CHURCH GROUP SAYS
RP labor starting to feel crisis effects
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:48:00 10/23/2008
Filed Under: world financial crisis, Labor, Overseas Employment
MANILA, Philippines—A church-based labor group Wednesday said that the Philippines was starting to suffer job losses as a result of the global economic slowdown.
Data from the Solidarity of Cavite Workers (SCW) showed that numerous garments factories in the Cavite Export Processing Zone were either slowing down or closing shop, according to the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER).
The International Labor Organization has projected that 20 million people across the globe would lose their jobs by next year due to a worldwide slowdown.
SCW said Ultimate Dream Fashion was among the first to close and its laid-off workers were not paid wages and their 13th month pay.
Woo Su, a Korean-owned company, was closed this month because there were no orders coming in. Phils Star, another Korean-owned company making socks, was also shutdown this month.
SCW also said that other companies were adopting compressed workweek and precarious work arrangements to maximize their profits at the expense of workers.
The labor group said Cavite Apparel was employing a two-week-interval rotation for its workers since March.
At the DO apparel factory, only two out of six assembly lines are running and work is only for three days a week.
Jeshuran and Faremo 1, also a Korean-owned company, have a five-day workweek and 12 hours in a day’s work.
Aside from compressed workweek, other companies are allegedly not paying the mandated minimum wage of P298 such as Golden Will Fashions in the First Cavite Industrial Estate, according to EILER.
In Faremo II, workers are reportedly not receiving their wages because their checks are post-dated in January 2009.
A few companies were only giving the apprentice rate in wages or only 75 percent of the minimum wages to contractual workers, according to EILER.
“The government should lay down concrete safety nets to cushion the effect of the global financial crisis through wage hikes and tax cuts,” said EILER executive director Paul Quintos.
P250-M livelihood fund
While there are no reports of retrenchment of Filipino workers in the United States, Middle East and Europe, the government is putting up a P250-million livelihood fund for displaced workers.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo announced this Wednesday while spelling out the government’s contingency plan for Filipino expatriates before business leaders at the Philippine Business Conference and Exposition.
“There has been no displacement of expatriates related to the financial crisis,” she said in her speech at the Manila Hotel, citing reports from the Department of Labor and Employment.
The President said that the employment of 2 million expatriates in the Middle East and 500,000 others in Europe remained secure despite the global financial turmoil.
“Even if the US economy tanks, expatriates there are in sectors less sensitive to recession. That is teachers, nurses, IT related workers, and caregivers,” she said.
More important, overseas employment opportunities were emerging in other markets such as Canada and Australia, which are seeking 30,000 workers each in the next two years; New Zealand which is looking for 10,000 workers in the next two years, and Guam, 20,000 workers.
Despite the bright prospects, the President said the government had drawn up a contingency plan, including putting up a P250-million livelihood fund for expatriates that would be displaced if the US slides into a recession.
“We will expand their livelihood and business formation program with the P250-million livelihood fund through the NLSF (National Livelihood Support Fund) and the reintegration center which has business counseling and we will strengthen reintegration services,” she said. Reports from Jerome Aning and TJ Burgonio
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