As workers around the world commemorate the International Labor Day today, May 1, 2020, the workers of Alyansa ng Manggagawa ng Bataan-Bataan Labor Alliance (AMBA-BALA) and Freeport Workers League (FWL), affiliates of Workers for Peoples’ Liberation (WPL) launched a protest despite of the lockdown using the digital platform.
AMBA-WPL members resorted to online protest thru their social media accounts posteing pictures of empty pots/cauldron bearing the slogans
“Kalderong walang laman, sikmurang kumakalam! Ayuda at CAMP, kagyat ilaan!” as it describes the sorry plight of the workers during this time of COVID19 pandemic.
“Dati nang kulang ang kita at benepisyo na tinatanggap ng manggagawa bago pa man ang COVID19, pero pilit na pinagkakasya para sa pamilya, pero ngayon, walang trabaho, walang sahod, lalong lumala ang kahirapan, yung pangakong ayuda ng gobyerno, inabot na ng siyam-siyam!”, lamented Elpidio Avellanoza, Secretary of DEA-WPL.
He said Covid-19 and quarantines will not deter them from protesting and the workers will use their Facebook accounts as platforms to express dismay over the dismal assistance given to them by the government.
Avellanoza said that since day one (March 15) of the lockdown, the workers have demanded that support from the government is necessary for them to cope up with their daily needs as they have no source of income and they are forced to stay at home.
However, as of April 23, 2020, the DOLE Regional Office thru its official facebook account reported that a total of 475 companies composed largely of SMEs and 8,468 workers in Bataan (as of April 12, 2020) have been approved and benefitted under the COVID19 Adjustment Measures (CAMP)-DOLE.
To date, Dunlop located at the Freeport Area of Bataan, is the only company employing more than 500 workers to have benefitted from the CAMP, while the rest are still awaiting for the promised assistance.
“Paano naman kaming mga manggagawa na hindi pa nakakatanggap ng ayuda mula sa DOLE? Halos dalawang buwan na kaming walang hanap-buhay, bukod sa pagkain, saan namin kukunin ang pambayad ng upa, tubig, ilaw, at utang?” said Jomari Bertillo, President of DLX Union.
He further reiterated that the government’s COVID-19 response, thus, made it more difficult for the workers and their families to protect themselves from the virus.
“Food aid came late and random. Work, pay, savings and alternative livelihood are unavailable during ECQ,” Bertillo lamented.
Furthermore, under this “extremely difficult circumstances” the AMBA-WPL believes that uncertainty of work conditions, dislocation and the lack of occupational safety and hazard would get worse when factories resume their operation as the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) is lifted on May 15, 2020 due to a crisis that the COVID19 has revealed.
Meanwhile transport leaders from KASAKBAYAN stands resolute in claiming their benefits promised to them by the government either thru SAP or CAMP. Leaders of KASAKBAYAN expressed their demand for the continued support as the new adjustments to public transport would greatly affect their daily income.
“We want the government to seriously look into the plight of the workers as they are the economic force of society. At the end of the day, this COVID19 pandemic has shown that human needs are more essential than profit” added Avellanoza.
What would the new normal means for us workers? That is if long-held practices and policies like contractualization, lack of security of tenure, bargaining rights, poor working conditions and the low income of workers would be scrapped and changed by policies that would prioritize the sector and synchronize this with an appropriate national economic and industrial development program. It does not mean economic dislocation but job creation, Avellanoza, ended.
The group calls on the government to be “true to their Constitutional mandate and set aside their own vested interests specially at the time of crisis.”