By GAIL ORDUÑA and MARC CAYABYAB
Photos by GIAN GERONIMO
AMIDST rising oil and food prices, a Filipino worker these days continues to suffer from cheap wages, unfair practices, and the poor state of labor policies in the country.
In his first Labor Day speech, President Benigno Aquino III on Sunday announced that he has mandated the regional wage boards to reassess policies and to look into petitions for wage hike, or the decade-old petition for a P125 across-the-board pay increase for Filipinos.
Workers’ unions, militants and progressive groups who joined the May 1 rally dismissed Aquino’s pronouncements as unsatisfactory and empty, saying they have yet to see him deliver on his election promises.
“Sahod itaas, presyo ibaba (Increase our wages, lower prices!),” was their cry. According to Kilusang Mayo Uno, an estimated total of 25,000 workers joined the rally in Liwasang Bonifacio and Mendiola in Manila.
For this year’s celebration, VERA Files shares the stories of workers, a few among the millions of Filipino wage earners who continue to clamor for decent work and pay.
Steel worker
Ronnie Espaldon, a worker for the Pentagon Steel Corporation based in Quezon City, has not enjoyed the benefit of a wage increase. For 22 years, his wage remained at P404 per day.
His wage does not come out full, Espaldon laments, as it is further decreased with the Social Security System, PhilHealth, Pag-ibig and union tax payments.
Their wage, he shares, only equates to 15 minutes of work, compared to the millions in profit the company earns.
His family primarily bears the brunt of the low wage he receives. “Budgeting for our needs is difficult with the increasing prices of our daily needs,” Espaldon says, who is but one of the 266 workers of the company he works for.
Factory steel workers like him receive no benefits in case they encounter accidents or injuries, despite the danger they face in their work.
At times, the administration curses them and puts the blame to the worker, saying they did it on purpose, shares Espaldon. The administration also fires the workers simply because of their absences, which delay factory production.
To fight for their rights as workers, Espaldon formed a union in January this year. But the corporation tried to abolish their union, even while joining unions is a worker’s constitutional right.
The goons of the administration even pointed guns at the workers to discourage them from joining the union, says Espaldon.
The Pentagon administration claims the company already has an existing union. But Espaldon says the administration appointed the head of that union, adding that the collective bargaining agreements done by this union were hidden from its members.
Espaldon hopes that his union will win in their struggle for better working benefits.
Call center agent
Janice Mendoza (not her real name) started working as a call center agent in 2004 with good health and a perfect working performance.
Four years later, she was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, a progressive condition caused by compression of a key nerve in the wrist. With the disease, her work performance decreased by 30 percent.
Mendoza says she fell ill because of the long working hours and for typing for more than 10 hours every night. For seven years, she endured having to work “like a robot”, standing only during lunch and restroom breaks.
When she failed to get to work for medications, the company terminated her contract. “They even took it against me that I got sick!” she says.
Mendoza also remembers a colleague who had stroke due to the same work. Half of his body is now paralyzed.
Mendoza says the company had no concern for their workers’ right to good health.
“It doesn’t mean that I have waived my health when I’m hired…What is the use of salary when you get sick?” Mendoza says.
She now works as a freelancer and advocates occupational safety in the call center industry.
Media worker
For seven years since he started working as a video engineer in the Lopez-owned television station ABS-CBN, Alain Cadag had none of the labor standard benefits. The crew received no night differentials, no overtime, 13th-month and holiday pays.
This prompted the workers of Channel 2 to start the ABS-CBN Internal Job Market (IJM) Workers’ Union. When they found that its employees started joining the union, the administration fired all 114 of them, including Cadag. None of them have since been reinstated.
According to the administration, the crew members were not allowed to start a union as they were not regular Channel 2 employees. For the company, they were “independent contractuals” and “freelancers.”
ABS-CBN in a previous statement says they consider IJM as merely “a database of accredited technical or creative manpower who offer their services to the company.”
But Cadag adds that ABS-CBN is the recognized employer in their income tax returns and pay slips. Even their identification cards bear the signature of ABS-CBN.
The 32-year-old father says it was basically his fight for justice which cost him his job.
“Sa likod ng magagandang palabas, ang mga manggagawa na gumagawa ng magandang palabas ay pangit ang trato. ‘Yun ang contradicting factor doon eh, magandang palabas pero pangit na sistema (They treat badly the people who produce these shows. That’s what’s contradicting here: beautiful shows produced within a system that’s rotten),” Cadag says.
Now working as a call center agent to sustain his family’s needs, Cadag is still hoping that the story of their plight will be heard.
Professor
Michael Francis Andrada started in 2003 as a junior faculty member in the University of the Philippines Los Baños. For three months, he ate pansit canton and eggs for his lunch and dinner, what with the little pay he gets from the state-owned school.
He suffered from kidney stones due to his diet.
His salary often doesn’t come out regularly. At one time, he received no salary for three months. He had to take on other jobs to survive.
It is the junior faculty, Andrada shares, who suffer the most in the academic sector. Usually, these starting faculty members are swamped with work, both academic and non-academic, in their efforts to attain tenure and promotion.
More than economic constraints, Andrada says he almost lost his job for being a political activist as an instructor. Andrada is currently the President of the All UP Academic Employees Union-Diliman Chapter.
“Pero na sa’yo pa naman ‘yun kung politically ipaglalaban mo ang iyong mga karapatan (It’s up to you if you will fight for your rights),” Andrada adds.
Andrada says he joined the Labor Day because he regards himself a worker in the academic sector.
(The authors and producers are University of the Philippines students doing their summer internship at VERA Files)
