On Friday, Sept 29, Philippine labor leaders & US advocates testified in a bipartisan Congressional briefing on the severe labor crisis in the Philippines, hosted by the office of Democrat Rep Susan Wild in cooperation with Republican Rep Brian Fitzpatrick. Among the speakers were Mylene Cabalona, President of BPO Industry Employees Network (BIEN), Raymon Basilio, Secretary General of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Melinda .
The International Trade Union Confederation has ranked the Philippines among the ten most repressive countries for workers and the labor movement over the past seven years. Under former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, there were 56 documented cases of labor-related extra-judicial killings. The January 2023 investigation by the International Labor Organization’s High-Level Tripartite Mission into labor rights in the Philippines documented “380 alleged local labor rights violations cases” and included initial findings that demonstrate a practice of baselessly linking unions to the ongoing insurgency in the country. Activists are regularly labeled by government bodies as “communist” or “terrorist,” essentially putting targets on their backs. The report finds a “climate of impunity” where workers cannot organize and exercise their rights without fear of retaliation.
Raymond Basilio described the attacks on his union: “In 2019, we have documented a total of 39 cases of illegal profiling of our members. These 39 cases involved 28,000 of our members. The profiling was conducted in a way where the Philippine National Police created an internal memoranda wherein their field officers were directed to list down names of our members and their whereabouts.”
Basilio was also among those targeted. Basilio commented, “I’ve received around twelve death threats from 2019, that involved me receiving direct calls, and I’ve had followers come after me on public transportation, they would just suddenly come up to me and say I was next on their list. They called my family members and friends to ask about my whereabouts.”
Kamz Deligente of the Centre for Trade Union Rights, remarked that the conditions of workers have only worsened under the Marcos Jr administration, despite domestic and international advocacy. “State forces through NTF-ELCAC implement an elaborate campaign to force unionists to disaffiliate from their respective unions. . . Imagine fully armed state forces going house to house in small communities, knocking on their doors, interrupting their families and telling them to disaffiliate from their unions, and saying their union funds are going to terrorists.”
Despite claiming to be worker centered, multinational corporations are pushing to use IPEF to place the rights of multinational corporations above those of workers, increase offshoring of jobs during an already severe unemployment crisis, give corporations and governments easy access to personal data for surveillance and profit motives, deregulate price and product quality standards, and the further erode democratic governance in countries throughout the Pacific.
It is particularly worrying that details of IPEF negotiations have remained largely secretive. Melinda St. Louis, Global Trade Watch director at Public Citizen , stated “Despite repeated demands from 400 civil society and dozens members of Congress, the negotiations [of IPEF] have been classified. What’s clear is there needs to be more than lip service paid to workers in the Philippines and other countries.”
Speaking on behalf of Communications Workers of America and promoting international solidarity among workers, Elena Lopez blasted not only the bad trade policies that hurt workers but further urged for sensible legislation like the Philippines Human Rights Act, HR 1433. “We all have the shared goal of fighting corporate greed and putting power in the back in the hands of workers. It’s important American workers and unions get involved because we face many of the same struggles workers face abroad. That’s why CWA is proud to support the Philippines Human Rights Act, which would help end the targeting of trade union activists.”
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