(First of two parts)

This Christmas season, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo paints a rosy picture for workers especially in so-called “industrial enclaves” such as the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) in Pampanga and the Subic Bay Free Port Economic Zone (SBFEZ). But the realities workers have to contend with in these industrial enclaves are low wages, harsh working conditions and curtailment of their right to unionize and bargain for better working conditions.

BY FRED VILLAREAL
Gitnang Luson News Service
Posted by Bulatlat.com

OLONGAPO CITY (126 kms. north of Manila) – This Christmas season, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo paints a rosy picture for workers especially in so-called “industrial enclaves” such as the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) in Pampanga and the Subic Bay Free Port Economic Zone (SBFEZ). But the realities workers have to contend with in these industrial enclaves are low wages, harsh working conditions and curtailment of their right to unionize and bargain for better working conditions.

Joaquin Arcega, 42, married with three children and Johnny Batislaong, 46, married with four kids, work as cutters at the Citigloves Garment factory inside CSEZ producing cold weather leather gloves for export. The company is owned by a local businessman and employs some 50 workers.

Arcega has worked for Citigloves for 10 years. He earns P250 ($5.06 an exchange rate of $1=P49.365) a day if he completes a quota of 30 pairs of gloves. Batislaong gets P243 ($4.92) a day for the same quota. If they don’t meet the quota, they are paid only P8 ($0.16) a pair. They are entitled to a P45 ($0.91) emergency cost of living allowance (ECOLA) per day, but not on days they are unable to work. The number of days of absence is also deducted from their 13th month pay.

Eight months work

“We work for only eight months a year at the most,” Arcega told GLNS in an interview. Production starts in February, peaks from May to July and tapers off from August to October. From November to January of the next year, including the Christmas season, there’s no more work and the company expects them to find work elsewhere.

Whenever they could, they try to complete three quotas to increase their daily earnings. From 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. they work for a double quota and work two hours more for a third. The company requires them to punch out their time cards at 4 p.m. even if the workers are still at work hours later to evade overtime pay. They are asked to complete just one quota a day as the season tapers off.

“The management is friendly as the season starts then toss us like garbage as soon as production requirements are met,” Batislaong said.

They are allowed a 15-minute break in the morning and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. But management closes the women’s comfort rooms at a quarter before the 4 p.m. official closing time to ensure that they work their butts out to the last tick of the working shift.

Deductions

“The management is prompt in deducting from our pay the member’s share in the fees for Social Security Service (SSS), Pag-ibig, among others. But we don’t know if the company remitted these or if they paid the employer’s share. Anybody who dared to inquire was bullied,” Batislaong said.

Workers suspect that the SSS fees collected from them are not remitted on time and are being pooled by the management and loaned to workers. The management collects a 20-percent interest for loans.

Arcega found out that he was deducted an excess of P1,000 ($20.257) for the contributions at least once. The management was forced to admit mistakes in computation when he demanded an explanation. He has yet to receive a refund despite the management’s word to do so.

Bastislaong’s production summary from March 11-25, 2006 showed that he was able to cut 972 pairs of gloves or roughly 33 quotas (at 30 per quota), or an average 2.5 quotas a day. He hopes to average two quotas a day, even during the low production period.

Piteous wages

His pay slip for April 10, 2006 showed a take-home pay of P7,558.06 ($153.10) after the usual deductions or an estimated total income of P37,790.30 ($765.528) from February to October granting all factors were constant. Thus a worker of his status earns P3,150 ($63.81) per month or a piteous P105 ($2.127) daily.

“A pair of low quality cold weather gloves is sold by the company at about P500 ($10.128), thus, management can pay the equivalent of my two production quotas – 60 pairs – on the sale of a pair of gloves alone,” Arcega said.

“During the lean season of 2001 the company was unable to pay us for months. We had to rely on cash advances to buy our families a kilo or two of rice, a few dried fish and noodles. We ended up more indebted than usual both to the company and the stores where we get our food,” the two recounted.

No union

The workers believe that only through a union can they hope to fight for better wages and working conditions. But when they first attempted to form a union in 2004 management moved swiftly to preempt them.

Batislaong, who volunteered to do the initial organizing work, was pinned down as the leader and was immediately summoned and reprimanded.

He was not allowed to work for sometime and is still being closely monitored and harassed to this day.

The exploitation and repression of workers at the CSEZ reflects the conditions elsewhere in the enclave and at the Subic Bay economic zone in Olongapo City.

Legenda workers

Greg Fundacion, 45, is one of the officers of the Kilusang Manggagawa sa Legenda (KML or Workers’ Movement in Legenda) the union of workers of the Legenda Hotel/Casino in Subic owned by the Chan family, Malaysians of Chinese descent.

KLM has about 800 active members in more than eight departments in the casino – administrative, finance, human resources, food and beverage, house keeping and laundry, transportation, internal security, engineering, motor pool, and croupiers.

Two hundred of their members are contractuals particularly those in food and beverage, house keeping and security departments although many have worked for the company for more than 13 years. The country’s labor laws provide that contruactual workers are to

Every worker has to inch through six steps of job items from Level 1 to 6 with rates per day ranging from P224.50 ($4.54) to P300.00 ($6.07).

In December 26, 2003 the KML gathered the signature of 1,500 employees for a certification election as the initial step in the formation of their union.

They engaged management in collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations in April 2004 to demand an economic package that includeD: union leave with pay, 15 days sick leave and 15 days vacation leave per year, 45 days maternity leave for regular pregnancy and 75 days leave for caesarian section, seven days leave for paternity, five days emergency leave and four days bereavement leave.

They also pushed for security of tenure and union security.