PMA wins in certification election in an EPZ-located Japanese electronics firm

AFTER a second attempt in three years, a Japanese electronics company inside a Special Export Processing Zone (SEPZ) in the Philippines was unionized when majority of its regular workers voted to have a union in a certification election (C.E.) on Sept. 18, which was marred by sweet-talks and threats of “closure” from management.

Winning convincingly by 220 “yes” against 134 “no” votes, the yes-to-union-approval was a huge vindication for the Katolec Philippines Corp. Labor Union (KAPLU-PMA) and a great reversal of the shocking results during a similar C.E. in 2010, when the “yes” votes were routed by the “no” votes by more than 200 ballots.

Despite its devastating defeat in 2010, KAPLU – which was organized by and affiliated to the PMA – continued to advocate for the Katolec workers even without the assurance that they would eventually support the union.

For instance, KAPLU and PMA quietly assisted the workers from simple advice to their workplace problems to helping in some grievances at work and to the filing of money claims – selfless and actually risky efforts for a non-incumbent union then, which, however, were aptly rewarded with the C.E. victory last Wednesday.

Like in the 2010 C.E., a few weeks before this month’s C.E., the company management became surprisingly accommodating and generous to the rank and file employees, including holding games, team-building exercises and family day gathering, as well as providing or promising groceries and bonuses.

KAPLU revealed that the real motive behind this sudden and temporary “goodwill” of management was to “bribe” or entice the workers to vote “no” again or to reject once more the union, adding that after the “no” landslide in 2010, these unexpected benefits also quickly disappeared.

This “carrot” come-on was, as expected, accompanied by a “stick,” when management strongly warned the workers that voting for “yes” means choosing a bleak future since having a union would allegedly cause the shutting down of the Katolec Philippines Corp. (KAP).

Even after the Sept. 18 C.E., the Katolec management has continued to sow fear among the workers by spreading the threat of “closure.”

“Unions as ‘job destroyers’ are already old, rehashed and discredited black propaganda. The union will only ask the company what are rightfully due to the workers. Likewise, the Katolec Corp., here in the Philippines and in its international operations, are currently enjoying profitable business, thus closing its plant in Laguna is ridiculous,” the PMA explained.

According to KAP, the company has a total workforce of 599 employees as of March 31, 2013, and about 366 of them are regular rank and file.

Established in 1996, KAP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Katolec Corp. in Japan. The latter, formally started in 1967, has offices and manufacturing and assembly plants in Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Mexico.

Katolec firms are mainly engaged in the manufacturing and assembly of electronic components or involved in a so-called new type of business called electronic manufacturing service (EMS), and with clients among big companies in the electronics and transportation industries in many countries.

KAP’s assembly plant – its primary product is the printed circuit board (PCB) – is one of several foreign firms operating at the SEPZ in Laguna Technopark in Santa Rosa City, Laguna province. This 450-hectare private industrial estate, which straddles the cities of Santa Rosa and Biñan in Laguna, is a joint venture of Ayala Land, a premier property developer in the country, and the giant Japanese conglomerates Mitsubishi Corp. and Kawasaki Steel Corp.

KAPLU is a member of the Philippine Metalworkers’ Alliance (PMA), which has currently 25 incumbent affiliate unions in the metal and metal-related industries in the country, including automotive, electrical and electronics, iron and steel, and shipbuilding subsectors.

PMA is a founding organization of the new labor center Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (SENTRO), in which Francisco Mero, PMA national president, was elected as the chairperson during its founding congress last Aug. 30-31.

PMA is also affiliated to the Geneva-based IndustriALL global union, which is composed of at least 50 million trade unionists in 140 countries and territories who represent “workers across supply chains in mining, energy and manufacturing sectors.”

IndustriALL was founded in Copenhagen only last year from the merger of three former global union federations (GUFs) – International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM), and International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation (ITGLWF).

P10 wage hike in NCR a ‘slap in our face’

THE NEW labor center Sentro described Wage Order No. 18 for private sector workers in the National Capital Region (NCR) as like a slap in the face of workers while corporate profits are enjoying historic highs and the country’s politicians are wading in tons of stolen taxes from workers – also known as pork barrel.

This was the biting reaction of the Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro) to the announcement last Friday of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) that the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) in NCR has approved a P10 hike in the current P456 minimum wage in Metro Manila.

“Once again, DOLE and RTWPB have shown their absurdity and incredible insensitivity toward the dire need of the workers for sufficient pay raises amid the worsening poverty and the continued inability of the vast majority of workers to afford even the basic necessities of their families,” Josua Mata, Sentro secretary general, said.

Not even half of the living wage or cost of living

Studies show that the cost of living or the “family living wage” in Metro Manila in the first quarter of this year already ranges from P1,034 to P1,200, which means that the new P466 minimum wage could not even pay for half of the essential goods and services, especially food, needed every day by a family of six.

