How Toyota Ran Over Its
Filipino Workers
The Filipino workers at Toyota Motor Philippines are required to produce one car every nine minutes. The heavy manual work such production entails has made the company the most profitable and the top carmaker in the country. But behind this glowing achievement is the all-too familiar story of one company violating its workers’ rights – and a workforce increasingly becoming agitated.
By ANNA SANTANDER
Behind the impressive
and glowing reports Toyota Motor Philippines Corp.
releases regularly to its investors, there is the story of the intense
struggle of workers against exploitative work schedules, heavy manual work, lack
of benefits and low wages. The company, a subsidiary of Toyota Japan and the
Philippines’ No. 1 car manufacturer, opened in 1989 and by 1990 the workers
were already agitating for a union. Previous attempts were unsuccessful and it
was only in 1999 that the workers succeeded in formalizing their unity.
Filipino workers at
Toyota are required to produce one car every nine minutes, making its two plants
the most efficient and productive Toyota manual production plants in Asia. The
management makes it a point to crow about the whopping
P25 million daily gross income the plants bring in.
The company has assets amounting to P5.525 billion and has net
sales of over P14.646 billion.
Toyota is 40%
Japanese-owned, with Takshi Fukuda as president, while the rest is owned by
Filipinos. George Ty of Metrobank
is the biggest shareholder and the board chaiman.
The Toyota Motor
Philippines Corp. Workers Associations (tmpcw)
was established only late last year, after nine long years of painstaking
effort and struggle with the management. An independent union, it was put up
with the legal assistance and guidance of the Young Christian Workers
(YCW). From the time the workers began organizing themselves, they had
one clear goal in mind – to put together a collective bargaining agreement (CBA)
and have it recognized by the management. The union leadership pushed forward
its proposal and sought the management’s cooperation so that they could
negotiate.
On March 16, 2001,
however, Toyota summarily dismissed
290 and suspended more than 30
regular workers because they participated in
the series of mass
delegation actions during hearings held at the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) on February 22 and 23. The
number comprised more than half of all the union members and leaders of the tmpcw.
The workers wax
ironic when they point out that the dismissal of their 300 colleagues came on
the eve of new DOLE secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas’ order reaffirming her
predecessor Bienvenido Laguesma’s decision recognizing the TMPCWA as the sole
and exclusive bargaining agent of the
Toyota workers. Sto. Tomas also directed the Toyota management to open itself to
negotiations for a CBA with the new union.
As soon as the
layoffs were announced, the union’s dismissed members as well as the rest of
the union membership immediately set up picketlines in front of the company’s
manufacturing plants in Bicutan and Sta. Rosa, Laguna. This was on March 28. The
strike resulted in the complete paralyzation of company operations.
In the documents
submitted to the National labor Relations Commission (NLRC), the workers accused
the company of unfair labor practices, including union busting (mass dismissal
of union officers and members), harassment, coercion and intimidation.
They issued an appeal
to the management for reinstatement, and sought an audience with the labor
department. Several diaologues were set with the management through the DOLE,
but the management attended not a single one of these. The only time the
management made contact with the union was when it announced the next batch of
workers scheduled for termination.
Not satisfied, on
March 23, the company also declared that it will not be paying the retrenched
union members’ wages and that all loans the other union members had previously
received will be directly deducted from their salaries. This left the workers
with virtually nothing in the pockets came payday.
The following days
saw no resolution to the brewing labor dispute. The company incessantly refused
to recognize and talk to the union, and by March 28, the union, pushed to the
wall, declared a strike. The union’s 900 rank-and-file workers walked out and
paralyzed both plants.
The strike lasted
five days. The DOLE issued a
return-to-work order, supposed to be effective April 16, as Sto. Tomas, in a
certification order issued April 10, endorsed the labor dispute to the
NLRC for arbitration and for implementation by the Toyota management . The
company, however, did not implement it.
Union president Ed
Cubello said that the workers who sought to return to work at Toyota’s Santa
Rosa and Bicutan plants on April 16 were not allowed to enter the company premises. They were denied entry and
told that the work order from DOLE stipulated that, though the labor department
has decide that all the workers should be allowed to take back their posts, it
was still up to the management’s discretion how many workers and whom among
them will be accepted back.
In the history of the
country’s labor movement , it is only now, in the case of the Toyota strike,
where a return-to-work order was issued wherein the company is explicitly told
that it is allowed to have its way with the workers.
As a result, only 30
of the 300 strikers were allowed to return to work that day. Instead of allowing
all the strikers to return, the company told them to stay home and wait for
their paychecks. Their payrolls have been reinstated but the workers themselves
were not. According to the
management, those who were refused re-entry are those who have caused
“negative emotions” and disrupted the flow of
“positive relations” in the company.
The YCW, which has
been helping the workers, points out that however much the workers want to
refuse the money out of principle, they have no choice. All of the workers –
aged 20 to 34 – are breadwinners. Those who are married have two to three
children and, overall, the future of over 1,800 children is at stake.
Neither do the
workers know how long the company’s “generosity” will fast; the
return-to-work order did not state a timeframe.
In the end, all the
Toyota workers demand are two things: 1) that their union be
given due recognition, and 2) that the workers be allowed to negotiate
with the management for a CBA.
The workers have not
given up hope. They continue to hold meetings and assemblies, holding fast to
the principles of militant unionism. The union’s flag continues to fly among
those of Bayan Muna, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and the Kilusang Mayo Uno
during political rallies, the last time in EDSA and Liwasang Bonifacio on May 1,
Labor Day.
The workers to resume
their picket actions as soon as the
legal barriers are removed. In the coming days, the protest lines will once
again be put up in front of the Bicutan and Sta. Rosa plants. They will also
hold pickets in front of the DOLE offices in Intramuros, as well as attend
conciliation meetings, which, unfortunately, have yet to result in anything
positive for the workers.