Philippines a Bloody Zone for Labour Activists
Only Colombia is riskier for union organizers.
Arnel Salvador of Workers' Assistance Center in Cavite.
The Philippines provide a steady stream of hard working immigrants seeking a better life in British Columbia. For most of these newcomers, the pay may not stretch far, given the high cost of living here and, often, a chunk of the paycheque sent to help family back home.
But at least in B.C., standing up for your rights on the job won't get you killed.
Under the Arroyo government in the Philippines there has been a higher incidence of murders and assaults against union activists than during the notorious Marcos regime, according to a Philippine labour leader who recently toured Canada.
And an international study that reported a 25 per cent increase in murders of trade unionists around the world in 2006 says that the Philippines is the second most lethal environment for union activists globally, only topped for murder of union leaders by the blood stained record of Colombia.
Joint action urged
"Human rights violations under the Arroyo regime have surpassed the record under the Marcos dictatorship," said Arnel Salvador, the deputy executive director of the Workers' Assistance Center in Cavite province.
More than 60 union leaders, members, organizers and supporters have been killed by the Arroyo government since it came to power on Jan. 20, 2001, Salvador told union-sponsored gatherings across Canada during a month-long tour in the fall.
He called for a joint action campaign by Canadian and Philippine unions to realize an end to extra-judicial killings and attacks against the trade union movement in the Philippines.
"I was in the Philippines this summer to attend an international women's conference, and met with women who had been shot down by private soldiers hired by the landowners when they tried to protect their husbands in a labour struggle in the sugar industry," said Janet Routledge, a regional co-coordinator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Routledge, whose labour group sponsored Salvador's tour, told The Tyee that the situation for workers in the Philippines is "pretty horrendous. They live in abject poverty, surrounded by rivers choked with toxic waste and at risk from employer and government violence if they stand up for their rights.
"Canadians should be concerned about this," Routledge said. "We need to make the connections. When Stephen Harper talks about making Canada internationally competitive, he means for us to face the kind of conditions faced by these workers in the Philippines."
Clear pattern alleged
Monica Urrutia, a PSAC staff member who attended the women's conference in the Philippines with Routledge told The Tyee that there is a clear pattern to anti-union violence there.
"The killings target unionists and members of opposition organizations," she said. "Often, the shootings are done by masked men on motorcycles with .45s. There is always a possibility of violence against union picket lines."
Uruttia told the story of the murder, two years ago, of Diosdado Fortuna, the president of the union striking against Nestles in the Philippines. "I met Fortuna and joined him and other Nestle workers on that picket line five years ago," she said. "We want the Canadian government to hold a parliamentary hearing into the situation in the Philippines. Canada has a lot of investment there, and we need to look at what our money is doing."
More Info on Worker Rights in the Philippines
According to the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights, an independent research institute in the Philippines, the island country has seen 982 cases of trade union and human rights violations, victimizing 77,028 workers, from 2001 to 2006. From January through August 2007, the research group has documented 59 more cases of human rights violations that affected more than 800 workers.
More than half of all these violations occurred in the free-trade-friendly "export processing zones" in the five provinces surrounding the Philippine National Capital Region, zones set up by the Philippine government to encourage foreign investment.
Wal-Mart suppliers struck
Critics and anti-sweatshop activists have frequently portrayed such export processing zones as hotbeds of worker exploitation and human rights abuse.
Salvador's Workers' Assistance Centre is based in Cavite, near the largest export-processing zone in the Philippines, which contains 267 foreign-owned factories employing 65,000 workers. Two unions there have gone on strike against a pair of Wal-Mart suppliers, the Korean-owned Chong Won Fashions and Phils Jeon Garments, which together employ over 800 workers.
Despite a Philippine court ruling that the unions are the legitimate bargaining agents for their workers, Chong Won and Phils Jeon have refused to negotiate a collective agreement. Unionized workers have suffered harassment, threats, assaults and violent dispersals over a year-long struggle.
Concern rising
Even some international apparel companies, including Wal-Mart, are now expressing concern about the pattern of worker abuse in Cavite.
"The labour movement in Canada has to add its voice to the international clamour already denouncing these human rights violations," said Salvador.
