Only 10% of wage workers in RP covered by unions

by Carmela Fonbuena, Newsbreak | 05/01/2009 8:59 PM

The electronics industry has been hit hard by the global financial crisis, but despite this, employees of Makati-based TEMIC Automotive Inc., makers of electronics components for motor vehicles, have found a way to soften its impact.

While they were unable to stop the company from downsizing operations to save their jobs, thanks to their labor union, they were able to negotiate with management to give them a better deal—voluntary retirement instead of outright retrenchment.  

“We were able to negotiate with management to give the employees an additional package. They were able to get bigger separation pay,” says Alvin Gonzalez, the president of the union.  

In 2008, 167 employees availed themselves of the voluntary retirement package. In March, an additional 131 employees availed of the package.  The future is never certain for the remaining employees. “It’s day-to-day survival,” Gonzalez says. But at least they know that they can count on the union to make the impact of the crisis easier.  

Labor unions

Majority of the salary and wage workers in the Philippines does not have the protection that the employees of TEMIC have. According to the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, employees in private enterprises belonging to labor unions plunged by more than half, from a peak of 3.6 million in 2001 to only 1.6 million as of September 2008.  

The decline in union membership, coupled with a growing labor force in recent years, mean that less than a tenth of wage and salaried workers belong to a union, down from 25 percent as recently as 2001.  

According to scholars and labor activists, globalization is the main culprit for the decline of labor unions. In order to compete with cheaper goods from other countries, notably China, companies sought to become more competitive by becoming leaner and more flexible.  

To do this, managers have used various schemes, good and bad, to prevent their employees from forming labor unions.  

“Your flexibility to respond quickly is limited if you have a union,” a human resource manager who worked with various multinational companies told Newsbreak.  
“Without unions, companies have relative stability. They can easily commit to a customer. They can forecast. The process of decision making is shortened. If you have a union, you always have to put them in the loop,” he added.

BPOs: No need
  
The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is one sector the labor movement finds difficult to get into. Despite serious welfare issues like health and working hours, the employees—most of them young and fresh from college—are generally paid higher than employees in other industries.

“Employees feel no need for unionism. They are paid well and we have regular forums for management and team communications,” said Oscar Sañez, chief executive officer of the Business Process Association of the Philippines.  

Globalization also saw the rise the following tactics: labor subcontracting, changing of work hours, and hiring of casual, part-time, temporary, and contract workers. While the law allows employees to be members of unions on their first day at work, non-regular  workers rarely become members.  

KMU’s Ustarez blames it on the declining political consciousness among Filipinos. “All they see is their job. They don’t see the bigger problem that’s affecting them,” Ustarez says.  

Federation of Free Workers (FFW) vice president Jose Sonny Matula acknowledges the shortcomings of the labor movement. He says they cannot reach out to as many workers because of limited resources.  

“We don’t have enough resources,” he says, adding that European labor unions that used to be supportive of labor movement in the Philippines have concentrated their resources in eastern Germany.