The Year of High Unemployment

Joblessness figures rose in 2003 – the same year Filipino workers marked the centennial of the International Labor Day on May 1. They also celebrated the 100^th birthdays of two heroes of the Philippine labor movement – poet Amado V. Hernandez and activist Felixberto Olalia.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

For the Philippine labor movement, the 100th year of the observance of Labor Day was also the year of unemployment.

The first Labor Day celebration in the Philippines took place on May 1, 1903. In a mammoth rally in front of Malacańang that day, the Union Obrera Democratica, while pressing for workers’ economic rights, also put forward the slogan, “Death to imperialism!”

In July this year, the unemployment rate reached 12.7 percent, translating to 4.35 million jobless Filipinos as of the said period compared to 4.22 million last April and 3.81 million in July last year.

Historically, the April unemployment rate is always the highest for every year. But this year’s July unemployment rate is higher than that of last April (12.2 percent). This is the first time something of this sort has happened in Philippine history, and it had to happen in the 100th year of the observance of Labor Day in the Philippines.

Citing government data in a speech delivered before a reunion of activists of the 1980s last Nov. 15, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas chair Rafael Mariano said that there were 4.2 million jobless Filipinos out of the country’s 34.6 million-strong labor force as of that date. This translates to a 12.14-percent unemployment rate. (The figure of unemployment could be higher when the big number of under-employed is also counted.)

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through the People Power 2 revolt in January 2001. The year 2001 ended with the Philippines registering a 10-percent unemployment rate, based on data from CountryReports.org. For 2002, the Philippine unemployment rate was 11.2 percent, based on data from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies.

While the government claims to have created 1.78 million jobs from July 2002 to June 2003, Mariano noted that out of those who were said to be “employed” 800,000 (or 45 percent) were able to work for only three months, but were not counted in the number of jobless Filipinos.

Joel Maglunsod, secretary general of the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May 1^st Movement), attributes the rise in unemployment to globalization, contractualization, and the suppression of labor actions. In a statement late September, Maglunsod said: “The manufacturing sector has been in a constant slump due to the dumping of cheap, imported goods in the local market. Hundreds of local small and micro-enterprises were forced to close shop due to stiff competition” and with them, lay-off of workers.

Maglunsod also criticized the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) for its role in contractualization and labor suppression. According to the KMU leader, the DoLE has been condoning contractualization, by which regular workers are replaced with low-paid contractuals without benefits and union rights. He also said that through the issuance of Assumption of Jurisdiction (AoJ) orders and illegal strike declarations, the DoLE “is responsible for the termination of thousands of striking workers.”

The union scene

The loss of jobs resulting from globalization, contractualization, and union-busting has reflected on the union scene. Based on data from the National Conciliation and Mediation Board, from Jan. 1 to Nov. 22 this year, there were 38 work stoppages staged this year, involving 8,851 workers. For the same period there were 564 notices of strike filed, covering 96,509 workers. There were 704 cases filed as preventive mediation, covering 157,650 workers.

From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2002, there were 36 work stoppages involving 18,240 workers. Notices of strike filed for that period added up to 751,involving 159,073 workers. There were 812 cases filed as preventive mediation for that period, covering 167,104 workers.

From Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2001, there were 43 work stoppages involving 7,919 workers. For the same period there were 623 notices of strike filed, involving 142,373 workers. Cases filed as preventive mediation for that year totaled 738, affecting 154,764 workers.

Government may argue that the strike figures for this year are lower compared to those of the previous years of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, but there is not too much of a departure from the 2001 and 2002 figures. In fact the smaller number of strike cases for this year compared to that of last year can be explained by the decline in the size of unions from 2002 to 2003. Data from the Bureau of Labor Relations’ Statistical and Performance Reporting System (SPRS) indicate that from January to September 2003, there were 11,796 labor unions with a total membership of 3.96 million. For 2002 there were 11,365 labor unions, with a total membership of 3.92 million members.

Computing the average unionism figures for each period, we find that for January-September 2003 the average union membership was 336, compared to 345 for 2002. This means that while new unions have been established in companies where previously there were none, the membership in old unions has considerably gone down. The decrease in average union membership is but a reflection of the worsening unemployment in the Philippines.

