PM welcomes MMDA proposal for fixed monthly salaries for drivers

Press Release

May 19, 2011

The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) welcomed the proposal from the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) of fixed monthly salaries for bus drivers and conductors instead of commission-based pay. The group also offered to involve labor leaders in the inspections that the MMDA and the Department of Labor and Employment plan to conduct tomorrow in bus terminals.

Renato Magtubo, PM chair. meanwhile slammed bus operators for opposing the fixed income scheme. “We ask the bus operators to moderate their greed in interest of road safety and workers welfare. Bus companies have the gall to say that drivers and conductors might reject the fixed income proposal because it will reduce their pay when in fact it is they who oppose it because it will diminish their profit,” Magtubo explained.

“The death of journalist and professor Chit Estella-Simbulan would not have been in vain if it leads to reforms in road safety such as better working conditions for drivers and conductors. As Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz had earlier ok’ed our proposal for labor groups to get involved in labor inspections, we now ask the DOLE and MMDA to immediately deputize labor leaders as labor inspectors before another commuter and worker is killed,” stated Magtubo.

PM had earlier called on the DOLE to deputize labor leaders as inspectors in the wake of the twin accidents at Eton construction sites in Makati and Quezon City. “Aside from the abusive commission-based pay, rampant contractualization at bus companies must also be addressed. Happy workers are hard and safe workers. Bus companies must realize that the increase in productivity in the long-term will make up for their short-term decrease in profit,” Magtubo asserted.

Gerry Rivera, president of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) called on bus drivers, conductors, mechanics and other workers to unionize. “A unionized establishment is a safe and satisfying workplace. We are willing to help fellow workers in the transport sector who will exercise their Constitutionally-protected right to organize. PALEA and the International Transport Federation will support them in this effort,” he elaborated.

PALEA is an affiliate of the ITF, a global union that represents some 4.6 million workers in the transport sector. In a hearing called by the House of Representatives Labor Committee on the labor row at Philippine Airlines, PALEA called on solons to pass a measure to mandate fixed income wages for bus drivers and conductors, and to report out the pending Security of Tenure bill. The latter bill seeks to curb contractualization in establishments, including the air and land transport.

Labor party calls for labor enforcement reforms as another worker dies in Hanjin shipyard

Press Release

April 14, 2011

The militant labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called for stronger labor enforcement and labor inspection reforms in response to the death of another worker last Monday at the Hanjin shipyard in Subic. “The Hanjin shipyard is a graveyard of workers. While capitalists were scrimping on protection for workers and the Labor Department was sleeping on its job of enforcement, workers are dying in the workplace,” insisted Renato Magtubo, PM chair.

Alvin Dalunag, 31 years old, died while working as welder inside the Hanjin compound. He was the 25th reported workplace death in Hanjin since it began operations in 2006. PM lambasted the Korean-owned ship construction giant for cutting corners in occupational safety in order to raise profits and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for the lax implementation of labor and safety standards.

He claimed that “Accidents are not acts of divine providence that can be dismissed as unavoidable. Instead accidents are the result of unsafe acts and therefore preventable by strict enforcement of occupational safety and health and labor standards.”

“Under the regime of the DOLE’s self-assessment program, the number of labor inspectors have shrunk from around 240 to just 190 and the number of establishments inspected plummeted from 26,000 in 2004 to just 6,000 last year. Self-assessment means that the government is asking the wolf to guard the sheep. No wonder the sheep get slaughtered,” Magtubo criticized.

He recommended that “We propose that the DOLE deputize labor leaders as labor inspectors. In so doing the number of inspectors and inspections can be increase several fold overnight, enforcement can be strengthened immediately, and workers lives and limbs can be saved.”

Magtubo added that “DOLE must review Hanjin and its contractors for compliance not just with safety regulations but labor standards such as payment of minimum wages and benefits, observance of working hours and remittance of social security among others. Construction workers are among the most overworked yet underpaid of employees since they are generally unorganized.”

“The DOLE has again been caught sleeping on the job as in the case of the Eton construction accidents,” Magtubo said.

