From the News! – Your Daily News

Martin P. Marfil
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The team of inspectors sent Thursday by the Department of Labor and Employment to the Anvil Ensembles factory in the eastern town of Taytay in Rizal province said workers continued to work under substandard conditions.

It noted the presence of numerous flies and some dogs at the workers’ eating area, and said the two-story factory lacked toilets.

This was how the team, headed by Dr. Melba Sacro of the Bureau of Working Conditions, described the working conditions in a report:

The ground floor housing the bundling, warehouse, pressing, quality-control and sampling areas had two large industrial ceiling fans but both were not in operation, resulting in a “generally hot with poor ventilation” area.

The second floor housing the entire sewing section was well-lit and well-ventilated, with open windows on its sides. But only five workers were seen wearing face masks, and these were “improvised.”

The women’s toilet was located on the second floor, and the men’s toilet, on the ground floor.

“As to the workers allegations of unhygienic conditions, we found the comfort rooms to be smelly and dirty…” the team said. “The number of comfort rooms is inadequate. In the receiving area adjacent to the kitchen and men’s room, we noticed so many flies. Pet dogs were atop benches and tables that were used by workers for eating.”

On Jan. 30, Anvil workers filed a complaint with the DOLE saying management had violated labor laws and standards.

They complained of underpayment (100 to 190 pesos per day, no pay slips), no holiday pay, no 13th-month pay, no night shift differential pay, no service incentive leave, no morning and afternoon breaks, prohibition to go to the toilets, no social security coverage, no maternity benefits and forced overtime.

Rene E. Ofreneo
Manila Times

The nation was shocked to read the investigative report on Anvil Ensemble, a Taytay, Rizal-based garments subcontractor, which required its workers to work continuously –day and night–for 48 to 72 hours just to be able to meet its export targets. To fight drowsiness and sleepiness at work, the workers, according to the report, were given duromine, a drug that works like a viagra at work.

One of the unhappy readers of the story is Donald Dee, President of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Confederation of Garments Exporters of the Philippines (Congep). Both ECOP and Congep have been waging a campaign for employers, especially exporters, to observe the minimum labor standards and to continuously upgrade their industrial relations practices.

As head of ECOP and Congep, Dee has good reasons to be unhappy. The news stories about Anvil and other garments sweatshops such as Karayom and Bylson, whose owners “disappeared” without paying the firms’ obligations to the workers, would force buyers of Philippine-sewn garments to scale down job orders and shift to other producers in the world market.

This is so because global buyers and retailers of labor-intensive products have become very sensitive to charges of promoting exploitation through labor sweatshops in Third World countries. Militant consumer groups such as the Clean Clothes Campaign in Europe and the No-Sweat movement in North America have forced a growing number of global buyers and retailers to source garments and light products only from socially-responsible contractors or sub-contractors who observe international labor conventions and comply with national labor standard laws on minimum wages, work hours, overtime pay and so on. These international buyers and retailers require their suppliers from developing countries to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy on any violation of the international labor conventions and the national labor laws.

Thus, when garments producers in Saipan were found to be using illegal migrant workers, mostly Chinese who were paid below the minimum and made to work under substandard working conditions, garments job orders for Saipan dried up. In Indonesia last year, Nike’s decision not to continue business with a contractor found violating Indonesia’s labor laws led to the closure of some factories producing Nike shoes.

To ensure labor standard compliance, global buyers and retailers such as Levi’s and Gap are requiring their partner subcontractors to adopt and adhere to “Codes of Conduct” containing pledges upholding labor rights. However, other global buyers and retailers simply ask their subcontractors to undergo a social and labor audit and get an SA 8000 certification. Like the ISO 9000 certification on quality assurance and the ISO 14000 certification on environmental friendliness, SA 8000 is given to companies which pass a social and labor audit conducted by the New York-based Social Accountability International (SAI). SA means “social accountability”.

In Asia, China has the most number of SA 8000 certifications. This means Chinese exporters of garments, toys and other light products are aware that preserving and expanding their share in the world market means compliance with the requirements of an increasingly discriminating consumer market.