More than P90 is also actually reduced everyday from the face value of the salary of the private sector workers in Metro Manilaprimarily due to the combined depreciation of the real value or purchasing power of the peso (PPP) and inflation or surge in the costs or prices of basic commodities and services.

Thus, a research institute claimed that last March, the real value of the P456 daily minimum wage was in fact only P363.

Even government data admit that there is a consistent drop in the PPP – using 2006 as the base year or when there was a full value of the peso – where the real value of P1 was merely 79 centavos (national) or 83 centavos (NCR) in 2011 to 75 centavos (national) or 79 centavos (NCR) as of June this year.

Paltry ‘increase’ amid huge profits and scandalous wealth of the few

Records reveal that the net income of the listed companies in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has skyrocketed to P501.3 billion last year from P438.1 billion in 2010, when the Aquino administration assumed office.

In a nine-month period (January-September) only last year, these corporations amassed cumulative net profits by almost 18 percent, or to P377.12 billion from P319.97 billion in the same period in 2011.

Their consolidated revenues also shot up to P3.29 trillion from P2.74 trillion during the said span of nine months only or a 20.1 percent year-on-year hike.

In particular, the Philippine Top 1,000 Corporations have piled up a growing combined net income of P756 billion in 2009, P804.1 billion in 2010, and P868.1 billion in 2011.

On the other hand, the country’s 40 richest families have obtained astonishing net worths of US$22.8 billion in 2010, $34 billion in 2011, and $47.4 billion last year or equivalent to at least 21 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012, which was $257.5 billion or P10.6 trillion ($1 = P41 rate then).

According to the latest Forbes’ list in 2013 (as of July), the wealth of the Philippine “40 richest” has even multiplied further to $64.2 billion. Add to that the $1.54 billion of 10 more richest Filipino families, the country’s “richest 50” have a mind-boggling$65.7 billion in wealth.

In fact, the combined assets of the 17 Filipino billionaires (in US dollars) in that list already account to a staggering $54.4 billion or about P2.4 trillion in the prevailing US$1 to P44.4 exchange rate.

Income inequality has barely changed in the past decades as statistics disclose that the top 20 percent or richest families in 2009 control almost 52 percent of the country’s total family income, while the bottom or poorest 80 percent compete for the 48 percent remaining “crumbs of income.”

Likewise, even the conservative data on “poor” people being issued by the government still prove that poverty rates have hardly changed from 28.8 percent of the population in 2006 to 27.9 percent last year.

Low wage + inflation = further suffering for the majority

Coinciding with the wage “hike” announcement last week was the jubilant report also of the government that the country achieved a four-year low in inflation rate of 2.1 percent last month supposedly prompted by “cheaper” electricity and gas prices.

Mata expressed concern that this could be used as one of the justifications for the insignificant P10 addition in the minimum wage.

However, even the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) has conceded in July that indeed “the country’s poorest households suffer the most from the rapid rise in the prices of consumer goods and services compared with the rest of the population.”

NSCB data also admit that the costs of food and non-food needs of households in the “bottom 30 percent of the population rose by an average of 5.7 percent from 2003 to 2012 – faster than the 4.6 percent national inflation average.”

The report said that food accounts for 74.5 percent of the consumer basket of the poorest 30 percent as opposed to the 50 percent national average.

Cheap wage come-on

That the “high” wages of Filipino workers, particularly in Metro Manila, is a main factor that discourages many foreign firms to invest in the country is a rehashed and baseless contention of unscrupulous employers and the government, Mata added.

In fact, “reasonable salary rates” – a euphemism for generally cheap wages – in the country was a major reason for Japanese companies to choose the Philippines as “the most profitable location in Asia and Oceania region,” according to a survey released in February by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO).

The capitalist dictum that lower wages “means lower cost of doing business” has made the Philippines a “profit center” as the country emerged as having the lowest salary base rate at 5.2 percent, according to the JETRO poll – compared with Malaysia’s 5.3 percent, China’s 9.4 percent, India’s 11.8 percent, Indonesia’s 17 percent, Thailand’s 6.5 percent and Vietnam’s 17.5 percent.

In the same survey, the Philippines placed second in the category of annual salary, which includes the total amount each worker receives in the form of “base salary, allowances, overtime incentives, bonuses, social security, among others.”

The Philippines and Vietnam were the two countries in the region with the lowest annual salary of workers in certain manufacturing firms, while in the non-manufacturing sector, the Philippines came out as having the “cheaper labor cost,” which is, for instance, the key basis for BPO (business process outsourcing) companies, especially call centers, in India (with a high 17.3 percent annual wage rate) to shift their operations to the Philippines.