According to the labor federation Drug/Food and Allied Workers Federation (DFA-KMU), Wyeth Philippines managemen6 launched a “team-building exercise” for workers in their Warehouse division when they were instead served redundancy notices.
Fast forward 49 years after Marcos imposed Martial Law and used his iron fist to clamp down workers’ rights and workers’ movements, the labor sector continues to rise.
The union was also able to clinch other benefits even in the middle of the pandemic, such as free boarding, free meals, door-to-door shuttle service, an additional P220 meal allowance, free testing, an additional 14-day sick leave for those who test positive for COVID-19, free face masks, face shields, and vitamins, among others.
Described by the health department as “the first batch of fund transfers,” the P311.79-million ($6.2 million) SRA funds is a measly 2.6 percent of the unused P11.9-billion ($238.2 million) allocated for health workers’ Special Risk Allowance and Hazard Pay, which the Commission on Audit recently flagged.
“Fear is still there, but the need to stand by our principles always wins. We also need to continue campaigning for the welfare of our fellow government workers.”
Courage said that at the onset of the pandemic, they have called for free mass testing and treatment, provision of sufficient PPEs for frontliners, and rightful compensation of the health hazard faced by all public sector employees in the line of duty but were not met by the government.
On August 5, the Philippine government’s pandemic response team put the province of Cavite under MECQ from Aug. 6 to 15. This is part of the supposed efforts of the national government to curb the spread of the dreaded COVID-19, particularly its more transmissible and deadlier Delta variant.
A local advertisement here in the Philippines once asked – where can your P20 bring you? For government workers here, it meant a measly salary increase in the last five years of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Agricultural workers filed complaints before the International Labor Organization on June 23 against what they deem as state-sanctioned union-busting, harassment, and political killings.
A government workers union said Duterte’s executive order directing the full devolution of certain government functions is silent over thousands of contractual workers who are most likely to be laid-off when this order is implemented.
“Our teachers and our learners alike suffered the effects of state abandonment even as we ourselves are grappling with the raging pandemic and economic crisis. How long will the DepEd and the Duterte regime turn a blind eye to the needs of the education sector?”