So how should the Philippines adjust to these realities of the global market and to the investigative exposé on Anvil, Karayom and Bylson?

Anvil is a good opportunity for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), ECOP and Congep to intensify their campaign for local industries to modernize and become competitive.

Of course, part of the modernization program is the modernization of industrial relations and human resources management practices of companies. For example, workers’ skills must be upgraded to enable them to handle multiple and more complicated tasks. Skills and versatility are better and less conflict-prone forms of labor flexibility compared to massive casualization which is the norm in companies such as Anvil.

Productivity enhancement programs will not work without the cooperation and positive attitudes of the workers. So employers must by necessity invest on the development of sound labor relations practices such as the promotion of team work, open communication with employees, transparent system of discipline and grievance handling, employee empowerment through involvement in problem solving, and so on.

In short, there should be a conscious policy to promote the high road to industrial development and industrial relations practices, which is the only road to Philippine competitiveness. For the other road means maintaining low technology and poor working conditions, including casualization of labor en masse. As shown by Anvil, this road is a formula for low productivity, endless labor tensions and eventually, shrinking global market share.

For the high road to be taken by the local industry players, the government should take the lead. DTI and the Department of Labor and Employment should wage a campaign against sweatshops and should prod industries to keep on modernizing. The National Economic Development Authority, DTI and the Tariff Commission should use the tariff instrument to force industries to submit modernization programs with clear doables. The Comission on Higher Education and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority should be able to anticipate the educational and skills development requirements of restructuring or modernizing industries.

As shown by the experience of our neighbors in East Asia, taking the high road means having an activist and forward-looking government.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Your expose on Anvil Garments has caused the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to raise the red light against sweatshops (July 11, 2003). Unfortunately, surprise visits on business enterprises will not be enough. Unless and until the government dismantles the laws and policies that allow capital’s debasement of labor, sweatshops are here to stay.

For instance, Republic Act 9718, the Barangay Business Enterprise Act of 2002, was enacted last year as a priority measure of the administration. Under this law, companies whose assets do not exceed three million pesos can register as “barangay” [village or neighborhood district] business enterprises and be exempted from the coverage of the minimum wage law. About 90 percent of business enterprises in the country have assets below three million pesos. This means that most companies, upon registration under RA 9178, will no longer be legally liable if they pay their workers salaries below the minimum wage. How then can the government rail against the practice of paying slave wages to workers when the law allows the same?

We should also note that Congress will soon consider the New Labor Code, which was recently approved by the congressional oversight committee on labor and employment. The proposed law further liberalizes labor contracting, allows working time beyond the eight-hour period without overtime pay and enables management to offset overtime work with undertime. Malacañang is exerting considerable efforts to get the measure enacted. This will turn the entire country into one giant sweatshop.

Where then is the seriousness in the administration’s tirade against sweatshops?

A deeper look into the problem points to globalization and liberalization as major factors behind the proliferation of sweatshops. More often, the difficulties of local enterprises in competing against foreign products cause them to resort to cost-saving measures like the hiring of contractual workers, payment of slave wages, non-remittance of premiums to the Social Security System, and other practices that go against the fundamental rights of the workers. It is also in pursuit of the globalization and liberalization policies blindly embraced by the government that it has caused the passage of legislation that tramples upon basic labor rights. The government, therefore, has a huge share of the blame and could not wash its hands simply by resorting to empty rhetoric.

If the government really wants to make headway in the battle against sweatshops, it should start by stopping its all-out globalization program, working for the repeal of the anti-labor provisions of RA 9178, halting the passage of the New Labor Code, and adopting pro-labor policies that truly empower the workers instead of treating them as sacrificial lambs on the altar of capitalist greed.

–REMIGIO D. SALADERO JR., Pro-Labor Legal Assistance Center, 33-B E. Rodriguez Avenue, Quezon City

Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Mahirap matulog ang gutom (The hungry have a hard time sleeping),” says Joel Buela, union president of A. Bylsons Co. Inc., a garments firm based in Las Piñas City in Metro Manila, which unceremoniously closed shop last April.

