With just a week to go before Labor Day, the partylist group Partido
Manggagawa (PM) called on Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to investigate
complaints of union busting at the biggest export zone in the country. Workers of
garments factories in the giant Cavite Economic Zone are complaining of union
busting by their management.
“We ask Secretary Bello to act with dispatch as workers’ right to
choose to be represented is being curtailed by foreign investors. With these
cases of union busting, freedom of association will be among the highlights of workers’
commemoration of Labor Day on May 1,” stated Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.
The workers of Korean-owned Jisoo Garments Manufacturing Corp. are alleging
that management is maneuvering to bust the union. Jisoo separated almost all of
its regular work force last March ahead of a possible certification elections
in April. Last April 14, some 100 workers in a motorcade of 50 motorcycles held
a mass action at the main gate of the Cavite Economic Zone in support of the
Jisoo union.
Magtubo reminded Sec. Bello that “Last May 2018, the Department of
Labor and Employment convened a dialogue between labor groups and the Philippine
Economic Zone Authority to address complaints of violations of the right to
unionize and labor standards in the major ecozones like in Cavite and Mactan
Cebu. A technical working group was formed to resolve the allegations of union
busting and other workplace grievances. Thus we ask Sec. Bello to put its
commitment into action.”
“To pre-empt the certification election and bust the union, last March
Jisoo management offered to separate its regular work force. The separation
package was supposed to be voluntary but instead workers were called for
one-on-one meetings in management offices and cajoled into accepting the offer.
Almost all of the 350 regular workers were terminated and only a handful of
union officers remained who resisted the offer. Recently, the union president
was denied overtime as a way to harass the remaining holdouts,” Magtubo
explained.
Meanwhile another union busting complaint, by workers in Daegyoung
Apparel Inc., also Korean-owned, was settled last Monday during a hearing by
the DOLE-National Conciliation and Mediation Board with management pledging not
to interfere in their employees’ right to unionize. The Daegyoung union filed
for preventive mediation because workers were being called by management to
meetings and asked to sign statements that they will not join a union.
Magtubo declared that “We commend the management of Daegyoung for
committing to respect freedom of association and will hold them to that
promise. As far as we know, things have changed in the factory since the
settlement of the union busting complaint.”
A union busting complaint filed by the Jisso labor union is presently
pending. Jisoo supplies to well-known and global garments brands such as Marubeni
of Japan, Cross Plus of Japan, Vuarnet of France, Michael Bastian of the US,
8Seconds of Korea and Tomato.
Photos of the riders protest at the Cavite ecozone can be accessed at
April 24, 2019
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