Union rights violations

As if things were not bad enough, Filipino workers this year were subjected to violations of union rights. According to KMU chair Elmer Labog, from January to November this year more than 1,857 workers were subjected to human rights violations in picketlines. There were a total of 91 cases of assault against workers.

Labog holds the government responsible for union rights violations. “With President Arroyo’s attempt to impose a strike moratorium, she enforced severe repression and violence against workers asserting their right to just wages, job security and other labor rights,” Labog said in a recent statement.

Labog added: “Arroyo indiscriminately butchered trade union rights only to show her patronage of capitalist bosses. The government has consistently assisted employers in suppressing workers’ rights. During strikes and protests launched by labor unions, police and military elements employ violence to crush the ranks of workers. Even our rallies at DoLE (in Intramuros, Manila) are suppressed by the police.”

A case in point is the experience of the workers’ union at the Nestle Philippines plant in Cabuyao, Laguna, which has been on strike for more than a year now. Police reportedly used tear gas, and a mixture of water, chili peppers, and pellets sprayed at the strikers with a fire hose, whenever they attempted to dismantle the picketline.

While union rights are actively violated by the military and the police, the government continues to promote an Anti-Terrorism Bill under which even legitimate labor actions may be classified as “terrorist” activities.

Reasons for restiveness

It is as if Filipino workers have not had any reason to be restive this year. But reasons for restiveness there have been aplenty. Aside of course from the assaults of globalization, contractualization, and the suppression of labor actions on the livelihood of workers, workers have to put up with small wages that have little purchasing power. Data from the National Statistics Office show that the purchasing power of the peso went down by four centavos from April 2001 to April 2003. The government uses 1994 as the base year of the Consumer Price Index. In 1994, a person needed only 59 centavos to purchase goods and services worth one peso as of April this year.

Meanwhile computations by Bulatlat.com’s Danilo Arańa Arao, based on DoLE data, show that as of October this year a Filipino family needs to earn P526.07 daily in order to survive. The minimum wage is still pegged at P250 a day or P276.07 short of the daily living wage. The government has yet to grant militant workers’ demand for a P125 across-the-board, nationwide wage increase which they have been pressing since 1999.

Moments of glory

While 2003 has been a difficult year for Filipino workers, the Philippine labor movement has not been wanting in moments of glory. Besides being the centennial year of the observance of Labor Day in the Philippines, 2003 also marks the 100th birthdays of veteran labor leaders Amado V. Hernandez and Felixberto Olalia.

A versatile writer and thinker, Hernandez was born in Bulacan province and grew up in the slums of Tondo, Manila. He was early on involved in advocacy of anti-imperialism and social justice. He took to the hills and became a guerrilla leader during the Japanese occupation in the 1940s. After the war he headed the Congress of Labor Organizations, then the largest labor federation in the country.

For his role in the labor movement Ka Amado was imprisoned in 1951 and charged with “rebellion complexed with murder.” He was convicted by a lower court, but was able to post bail in 1956; in 1964 he was acquitted, with the Supreme Court ruling that there is no such crime as rebellion complexed with murder. After his release, he resumed active involvement in cause-oriented groups and was an activist until his death in 1970.

Olalia, on the other hand, was born to a peasant family in Pampanga. Extreme poverty forced him to abandon his studies and work at a young age; he completed only the fourth grade. At 13 he started working as a shoemaker in a Chinese shop in Manila. He immediately joined the Union Chineleros y Zapateros de Filipinas and became its secretary at 14. From there he embarked on a continuous life of labor organizing, “interrupted” only by his service as a resistance fighter during the Japanese occupation.

In 1980, in the midst of martial law, Olalia became the founding chairman of the Kilusang Mayo Uno. He was imprisoned several times by the Marcos regime during the martial law years, and it was in prison that he died in 1983.

Doing justice to its more than a hundred years of history, the Philippine labor movement in 2003 was among the sectors that beefed up the rallies against the U.S.-led war on Iraq, the World Trade Organization, and the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush to the Philippines. It also played a prominent part in exposing the collusion between the Macapagal-Arroyo government and the camp of businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. on the coco levy funds, with which the latter acquired his shares in San Miguel Corporation. Bulatlat.com

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