DoLE efforts to keep industrial peace attacks workers' rights

While the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) boasts that the labor and management situation is good in the past three years due to the declining rate of strikes, workers assert that DoLE's efforts to achieve industrial peace are actually direct attacks against inherent workers rights.

"DoLE's so-called promotion of industrial peace worsened the attacks against the ranks of unorganized and organized workers. Cases of trade union repression and violation of trade union and human rights continue to intensify because of DoLE's Assumption of Jurisdiction Order and other policies that aim to stifle the collective struggle of workers," said Elmer 'Bong' Labog, KMU chairperson.

More than 400 companies are set to renew Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) this year and DoLE anticipates lesser industry strikes in relation to its promotion of constructive bargaining between labor and management. DoLE Undersecretary Manuel Imson said they have recorded the lowest incidence of labor strike for the past 26 years.

But according to Labog, employers often use CBA negotiations to further undermine workers' collective effort for higher wages and better working conditions in their workplaces.

"Employers are even more ruthless in the negotiating table. They either negotiate in bad faith or delay the CBA negotiations by vehemently refusing wage increase demands and other beneficial contents of CBA proposals forwarded by labor unions. Business owners offer non-wage benefits and packages to avoid giving substantial pay hikes to their workers. Employers restrict workers from using their full potential during CBAs. In the labor sector, good CBA packages often strengthen the union and the workforce' bargaining power."

"Business owners often offer a "take it or leave it" proposal in CBAs, thus pushing labor unions to the limit, leaving them with their last and most effective weapon – launching strikes and other form of collective actions to press their demands."

"Like in the case of Danding Cojuangco's San Miguel Corporation Group of Companies, workers from SMC companies in National Capital Region are offered with lump sum payments in replacement of actual pay hikes. In previous years, workers of SMC have successfully improved their economic packages through CBA negotiations. But the SMC management is now doing all its efforts to gradually weaken the SMC workers' negotiating power by dividing the workforce through individual bargaining."

"In the SMC Group of Companies, Danding Cojuangco is institutionalizing lump sum pay than actual pay hikes, particularly in the first year of CBA. This lump sum scheme is actually a zero wage hike which benefit Danding Cojuangco and other shrewd capitalists. The lump sum package is tempting but actual computation would show that tens of thousand pesos per worker are deprived by management of San Miguel, especially in the first year of CBA. We must expose and oppose this one form of exploitation and deception by big capitalists, including Danding," said Labog.