NEWS AT A GLANCE

Government to blame for the exodus of nurses – Rep. Maza

Gabriela Women’s Party-list Rep. Liza Maza expressed alarm over the massive migration of Filipino nurses and health workers. Reports said over 13,000 nurses leave the country annually.

"Unless the national government finds a way to properly compensate Filipino nurses and health workers in the country, we can expect a massive shortage of health professionals soon," said Maza in a statement issued on Sept. 15.

Maza noted that the minimum wage in the Philippines is not even half of what is being offered for their services as caregivers or nurses abroad. She stressed the urgency of passing the P125 wage hike for workers in the private sector and the P3,000 across the board salary hike for government employees.

She added that the government is partly to blame for failing to give government nurses the salary hike provided for in the Nursing Act of 2002. The salaries of government nurses have been upgraded from Salary Grade 10 to Salary Grade 15, meaning they should be receiving no less than P14,000 monthly. Unfortunately, Maza said, these nurses have been cheated of their salaries for two years now.

In line with this, Maza filed House Resolution 247 on Sept. 14 calling for an inquiry into the government's non-implementation of the nurses' salary adjustment.

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Garments company’s closure illegal - Workers’ alliance

About 1,000 workers of the Fashion House Garments Incorporated, a company producing garments for export in Cavite, were abandoned after it closed without prior notice on Sept. 15.

The company, located at Golden Mile Business Park in Barangay Maduya, Carmona, is reportedly owned by Korean national Sung Kyu Kang. It started operations on Oct. 24, 2002 producing export-quality garments with known brand names such as Gap, Old Navy and Alison. Its products are exported to Canada, US, Japan, Qatar and Korea.

The workers sought the assistance of the National Coalition for the Protection of Workers’ Rights (NCPWR) in Southern Tagalog in the afternoon of the same day. Investigation made by the NCPWR showed that aside from illegal closure, the company did not pay the workers their salaries from August 16 to 31 and September 1 to 15.  It also reported that laid off workers were all contractuals, underpaid and oftentimes forced to do overtime work without compensation.

Ronily Alaro, one of the workers, said they were oftentimes forced to work for more than 21 hours.  On Aug. 25 for example, the workers started work at 7:30 a.m. and allowed to stop only at 9 p.m.

Alaro said that many of them fainted because they were given only a candy during the overtime. The company nurse also reportedly made them take an anti-dizziness tablet which they paid for at P12 each.

“The workers’ conditions in Fashion House are substandard and inhumane,” said Carina Castrillo, NCPWR-ST secretary general. “The company should be held liable for its labor abuses and violations.”

Bulatlat

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