Slideshow: Strike a Success, Say Transport Groups

Transport Strike a Success, Say Groups
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Transport Strike a Success, Say Groups

Since the Arroyo regime expanded the value-added tax on oil and since the implementation of the oil-deregulation law, most jeepney drivers have to work long hours, often up to 14 hours a day. If they don’t, whatever money they earn for the day will only further enrich the oil companies -- and they go home penniless. Think about this the next time you are tempted to curse jeepney drivers for being uncouth, discourteous and undisciplined, as the government is wont to depict them.

Public-transport drivers and operators in several urban areas across the country – including, for the first time, Makati City – denounce the measly oil-price rollbacks by the Big Three oil companies, as well as their “manipulation” of the prices of oil and gas products, such as LPG, to the detriment of unorganized and ordinary consumers.

A Call for Help from OFWs in Sabah

To many Filipinos in the southern Philippines, Sabah represents salvation. Beckoned by the vast palm-oil plantations in the Malaysian state, they go there in droves seeking employment that they could not find in their homeland. Once there, however, many of them are confronted with the reality of neglect and abuse that is far brutal than the one they had left behind.

The employees at Triumph International who are about to lose their jobs are wringing their hands over what awaits them in these difficult times. They are likewise upset that the labor department, instead of helping them, has been assisting the German company in its machinations to get rid of its workers.

Ka Wilson was a dropout from a poor family in Tarlac. But that did not stop him from becoming one of the most intelligent and passionate leaders of the progressive labor movement in the Philippines. Not even his sickness, to which he succumbed this week at the age of 55, prevented him from pursuing the Filipino workers’ struggle that he waged all his life.

An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who recently returned to the Philippines has made an urgent appeal to help rescue 20 other women OFWs in Saudi Arabia, some of whom are being treated as sex slaves. She said several of them have been raped.

Union denounces move by Triumph International, calling it “unjust and illegal." The workers have been trying to fend off attempts by the company to decrease production at the factories and to move these facilities elsewhere.
A recent survey finds that the Philippines remains on top of the list of most dangerous countries for workers for several years now. Labor groups say the ILO’s decision to conduct a fact-finding mission here highlights the worsening abuses against labor-rights activists.

Protests Vs Nestle in Vienna, New Zealand
Jakatia Pawa of Zamboanga Sibugay was convicted of killing her employer’s daughter; a Kuwaiti court has upheld the verdict. Migrante International denounces the Arroyo regime for not doing enough to save OFWs on death row in other countries.
The recently signed Salary Standardization Law 3 (SSL3) sets new salary rates for state workers. It’s a welcome respite amid the economic crisis, as well as an initial victory of the campaign for better wages. But government workers say SSL3, apart from giving really small increases, still has numerous anti-worker provisions. It is crying out for improvement.
Triumph, one of the world’s largest underwear makers, has been re-exporting its raw materials from the Philippines to other countries where labor cost is lower. Its workers are understandably worried. Worse, they have reason to believe that the company may end up becoming a runaway shop.

Workers at Triumph Cry Repression
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