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“The Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce is trying to deceive workers with promises of a better employment situation when the truth is that the country has been pressing down wages for decades but unemployment still continues to grow.” – KMU
Everywhere, restrictions on workers forming genuine unions have prompted them to do union organizing in an “underground” or clandestine way, at least, at first.
“When workers in Indonesia demand a wage hike, employers threaten them: ‘We would relocate to China.’ In China, employers threaten workers that they would relocate their factory to Vietnam. In Vietnam, employers threaten workers they would relocate to Cambodia. In Cambodia, employers threaten workers that they would relocate to Bangladesh.” – Asia Monitor Resource Center
See also: Indonesian workers battle high prices, low wages despite producing oil, registering growth rates
Asia-Pacific workers wage struggles to turn ‘formal’ rights into reality
The spate of increases is driving Indonesian workers to take to the streets, conduct strikes and file demands for wage increases.
“It seems that not even death can force the labor department to speak up against capitalists.” – Joselito Ustarez, KMU vice-chairman
“We are tired of hearing about so-called improvements in the economy when unemployment is increasing, wages are pressed down, prices are soaring, and social services are decaying and getting scarce. This so-called growth is felt not by the needy poor but by the greedy rich.” – Elmer Labog, Kilusang Mayo Uno
They gather to discuss their experiences and exchange “strategies that work” in upholding their freedom to organize, “amid intensified labor exploitation on a global scale.”
Employees of the Metro Manila Development Authority filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman against their administrator Francis Tolentino, who, they said, has continued to refuse to give them their incentive bonus and for the human rights violations he committed against union leaders and its members.
They (the driver and the command inside the factory premises) thought the workers are standing by the side of the street outside company gate.
Read also: KMU condemns Pentagon, police violence vs workers
One government employee was dismissed and the others were deprived of the salary increase that is due to them under the Salary Standardization Law 3.
The picketing workers asked: why did the labor department issue an injunction order against their supposed strike, when the company has locked them out in the first place? The workers said they are not on strike but in protest of their illegal lockout. Read also:Pentagon steel workers decry 'treachery' of PTGWO leaders ;
KMU slams arrest of labor leader in Pentagon skirmish
Their rights ignored by the management, the labor federation their union supposedly belongs to, and the Labor department, the workers of Pentagon Steel had no other option but to fight for their rights.
Chibo Tan of the National Federation of Labor Unions said the situation of the city government’s job order and contract of service workers only reflect the system of the current dispensation which implements contractualization, a scheme that does not protect their right to security of tenure.
“Aquino is so desperate in selling his illusion of economic growth that he even resorts to absurd excuses just to cover up the worsening hunger and poverty that he has brought upon us workers and the Filipino people.” – KMU
“It’s as if the oil companies just took a break (from hiking prices) in the run-up to the elections to give the Malacañang candidates a chance to prettify themselves, especially since Noynoy was personally campaigning for the administration slate.” – Piston
Citing former Air Force Col. Eduardo Kapunan’s right to “full liberty”, lawyer Lorna Kapunan led her team of lawyers in offering to Branch 98 Rizal Regional Trial Court six exhibits, all but one of which were objected to by the private prosecutors from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.
“The fight for our rights does not stop at this historical triumph. We will join forces with other workers in other factories experiencing the same working conditions and capitalist suppression—especially now that we have once again proven the power of strikes.”
Read also: What prompted Coke workers to strike
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