Filipino workers pay the price for business greediness

Rina Jimenez-David, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

In its heyday, the garment industry employed up to 400,000 workers, the great majority of them women. In 1990, about 230,000 garment workers were covered by 2,481 collective bargaining agreements or CBAs; by 1999, the number had plunged to just over 64,000 workers, covered by 412 CBAs.

The biggest reason for the decline in employment and consequently in unionized firms is that many owners of garment firms, facing expensive termination arrangements with the closure of factories in the face of declining demand, chose to simply close shop and abandon their workers.

Nobody should be forced to continue operating a business in the face of mounting losses. But as Jurgette Honculada, general secretary of the National Federation of Labor (NFL) and commissioner for labor of the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), points out, garments exporters were perfectly willing for decades to enjoy the fruits of prosperity even as they knew the good days were coming to an end and without bothering to cushion the impact on their workers.

"It is necessary to draw a brief history of the industry to understand why garment firms are now in free fall, taking the money and running away, leaving their workers in limbo with no means to start anew," writes Honculada in a briefing paper.

In the 1970s, recalls Honculada, the United States and other industrialized countries in Europe enacted a series of protectionist measures to fend off products from Japan and, later, the economic tigers of Asia. The Multi-Fiber Agreement or MFA was one such measure, setting restrictions on garment production in East Asia from 1975 to 1995. "This proved a boon to developing countries in Southeast (and South) Asia, including the Philippines which were drawn into garment production for export, with the country enjoying a one-percent share of garment exports on the global market. For the better part of two decades, the Philippine garment industry proved a top export earner, employing hundreds of thousands of workers and reaping untold profits."

But the deadline, as all deadlines must, is falling due and despite lobbying efforts with the US Congress that gained a 10- year extension on MFA quotas, the Philippine quota in garment exports will come to an end in December next year.

The industry and government had almost 30 years to prepare for the end of the quota and while the entry of China and other low- wage, low-cost countries was a matter of time, Honculada points out that "various steps could have been taken to ensure greater viability of the industry (for instance, by establishing a textile industry, efforts at which were undermined by the technical smuggling of cheap textiles by some garment firms themselves), or at least to cushion the fall."

Early last year, Honculada recalls, the government announced the launching of a 1.6-billion-peso "rescue plan" for the beleaguered garments industry. She wonders where those "much- touted social safety nets" are now. "Perhaps (the plan) 'rescued' the garment firms, but what about the tens of thousands of workers, mostly young and single women when they started, now middle aged, married and with children to feed? Were they part of the plan?"

The plight of workers in two shuttered firms -- Karayom Garments Manufacturing in Taguig town in Metro Manila and A. Bylson and Sons in Las Piqas City -- underscores Honculada's contention that it's the workers who're paying the price for the industry's lack of foresight.

Nemia Casulla, president of the Karayom union that had signed a five-year CBA with management just last October, says that the workers returned from the Christmas and New Year break last Jan. 6 only to find the doors of their factory locked, with no word as to when or if they would reopen, and their employers reneging on their commitments, including their mandatory 13th-month pay and separation pay.

Karayom Garments stands on property owned by the in-laws of the owner, who also owns the bigger, adjoining Gelmart garment factory. The union now fears that Karayom's management will start pressing for "permanent" closure on grounds that Gelmart is ending the lease agreement. Gelmart has already posted a sale notice on the Karayom lot, even as the union has received word that Karayom's owners have set up a new operation in the Clark Special Economic Zone north of Manila.

Karayom was a supplier of polo shirts for, among others, Levi Strauss (under the Dockers brand). A company that prides itself in its social consciousness, Levi's is a member of the Ethical Training Initiative that requires contractors and subcontractors to adhere to ethical practices. The union officers ask: Is Levi's continuing its relationship with the Karayom owners through their alleged "runaway shop"? If so, then so much for Levi's ethical standards.

As with Karayom, the owners of A. Bylsons and Sons are reported to have set up another company in Calamba town, south of Manila, asking workers to move there from the old factory in Las Pias. However, says Joel Buela, the union president, the Calamba plant operates only two to three times a week, and the workers' weekly earnings are barely enough for transportation and food expenses.

The labor department has also issued an "assumption of jurisdiction" order over the Bylsons' labor dispute but, says Buela, the order's provisions are one-sided, favoring the company and not addressing at all the issues raised by the union.

Casulla aired a sentiment common to workers in the troubled garments firms. "I really feel bad about what happened because our relationship with the owners was so good for more than 20 years," she said. Unfortunately, when hard times come, even the best of relationships are bound to sour, and it's the least powerful who suffer more.