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“When they say go to work, you can’t say anything. We have work on Philippine holidays. We have work on US holidays… In the end we don’t really have holidays.”
“Social justice dictates that those who create the nation’s wealth be granted at least their right to a minimum wage amidst the increasing profits and wealth of a handful of capitalists and bureaucrats. We have every reason to believe that capitalists and the government can grant our just demand,.” – Ferdinand Gaite, Courage
“It is disappointing that no government agency, like DOLE, educated us on SAP [Social Amelioration Program) and its cash bonus because obviously, the millers and planters would not likely place our interest ahead of theirs.”
“We are calling for reinstatement because we should not have been dismissed in the first place. We are calling for regularization because we deserve to become regulars for the years of hard work we rendered to the company.” – Jhondel Estabaya, 33, president of SAMA-Ako (Samahan ng Manggagawang Kontraktwal) in Wyeth.
“After imposing slave-like conditions on workers, the Cenapro management is acting like a dictator in punishing workers for holding legitimate protests against such conditions. It not only wants workers to suffer, it wants workers to suffer in silence.” – Kilusang Mayo Uno
Nurses care for sick patients, but government is not caring for them.
“Ninety-nine percent of the guidelines during strikes expressly provide what the workers are prohibited to do. There is no corresponding magnitude of responsibility that refers to how the management should behave when a strike is declared.”
The word “Endo,” short for “end of contract,” was declared in “Sawikaan 2014: Pagpili ng Salita ng Taon” as word of the year. This word leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of Filipino workers whose various groups united to protest the incidences of “Endo” on Oct. 7, world day for decent work.
NXP Semiconductors Phils. agrees to hike workers wage by 5.25-percent for 2014, and 3.5-percent for 2015 and 2016. It reinstated only half of the 24 union officers it fired last May 5.
“We will not make compromises on the matter of our job security and our right to unionize. We will not allow RMN to accomplish its ultimate objective of busting our union and depriving us of our rights arising from being unionized.”
The company suspended Collective Bargaining Agreement talks after the union and other workers held a protest action on July 16 denouncing the 16-hour work and forced overtime in the company.
The scheme will deny workers at least four days’ worth of salary in a month, in exchange for a dubious overtime pay, which may not adequately pay for their health care should they become sick or meet accidents due to fatigue.
“We say no to President Aquino’s dictatorship. We have had enough of pay cuts, taxes and lay-offs, which best describe the situation of the more than 1.4 million government employees for the last four years.”-- Ferdinand Gaite, Courage president
Workers accuse state security forces as behind the blatant surveillance on their activities. They said these coincided with their struggle to assert their right to renegotiate for a new CBA with the RMN management.
“The Hoya Glass management told us that they had to close down to avoid incurring losses. But according to the company’s financial statement for 2010 to 2012, which was submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), it has in fact registered bigger profits.”
Government employees said that it is beyond the power and authority of the Bureau of Internal Revenue to tax their benefits without an enabling law, and had asked the Supreme Court to prevent the “unlawful and unwarranted imposition of taxes” on their benefits.
MPSI and Sasin, the employers, did not respect union rights and instead forced workers out of the company to prevent them from organizing more workers. -- Carl Anthony Olalo, president, Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Masters Port Services, Inc.
“R.A. 10641 (the new banking law) utterly gives away the Philippine banking industry to foreign financial giants.” – Banking and Financial Unions Against Central Bank Circular on outsourcing
“The term is an oxymoron but it is what best describes the situation of many government employees.” – Ferdinand Gaite, Courage
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