Labor Day protests to focus on calls for higher pay, end to contractualization
More than 100,000 protesters are expected to demand higher minimum wage and an end to the practice of contractualization on Labor Day on Sunday.
“This year’s Labor Day protest will condemn neoliberal economic policies that have worsened the situation of Filipino workers. Workers will push for their demands for the junking of contractualization and the implementation of a National Minimum Wage in the amount of P750 amidst their worsening hunger and poverty,” Jerome Adonis, secretary-general of KMU said.
In observance of this year’s Labor Day, workers prepared a giant mural showing the “three ills” of Philippine society and an effigy depicting President Benigno Aquino III as a “brutal butcher and a puppet of the US imperialism.”
“The mural depicts imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, the main cause of hunger and poverty in the country. The butcher effigy, on the other hand, symbolizes Aquino’s role in killing workers and farmers as shown in the shooting and killing of farmers in Kidapawan last April 1, the death of workers in the Kentex factory fire, and human rights violations caused by the governments counter-insurgency Oplan Bayanihan, among others,” Adonis said.
Adonis said a “meaningful discussion” on contractualization must start on a “wholesale attack on worker’s rights to a living wage, job security and free exercise of trade-unions rights.”
KMU said around 50,000 protesters will join the Labor Day rally tomorrow in Metro Manila and more than 100,000 across the country. NC/IDL
RELATED STORIES
2 faces of Labor Day: Job fairs, protests vs gov’t
Presidential bets urged to bare plans on ending contractualization
