BEZ workers set up ‘protest huts’ to question unfair labor schemes

MARIVELES, Bataan — Some 500 laid-off workers at the Bataan Economic Zone here constructed yesterday "protest huts" in front of the BEZ administration building to protest their retrenchment, as well as unfair labor practices.

Emily Fajardo, spokesperson for the Alyansa ng Manggagawa sa Bataan-Bataan Labor Alliance (AMBA-BALA), said "the symbolic act of putting up makeshift huts in front of the BEZ building was to protest the various unfair labor practices at the Bataan Economic Zone." She reported that scores of workers at the BEZ have recently been retrenched.

Fajardo also cited growing cases of delayed wages and trumped-up criminal and administrative charges being filed and used as grounds to lay-off union leaders.

She also cited the "unusual" case of displaced workers of the Iwahori-Philippines, Inc. She said that BEZ authorities have asked that workers settle corporate taxes and ecozone duties after their factory was unexpectedly abandoned by the management.

AMBA-BALA accused BEZ officials of tolerating violations of labor laws here by foreign factory owners.

The Labor Alliance for Workers’ Struggle (LAWS), an alliance of unions in the Bataan province together with its lawyer Atty. Virgie Suarez Pinlac, who once acted as legal counsel of whistle-blower Acsa Ramirez but tagged by the NBI as a suspect in the LandBank tax scam a few years ago, strongly denounced unfair labor practices here, saying that such practices are rooted as the country’s "labor system."

Pinlac lamented BEZ officials and the Department of Labor and Employment for "allowing an oppressive set-up in our labor system — where a worker must first suffer from losing his job before a court decides he has the right to keep his position."

Pinlac said that "our labor and local government officials have thoroughly forgotten their mandate to ensure the rights and welfare of our Filipino workers, and instead, have become the mouthpiece of foreign capitalists."

Pinlac also cited the need for efforts to review the present labor practices and laws pertaining to the operation of economic zones that have put workers’ rights and welfare at a disadvantage, given proposals by Sen. Richard Gordon that foreign investors be given more benefits and incentives to spur investments in economic zones nationwide.

AMBA-BALA officials said they plan to hold on to their protest moves in their makeshift huts here for as long as it takes until those retrenched are returned to their jobs.