Buela was referring to the controversy over another garments firm, Anvil Ensembles, whose workers had accused management of overworking them to the point of plying them with drugs so they could stay awake and work with hardly a break for up to three days straight.

In the view of Buela and his co-workers, as well as the workers of another prematurely closed garment firm, Karayom Garments Manufacturing Inc. in the Bicutan area of Taguig City in Metro Manila, the sleepless workers of Anvil are at least fortunate enough to still be holding jobs.

I spoke with two officers of the Karayom Garments union: Nemia Casulla, president; and Tess Peralta, who together with more than 700 other workers at Karayom Garments have been mounting a picket for seven months now after the management, without informing them and filing an application for temporary closure on the same day, padlocked their premises last Jan. 6.

Karayom management cited “lack of orders” for 2003 in their application for temporary closure, but the workers find this hard to believe, saying that before the closure, the company was producing and shipping out 500 dozen garments daily, solely for export, and carrying such prestigious brands as Levi’s, Gap, and The Children’s Place.

Management’s unilateral and sudden decision, says Casulla, was particularly painful because for the past 27 years, “maganda naman ang takbo ng aming trabaho” [our work was proceeding well]. Fully 95 percent of Karayom Garments workers are women, and the overwhelming majority belongs to the local union Samahan ng Manggagawa sa Karayom Garments, represented by the National Federation of Labor (NFL). The longest-serving employee has been with the company for 27 years, while the newest workers, apart from the temporary hires, were hired three years ago. Most of the workers have been employed for about 15 years.

* * *

Issues being raised by the Karayom union are: payment of 1.5 weeks unpaid salary for December 2002, payment of 60 percent of their 13th-month pay; payment of 2002 unpaid vacation and sick leaves convertible to cash as stated in the collective bargaining agreement, and unremitted contributions to the Social Security System (SSS), the Pag-IBIG housing fund, and PhilHealth health insurance.

For seven months now, say Casulla and Peralta, they have had to subsist on the charity of family and friends. While they could have borrowed from the SSS to tide them over, they cannot avail themselves of loans because, as SSS employees told them, the company had at least 24 months’ arrears.

Thus, while the union has filed charges of illegal closure and unpaid salaries and benefits with the labor department, it has also filed criminal and administrative charges against the owner, Turkish national Yusuf Suveyky, who is married to a Filipina, for alleged nonremittance of SSS premiums.

* * *

While A. Bylsons and Sons is much smaller than Karayom Garments, with 95 workers in its employ, the workers, represented by the union ABELU-NFL, have also raised much the same issues as the Karayom Garments workers.

One common issue is a suspected ploy by the owners of both firms of opening what are commonly known as “runaway shops” in other locales, a tactic resorted to by troubled companies who wish to continue their businesses while avoiding their expensive but legal obligations to the workers of the shuttered firms.

Those observing and studying the troubled garments industry say the situation faced by the workers of Karayom Garments and Bylsons is symptomatic of the rest of the industry. While they recognize that the industry is in dire straits, says Casulla, everyone in it should be asked to do their part, “huwag naman workers lang ang mag-sakripisyo (it shouldn’t be just the workers who are making sacrifices).”

More on this issue on Friday.

Luige del Puerto
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Garments factory Anvil Ensembles has started paying its workers a settlement amount in back wages and unpaid benefits.

This has satisfied “for now” the Department of Labor and Employment and the Garments and Textiles Export Board.

As a result, the GTEB, which appropriates quota on exports, allowed the company in Taytay town, Rizal to ship baby dresses to the United States worth about 8,000 dollars Saturday, according to GTEB executive director Serafin Juliano.

Juliano said the shipment is part of an order worth 500,000 dollars which Anvil received this year.

But a “preventive suspension” against the company remains, Juliano said.