Jim Sinclair, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, agrees. "The repression of trade unionists around the world should concern all of us," he told The Tyee. "Unions and democracy go together. If unions aren't free to operate, no one is free."
Related Tyee stories:
- Can Vancouver Fend off Olympics Sweatshops?
China's abuses 'a warning bell' for 2010. - Students Spill Coca-Cola's Profits
Campus deal killers cost soft drink giant millions. - What Happened to Labour Rights in Canada?
Reviewed: Labour Left Out
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Booker
04-01-2008
Exporting jobs
Thus the Philippines is the perfect place for bad corporate citizens to export BC jobs to. Telus set up tech-support call centres there during the lock-out in 2006 and removed good union jobs form the BC economy. Thanks, Darren Entwhistle.
Bailey
04-01-2008
Back to the bad old days
This is not about "bad corporate citizens" The government forces are almost always the ones used for these murders and disappearances.
I believe the reason for that is that if government forces are used the cost can be charged to taxpayers, rather than to the before-tax earnings of the corporations on whose behalf they are committed. Mercenaries, even Blackstone Corporate rentals, are expensive and tracable, liable to generate exposure and publicity. And won't always consent to commit murder.
This is true whether you look at the Phillipines, Argentina under the Generals, the shoe makers of Indonesia, sweatshops of Thailand or El Salvador. Wherever. Government forces serving corporate agendas.
Mr. Harper shows the corporate influences that control his agenda more and more. The argument goes like this:
Companies make money, all of us like money. If they don't make money they can't create jobs, all of us need jobs. So society should support companies, make whatever conditions they want so we can have those jobs and that money.
Unfortunately it's a total crock.
This is about slavery. The economic paradigm that drives it was defeated in the battlefields of the 1860s, the sweatshops of the 1910s, the mills and mines of the 1890s, the factories of the 1920s and 30s.
Many workers died then, to defeat the evil owners who only cared for their money, whatever misery came of it to others. Why are we going back there now? We already know where it leads. It's just stupid.
The period after WW2 when labour was strong and well compensated was the most prosperous and productive time in history, until the Mafia got caught buying off teamsters and looting pensions. That has now become standard corporate practice.
Corrupt government serving cheapjack corporate philosophy rather than the best interests of their constituants or their own oaths of office always turns out badly. Every single time.
It'll end in tears.
dorothy
05-01-2008
two and two really are four...
"Why are we going back there now?"
- Because the one key factor that sends us back there is still in place: an abundant supply of workers. If one set of such will not co-operate, there is always another set of even more desperate people somewhere else. It remains the only key to improvement, to have the market forces work: cut off the supply, i.e. we must become thinner on the ground. Until we find a way to make everyone everywhere understand that, including people in the Phillipines, or we lauch into widespread bloody revolutions, discussion of the problem is purely academic.
dorothy
05-01-2008
An another thing -
The above is of course the global thinking. As for the local action, since we still have the vestiges of labour rights in place, it is about making the other guys see that dealing with unorganized labor beats dealing with unorganized. This puts a burden on union leaders and activists. They must study labor law and all that, but also the Art of War and the Rules for Radicals, if they are to make a difference. It is truly one manager at a time, and one must think and act outside the box mostly, but it can work...
dorothy
05-01-2008
OOOPs.
The first unorganized should, of course, be 'organized', which beats unorganized.
Sorry, I just got so enthused. Must look before I leap.
Bailey
05-01-2008
You hit the nail on the head
Dear Dorothy, You know you got it.
I'm very fond of the rules of evidence, and I like to apply them to sweeping statements that catch my eye, in whatever field of argument. On of my favourite is called reality testing. If A=B, and B=C, then A must =C type of thing. Or to put it another way, when things are true, they lead directly to other truths.
If they don't, then they aren't.
Take the free trade argument that the west is so enamored with. If almost any of their arguments in favor are true, then you must see wages rising sharply in India and Mexico and the Phillipines.
They aren't. Instead, labour activists are murdered. Workers, especially women, are bought outright for a few hundred dollars and sold to the brothels and factories where they are confined, and paid less than they are charged for their own food.
Conditions are deteriourating for workers in the recipient countries, not improving.
It's proof that the free trade movement is false, based on absolute lies and will never lead to global anything except misery and war. Whatever Mr. Harper pretends to believe.