Workers Charged PEZA Director General, Three Others For Rights Violation

From Workers Assistance Center:

Union secretary Merly Grafe of Kaisahan ng mga Manggagawa sa Phils. Jeon (KMPJ) and union president Resurreccion Ravelo of Nagkakaisang Manggagawa sa Chong Won Fashion (NMCW) had their complaints received by CHR-National Capital Region investigator Carlo Altiche.
The union leaders demanded to have the illegal and arbitrary acts allegedly committed by Director General De Lima, PEZA Industrial Relations Division Chief Atty. Mary Jane Arada, PEZA Police Chief Jose Sarasua, and Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief Inspector Audie Lirio Madrideo, head of the Rosario Municipal Police Station, investigated by the Commission.

Grafe and Ravelo are accusing the respondents of allegedly conspiring with each other in using their authority to blatantly violate the fundamental rights of the workers in connivance with the managements of the struck companies.

“Our government and its law is not with us. We follow the rule of law, yet our rights are being trampled and our bodies are being assaulted violently. Our Korean companies arrogantly-mocked our law, yet they are not being clubbed to suffer head and body injuries but rather enjoy full protection and relentless favor from the government,” according to the union’s joint statement.

In their complaint, they cited the violent dispersals of their strike carried out by PEZA and its security forces on September 25 and 27 in Chong Won and Phils. Jeon respectively without any lawful written order. A total of 50 workers on strike were injured in that separate incidents, including a three-month pregnant worker, Analyn Diaz, of Phils. Jeon who had a miscarriage days later.

According to Ravelo, “The September 25 and 27 violent incidents were the days we learned our painful lesson - that violence and repression is indeed a state policy.”

The union leaders also strongly condemn PEZA Director General De Lima for the blanket authority she gave, in particular, to Atty. Arada and Sarasua, in using violence, arbitrary and coercive acts against the workers on strike such as banning the entry of the strikers to the economic zone, continued enforcement of food and water blockade, supplying and escorting of scabs to get into the factory, confiscation of strikers’ company identification card and zone pass, and setting up of checkpoints to ensure no entry of strikers to their picket lines.

Ravelo and Grafe also lamented the further denigration of their rights. On October 19, without any provocation, and upon order from Atty. Arada, the combined force of Peza police, Rosario PNP, Jantro security guards, company guards, goons and scabs, dismantled the makeshift shelter of the strikers one after the other, according to them. The striking workers are now forced to stay in their picket lines in an open view under the heat of the sun and cold of the night.

Ravelo and Grafe further said that instead of resolving the labour dispute, the PEZA and the owners of the two Korean companies, shamefully conspired in undermining and stamping out their rights as workers and human being. Not only they were denied of their rights to strike and to bargain collectively, inhumanely, they are being denied of their most basic rights as human beings - their right to food and drinking water.

The unions at Chong Won Fashion Inc, a Wal-mart supplier, and at Phils. Jeon Garments Inc. went on strike on September 25 following the continued refusal by the two Korean-owned companies to commence negotiation for collective bargaining agreement (CBA) despite the finality of the decision of the Department of Labor and Employment declaring both unions as sole and exclusive bargaining representatives of all regular workers in the said companies.

Posted by Vasudha Desikan on Monday, March 05, 2007

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