Davao labor day march drew 5K; calls for higher wages and rejection of Pnoy’s palliatives

NEWS and Photo RELEASE

May 1, 2011

Davao labor day march drew 5K; calls for higher wages and rejection of Pnoy’s palliatives



DAVAO CITY -- Five thousand people took the streets of Davao City today on Labor Day pressing the Aquino government for higher wages and rejecting his proposed palliative non-wage benefits.



The marchers represented organized workers in the public sector and private industries in the region, led by the National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU) which is affiliated with KMU (May First Movement), as well as labor associations of contractual employees. These include plantation and mining workers, factory laborers, and those from the service sector, business establishments, as well as workers from public health, education and local government offices.



Joining them also were the organized victims of urban poor demolitions, students and out of school youths, women victims of prostitution, families of overseas workers who have been victims of various forms of exploitations.



Organizations representing other sectors also came, such as the farmers who are being further marginalized as many of them are displaced from their land and are reduced to mere wage earners with the aggressive entry of agribusiness plantations and mining.


They marched from Freedom Park starting 12:30 in the afternoon and converged at Rizal Park for a program that lasted until 5:00 in the afternoon.


“The march is indicative of the ever present unrest in the country’s labor front no matter how much this government tries hard to placate the people’s outrage. Throughout the region, more workers are getting indignant of the worsening exploitation at the workplace, more people are getting enraged by the escalating prices of goods,” Franchie Buhayan, secretary general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan Southern Mindanao Region said.



“President Aquino has offered non-wage benefits, palliatives in the form of subsidies and other dole-outs but it refuses to resolutely stem the people’s hardship by confronting outstanding issues on wage and prices,” Buhayan said in reaction to the President’s declarations at a breakfast forum with some labor groups in Malacañang today.



Instead of providing substantial wage hikes, President Aquino has offered seed money for cooperatives of certain labor groups, scholarships and promises of benefits from agencies like Pag-Ibig, PhilHealth, Social Security System, and Government Service Insurance System.



“We doubt if such benefits will even reach the workers given said offices' record of corruption of the funds that workers religiously contributed. But the greater issue here is that we have a President who could not face squarely the capitalists, and make these employers provide just wages to the workers whose toil they exploit for profits. In that way, Pnoy could have adequately answered the people’s needs, foremost is surviving the cost of living,” Buhayan said.



“Either he is simply acting indifferent, or he is really a stooge to the capitalists whose profits depend much on making laborers work more and paying them less in return,” Buhayan added.


Aside from deliberately evading compliance to minimum wage standards, many employers intentionally deny workers’ benefits to save cost on labor costs and increase profits, such as remittance to SSS, provision of overtime and holiday pays, leave and other benefits,



Buhayan added that capitalists’ exploitation too is getting harsher but President has allowed it, as seen in the number of employers getting retrenched without due cause, and the increasing number of perpetually contractual workers.



“Other blatant violations take the form of repressing trade unionism, which is ironically provided in labor laws. But you hear many union members being victimized by coercive actions, either physical or by other means to discourage them to give up fighting for what is due,” Buhayan said.



For Buhayan, even the President’s announcement today of new job openings is no good news at all. “What kind of jobs will these be if capitalists can maintain exploitative terms with the workers since they do not even show any fear of being punished, with government failing to stop and make them accountable for these labor violations?”



“Why do we see the continuing exodus of Filipinos to other countries, taking on odd jobs and ending up as victims if indeed these jobs made available in the country can adequately provide for their needs? The truth is the government has never been able to provide job opportunities that will raise the standard of living and at the same time ensure human development, and respect of dignity among most Filipinos,” Buhayan said.



Buhayan also said President Aquino’s policy pronouncements on the problem of prices indicate same cowardice to confront the perpetrators of people’s hardships.



“He feeds us with the same deception towed by oil cartel companies, such as justifying increases by way of citing oil price trends in the world market, when in fact these are schemes of deception and that he can actually decisively address price hikes in the country by regulating the way oil companies can unscrupulously set pump prices via such speculations,” he said.



“We urge the people not to be hoodwinked by these palliatives. Contrary to what the President wants us to believe, these pronouncements could not provide the meaningful change that people need,” Buhayan said.





For Reference:

FRANCHIE BUHAYAN
Secretary General
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Southern Mindanao Region (Bayan-SMR)
0999.195.3370




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