May First centenary
Challenges to the workers' movement

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

On the First of May, thousands of workers thronged to the streets in various parts of the country to demand anew the just increase in their wages and to defend their rights. Simultaneously, they condemned the Macapagal-Arroyo regime's puppetry to US imperialism and called for its immediate ouster from power.

Instead of raising their wages, the regime offered small benefits that it should long have granted the workers, and insulting "consolation gifts" that angered the workers no end.

Among these "benefits" was a pledge to reduce electricity rates. In fact, the Supreme Court has long ordered Meralco to reimburse the excess charges it has collected from its consumers over the past nine years. Instead of implementing the order forthwith, Malacañang has been bargaining with the Lopez family, owners of Meralco. Besides this, the regime has yet to discard the purchased power adjustment, which is behind the bloated electricity charges and is an old issue.

The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) immediately applauded Macapagal-Arroyo's refusal to raise wages. ECOP wants to implement policies that will further intensify workers' exploitation in the name of "productivity" and "economic recovery."

The regime and its capitalist patrons' rationalizations year after year that it is the workers who have to bear the brunt of economic collapse is unacceptable to the workers. Their P250 daily wage is woefully inadequate to meet their basic needs. According to the government's own agencies, a family of six needs up to P530 for its daily expenses.

Real wages continue to decline in the face of the rising prices of basic needs and services. As a result, Filipino workers' conditions have become more pitiable, and the livelihoods of Filipinos in general have deteriorated. The workers' demand for a P125 increase in their daily wage thus remains just and has become even more urgent.

It was in the year 2000 when a measly wage increase (P12-20 daily) was last granted. In November 2001, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime merely ordered the granting of a P30 emergency cost of living allowance (ECOLA) instead of a wage increase. Besides being an insult to the workers, only a fourth received the ECOLA, as many capitalists refused to grant it.

THE regime has not only neglected the interests and welfare of the working class, it has directly attacked their rights and taken away benefits won through more than a decade of struggle.

Contractualization, lack of job security and union busting are rampant. Picket lines are relentlessly attacked and the rights of strikers trampled on.

The regime is now trying to criminalize militant unionism. In 2001, Macapagal-Arroyo herself ranged militant workers along with "terrorists". In her latest "anti-terrorist" proposal, any kind of collective action by workers within and even outside the factory may be considered "terrorist actions". Through this, Macapagal-Arroyo aims to suppress the militant union movement that continuously criticizes her regime's policies and programs.

In addition, the regime wants to worsen the anti-worker provisions of the Philippine Labor Code to make it hew even closer to imperialist globalization. If approved, the proposals will make the implementation of the policy of cheap and flexible labor more systematic. Among the proposed changes are:

• Limitation of wage increases to once every six years and the further regionalization of wage determination.
• Extension of the effectivity of collective bargaining agreements from the current two to three years, to six years.
• Further legalization of lockouts or the cessation of operations by an enterprise or factory in order to boot out strikers or coerce them into accepting whatever the capitalist offers them.
• Regulation of labor-only contracting, a widespread practice by large companies like SM where most workers remain contractual for life. Labor-only contracting will likewise no longer be considered a crime.
• Putting unions and labor organizations under surveillance, especially their sources of funds.

Macapagal-Arroyo's capitalist patrons are also pushing for a 10-year strike moratorium.

07 May 2003
English Edition

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