi since its value eventually eroded by the impending MRT rate hike, increase in price of rice, and the looming power and water rates increases. Amidst the backdrop of protruding corruption scandals in the highest levels of government, Magtubo said, “the workers’ need to deliver its strongest condemnation of this system: Enough of this kind of rule!”