Cry of public sector workers:
Advance the rights and welfare of government employees!

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

Government employees roundly condemned Estrada and his minions' dirty tricks to intimidate and coerce them into supporting his despicable regime. They militantly stand, together with other oppressed sectors of society, for the ouster of Estrada and for their rights and welfare.

The employees suffer more hardships due to the anti-worker and pro-imperialist policies that the US-Estrada regime has implemented and put into law. Flexible and cheap labor policies have exacerbated the miserable conditions of workers � including that of government employees. In the public sector, these policies are being implemented through the privatization program and the unending reorganization of the bureaucracy which have resulted in widespread layoffs of regular employees.

The Philippine reactionary government has more than 1.3 million employees. Their services as teachers, soldiers, police personnel and workers of strategic institutions are crucial to the reactionary in power. Thus, their active resistance will surely hasten the fall of the Estrada government.

It is imperative for the next reactionary regime to immediately address the employees' demands if it doesn't want to go the way of Estrada. The following are a few of their demands:

INCREASE EMPLOYEES' SALARY BY P3000! What government employees receive is actually less than the minimum wage. Its real value is further depressed due to the continuing increase in the prices of prime commodities and basic services. Despite this, the Estrada regime has refused to address the employees' demands for a P3000-increase of their measly and oft-delayed salaries. Instead, the regime insulted the struggling workers when it increased their salaries by up to 10% only.

The government needs to allot funds in the national budget for the P3000 across-the-board increase in employees' salaries or if not, create a special allocation for this purpose. An allocation of P46.8 billion would be enough to address the demands of all employees. This amount is not even half of the allocation for debt servicing.

GRANT THE EMPLOYEES THEIR JUST BENEFITS! Through Administrative Order (AO) No. 86, Estrada stopped the granting of incentives intended for crisis-alleviation like the amelioration pay and similar benefits. He kept other benefits to a mere pittance, such as the personal and economic relief allowance (P1,000/month), 13th month pay and Christmas bonus. The Estrada regime likewise continued to implement the cunningly conceived GSIS Act of 1997 which required additional obligatory contributions to the institution even without any significant change in benefits. Actually, it even denies employees their full retirement benefits. And worse, Estrada allows businesses of favored friends and cronies to obtain loans from GSIS funds.

Thus, AO 87 must be repealed and the amelioration pay and other benefits regularized as an item in the national budget. Also, GSIS policies must be reviewed and the practice of lending its funds to private companies stopped.

REPEAL ALL ANTI-WORKER POLICIES AND UPHOLD EMPLOYEES' RIGHTS! When Estrada assumed power, he signed into law numerous Executive Orders (EO). Particular to government employees are EO 102, 165, 162, 191, 223, 271 and 281 � all of which are about dismantling, reorganizing and privatizing entire bureaucracies and trampled on their right to security of tenure. There is also Proclamation No. 50 of the Aquino regime that pertains to the hiring and firing of personnel under the privatization program. Thousands of employees have already been laid off in Estrada's more than two years in office.

The reactionary government is also using the absence of a law upholding the basic right to unionize and to strike to keep the employees' conditions miserable and suppress any struggle that may emerge from their ranks. The Civil Service Commission (CSC) and managements of public institutions have been thwarting the employees' self-organization. Moreover, CSC Memorandum Circular No. 06 and Executive Order No. 180, Series of 1987 and other laws outrightly violate the employee's right to unionize and to strike.

STOP THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC CORPORATIONS! The widespread layoffs of workers under the privatization program of the reactionary government is of no concern to the Estrada regime. The layoffs have already victimized employees from the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System, Petron, Philippine Airlines, Manila Hotel, National Steel Corp. and Light Railway Transit. At the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR), more than 2,341 employees have been laid off as of the latter part of 1999 under its wily Special Disengagement Program. It is estimated that 900 more workers will be fired after NAPOCOR's privatization. At the Philippine Postal System, 17,000 workers are in danger of losing their jobs once it is privatized. Seventy-five percent (75%) of the National Food Authority's 6,000 employees nationwide will lose their jobs once the agency is sold to the private sector.

Privatization is terribly devastating not only to the workers' welfare but also to the nation's entire economy. This program should be stopped and pro-imperialist policies of "globalization" abrograted. The government should also immediately buy back public corporations it had previously auctioned off such as those engaged in providing education, health, water services and others.

It is clear to the struggling government employees that their calls are but a part of the overall demands of the people. Towards this, workers in the public sector are one with all oppressed sectors of society in calling for nationwide change within the framework of genuine democracy.

November 2000
English Edition

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