As locked down workers in the Philippines and the world celebrated
May 1 in online actions, the labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) slammed Labor
Secretary Silvestre Bello’s push for a “Balik Probinsya” scheme.
“The ‘balik probinsya’ plan of Sec. Bello and the ‘balik trabaho’
proposal of Presidential Adviser Joey Concepcion are both hare-brained pro-capitalist
schemes. Labor was not consulted in Bello’s rehash of Bong Go’s plan while
Concepcion’s GoNegosyo proposal will endanger workers’ lives. Workers will be
sent to the provinces where wages are dirt cheap and will be sent back to work since
they are allegedly immune so capitalists can earn bigger profits immediately,”
stated Rene Magtubo, PM national chair.
Both proposals are in direct contradiction to the demands being
put forward by organized labor in today’s online protest. PM and the labor
coalition Nagkaisa are asking workers to make selfies while holding placards
with demands and to post it in social media accounts using the hashtags
#AyudangSapatParaSalahat, #BalikTrabahongLigtas, #MakataongTugonHindiMilitarisasyon
and #MayDay2020.
“A proper response to the covid pandemic should put the needs of
the workers and poor first not the interests of capitalists in front and
center,” Magtubo averred.
The group is also alarmed at the rise in the number of cases
involving cruel treatment by security forces against violators of quarantine
protocols and warns against a new normal of impunity. PM cited the police
dispersal of a workers’ picketline in Cavite during Black Friday night.
Dasmarinas police who refused to give their names threatened two strikers—at
the Sejung Apparel Inc. factory in the First Cavite Industrial Estate—with
arrest for allegedly violating the quarantine rules.
“Labor rights are not suspended during the ECQ and this incident
breaks all the rules of engagement, especially the guidelines on the conduct of
security personnel during labor disputes,” Magtubo insisted.
He added that “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. But we will fight any
plot by capitalists and the government to shape a new normal where workers are
in worse conditions than before.”
“Instead the working class imagine 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,”
Magtubo concluded.
May 1, 2020
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