PALEA calls on PNoy to deny outsourcing as PAL regains profitability

Press Release
February 21, 2011
PALEA

The Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) today called on the Office of the President to reverse the decision of Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz regarding the outsourcing and layoff plan of Philippine Airlines (PAL) as the flag carrier has regained profitability. “Good governance means good decisions. And in this case, it will be obviously be a bad resolution for PNoy to affirm the Baldoz decision when PAL is securing sustained profits in millions of dollars,” stated Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of Partido ng Manggagawa (PM).

“We ask on PNoy to heed the call of his bosses—the ordinary workers—and protect regular jobs at PAL in view of its healthy financial situation,” Rivera insisted.

PAL earned $15.1 million in profits for the third quarter of its fiscal year according to news reports last Saturday. PALEA declared further that PAL also posted profits in the first and second quarters, amounting to $31.6 million and $28.2 million respectively. This substantial income was net of a hefty payment of a loan in the amount of $46.5 million in June 2010, PALEA also stated.

He added that “The incomes in just the first and third quarters, or $46.7 million or just above PhP2 billion, is already equivalent to the supposed total separation package for the 2,600 employees to be laid off permanently. Imagine then the great savings and additional profits to be generated by an outsourced and contractual workforce at PAL. So is outsourcing a means for survival or a scheme to increase profits?”

PALEA has been alleging that PAL’s planned outsourcing is a scheme to bust the union and cheapen labor costs. The union is also pushing for collective bargaining negotiations to begin immediately and an end to the 12-year moratorium of the collective bargaining agreement.

“What is needed is not a partial settlement that allows gradual outsourcing but full protection for the regular jobs and right to collective bargaining of PAL employees,” Rivera argued in reference to a proposal during the mediation meeting at Malacanang last February 11. As floated in the meeting, a partial settlement will mean either a gradual outsourcing of some departments, or a higher separation pay for workers to be laid off. PALEA rejected outright the partial settlement.

“Outsourcing at PAL will ruin the livelihood of thousands of employees’ similar to how contractualization at Eton—another Lucio Tan company—is resulting to deaths and injuries of scores of workers. In whatever form, contractualization penalizes workers but rewards capitalists,” Rivera concluded.

Labor group asks union officers to be deputized as labor inspectors

Press Release
January 29, 2011

The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) called on the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to deputize union presidents and officers as labor inspectors in order to strengthen the enforcement of labor standards and safety rules. The recommendation came in response to preliminary reports that Eton and its contractors at the construction site in Greenbelt, Makati were guilty of numerous violations from underpayment of wages to non-remittance of SSS deductions aside from unsafe working conditions.

Judy Ann Miranda, PM secretary-general, said that “From 240 labor inspectors, the DOLE now just has some 190 to cover around 800,000 establishments nationwide. This number can easily be increased several fold by deputizing union officers as labor inspectors. Even if just 10% of the 17,000 local union presidents are accredited, this is about 10 times the present number of inspectors.”

PM insists that by deputizing labor leaders, the number of inspections can be multiplied overnight, enforcement can be strengthened immediately, and workers lives and limbs can be saved as a result.

The group is also critical of the DOLE’s “Labor Standards Enforcement Framework” which allows establishments with more than 200 workers to undergo voluntary self-assessment. PM reveals that under the self-assessment program, the number of establishments inspected plummeted from 26,000 when it started in 2004 to just 6,000 last year.

Miranda likened the situation to “The shepherd asked the wolf to tend the sheep and as a result the sheep are eaten alive.”

She reiterated the call that justice must be served the ten construction workers who died at the Eton site. “Aside from the responsibility of the principal employer Eton and its subcontractors to the laborers who were killed, the government must make policy changes regarding enforcement of labor standards and occupational health and safety so that the workers have not died in vain,” she stated.

The group explained that DOLE already allows local government units to undertake technical inspections in order to complement its efforts and so there is no reason not to mobilize workers groups in labor enforcement. “All the DOLE has to do is train union president and officers in the labor inspection and enforcement process and then accredit them appropriately,” Miranda added.