‘Worst country for workers’

EDITORIAL

The Philippines is now one of the “worst countries in the world for workers,” according to this year’s Global Rights Index report by the International Trade Union Confederation.

This is alarming according to the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno who said this is the country’s first time to be included in the 10 worst ranking together with South Korea and Kazakhstan.

 KMU secretary general Jerome Adonis said this means Filipino workers’ conditions are not getting any better and are getting worse with government policies on cheap, contractual labor.

“Filipino workers’ rights are under attack by the onslaught of neoliberal economic policies of pressing down wages, legalized contractualization and suppression of workers’ democratic rights,” he added.

 The ITUC Global Rights Index 2017 report ranked 139 countries according to 97 internationally recognized indicators on where workers’ rights are best protected in law and in practice.

 The KMU sees contractualization and its legitimization by the recently signed Department of Labor and Employment Order 174, as one of the key factors on worsening violations against workers’ rights in the country saying contractual employment schemes deny 90 percent of Filipino workers of any employer-employee relationship status from which all international and local labor laws are based.

 Adonis said contractualization as the government’s employment policy has subjected majority of Filipino workers to gross labor rights violations and exploitation.

 Contractual workers, which according to Bureau of Labor Relations’ data compose 90 per cent of the total work force, are deprived of their basic rights to living wages, secured and regular jobs, to proper benefits and social protection, to unionize and to collective bargaining.

He also claimed that the attacks against workers’ rights are being intensified by the President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration’s imposition of martial law in Mindanao which is now being used as a license to curtail civil liberties and suppress workers’ legitimate and just demands.

“Duterte’s martial law only serves to further intensify the attacks against workers’ rights. Last June 2, a week since its imposition, martial law has been used as license to violently disperse and arrest workers of banana plantation giant Shin Sun Tropical Fruit Corporation in Mindanao who have been on strike for more than 2 months against contractualization and union busting,” Adonis said.

The labor group said the Philippines’ consistently low rankings in the ITUC Global Rights Index report should serve as a wake-up call for the Duterte administration of Duterte to break-away from the neoliberal economic framework of cheap, contractual and suppressed labor.

He said the president can choose to uphold workers’ rights and dignity over corporate greed by rejecting the neoliberal economic policies imposed by the US through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. “He can start by fulfilling his commitment to end contractualization and by lifting his anti-worker martial law.”