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workers

Ever since the beginning of the current global economic crisis, the focus of both critical analysis and public odium has been speculative capital. In the populist narrative, it was the breathtaking shenanigans of the banks in an atmosphere of deregulation that led to the economic collapse. The “financial economy,” characterized as parasitic and bad, was contrasted to the “real economy,” which was said to produce real goods and real value. Resources flowed into speculative activities in finance, resulting in a loss of dynamism in the real economy and eventually leading to credit cutoff at the height of the crisis, causing bankruptcies and massive layoffs.

Vampire Squid versus Corporate Galahad?

Union busting is the real aim of outsourcing

By Labor Party - Philippines (PM)

Meanwhile Renato Magtubo, PM chair and co-chair of the Church-Labor Conference, an alliance of labor and church groups supporting PALEA, condemned threats from the Philippine National Police to disperse the campout at the PAL Inflight Center where thousands of employees continue their protest. “We warn government against using force to break the protest camp of PALEA. Labor and church groups will be one in strongly denouncing such a move,” he said.

“The Hanjin shipyard is a graveyard of workers. While capitalists are scrimping on protection for workers and the government is sleeping on its job of enforcement, workers are dying in the workplace. Hanjin’s crooked path must be set straight by PNoy. Instead of beating war drums over the Spratlys it is better that PNoy wage war for workers rights at Subic,” insisted Renato Magtubo, PM chair.

On July 3 the groups leading today’s rally will hold a “Caravan for Decent Jobs and Humane Working Conditions.” The caravan will proceed from Manila to Subic in order to highlight the dire plight of contractual workers especially in Hanjin.

Since the start of the year, fuel price inflation stands at a whopping 10.19 per cent. It is followed by transportation and communication prices at 7.28 per cent, while inflation of food prices has been recorded at 4.03 per cent.

According to Bello, the sky-rocketing prices of basic commodities threaten to push millions of families propped up by minimum wage earners across the poverty threshold.

“Barya lang ang P22 sa harap ng nagtataasang presyo ng mga bilihin. Kulang ‘yan para tustusan ang pangangailangan ng mga kababayan natin, at lalo silang maghihirap kung ‘yan lang ang matatanggap nila,” Bello added

Abolish regional wage boards

Edwin Bustillos, APL deputy secretary-general, said almost one year after the victory of President Aquino, workers have yet to see tangible gains.

“Instead, what we have is a disastrous decision for the workers of PAL, violent demolitions of informal settlers and skyrocketing prices of oil, food and other prime commodities,” he said.

Workers are being presented a Philippine Development Plan (PDP) for 2011- 2016 that merely provides a slightly updated version of the same old neo-liberal prescriptions, Bustillos said.

The APL mobilized in Manila, Lipa, Cebu, Davao, General Santos, Cotabato and Cagayan de Oro.

Between Death and Poverty

A common refrain I heard from workers returning from Libya went like this: “Wala kaming magagawa kundi bumalik kasi kamatayan ang hinaharap namin roon. Pero gutom naman ng pamilya ang balik sa amin dito.” (“We had no choice but to leave since death is what we faced there. But what do we have in exchange but hunger for our families here?”)

“The Metro Manila votes of PALEA members are a clear trend that we believe will be repeated in the outlying stations once the ballots have been counted. This is a herald of the determination of PAL workers to fight for their regular jobs and right to bargain. We hope that PAL management heeds this call instead of dismissing it as baseless,” stated Gerry Rivera, PALEA president and vice chair of Partido ng Manggagawa.

The first International Toiling Women’s Day was proclaimed in 1911, to mark the role of the women in the industrial revolution and celebrate the gains of the women who marched to the streets to fight for their rights and welfare.  During that time, the exploitation of women and children in the factories, in the fields and in their homes fed capitalism and allowed it to flourish.

We march to the streets, gather in spaces of protest and launch myriad forms of collective action, as we draw our strength from the wisdom forged by the herstorical struggle of our ancestors and our continuing efforts to sustain these struggles. We are telling our governments, the men in our societies, the people and institutions whose actions, policies, perspectives, ideologies and behaviour maintain the political, social and economic oppression of women that change we want, and change we are making happen.

PM also commemorated the event with mass meetings of workers under the theme “Kapos ang EDSA at peke ang demokrasya hangga’t kapos ang sahod, kontraktwal ang trabaho at api ang kalagayan ng mga manggagawa.” The group is at the forefront of the current campaigns against labor contractualization and high prices.

Magtubo added that “The events in Tunisia, Egypt and that region are again showing that through unity in action people can assert their rights and win their freedoms. Is this not the spirit of EDSA? Unfortunately in the past 25 years it has been squandered because of the betrayal by the elite which hijacked the victory of people power.”