Juliano said the GTEB has suspended Anvil’s export license to pressure it to comply with DoLE’s orders, and as a penalty for submitting “fraudulent documents” during an inspection.

“Every time there is an application (by Anvil) to export, we will check with DoLE and the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. It will be allowed to export on a per order basis,” he said.

Anvil was the subject of an Inquirer special report early this month. The report said Anvil violated labor laws and offered its workers a weight-loss drug to keep them awake during three-day shifts.

Juliano said the TGEB executive committee met the other night with Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas, Anvil representatives Margie Lazo and Augusto Lazo, TUCP spokesperson Alex Aguilar and Anvil union president Lorna de la Cruz.

“We based our decision (to allow Anvil to ship its products) on the satisfaction of the workers,” Juliano said. “(Also), for as long as DoLE agrees with the measures Anvil is doing, we can release its export license.”

Juliano said GTEB would be evaluating Anvil from time to time to make sure it “is taking care of the welfare of workers.”

TUCP field officer Rey Reyes said Anvil has already paid many of its workers up to 21,000 pesos in back wages and unpaid benefits.

DoLE earlier ordered the company to pay its workers 5.8 million pesos or 42,679.70 pesos each.

Anvil has opted to settle with workers. It contended that the DoLE list of Anvil workers who should receive back wages and other benefits was outdated, and should therefore not receive uniform payment.

Abante

Binawi ng Garments andTextile Export Board (GTEB), isang ahensiya ng Department of Trade and Industry, ang certificate of compliance ng Anvil Ensembles, sa ilalim ng re-accreditation program ng ahensiya.

Sinabi ni Executive Director Serafin N. Juliano na pansamantala ring nire-revoke ng ahensya ang accreditation ng Anvil bilang miyembro ng Mercedes International Common Bonded Manufacturing Warehouse (CBMW) sa loob ng 15 araw.

Sinabihan kahapon ni Juliano si Margie Lazo, chairman ng Anvil Ensembles na base sa audit inspection, nakita na karamihan sa mga trabahador ng Anvil ay mababa sa minimum ang sinasahod at hindi lahat ay may SSS, Philhealth at Pag-ibig.

RP Daily Exposé

Ni-revoke ng Garments and Textile Export Board, isang ahensiyang Deprtment of Trade and Industry, ang certificate of compliance ng Anvil Ensembles, sa ilalim ng re-accreditation program ng ahensiya.

Sinabi ni Executive Director Serafin N. Juliano na pansamantala ring nire-revoke ng ahensya ang membership ng Anvil sa Mercedes International Common Bonded Manufactring Warehouse (CBMW) sa loob ng 15 araw.

Disqualified ang kompanya sa quota allocation sa loob ng 60 araw. Suspendido rin ang processing ng ano mang application ng Anvil sa susunod na 15 araw at nasa QTEB watehlist ang kompanya.

Sinabi ni Juliano na ang suspension ay kasunod ng audit inspection na ginawa sa Anvil ng isang team na binubuo ng mga auditor at kinatawan buhat sa SQB, Intertek Testing Services at GTEB.

Sinabihan kahapon ni Juliano si Margie Lazo, chairman ng Anvil Ensembles na base sa inspection, nakita na karamihan sa mga trabahador ng Anvil ay mababa sa minimum ang sinasahod at hindi lahat ay may SSS, Philhealth at Pag-lbig.

Ang Anvil ay re-accredited sa ilalim ng GTEB Re-accreditation Program noong Hulyo 2002 at binigyan ng certificate of compliance na may bisa hanggang Disyembre 31,2003.

Binibigyan ang Anvil ng 15 araw para magsumite ng beripikadong sagot sa GTEB.

Juliet Javellana and Gil Cabacungan Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Considered drug pushers

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Friday warned employers who use drugs to keep workers awake that the government would treat them as severely as possible.

The President said surprise inspections would make sure employers behave.

“We will not tolerate sweatshops and we will act very strongly against firms employing or abetting the use of illegal drugs to keep their workers awake and alert to the prejudice of their health. We will treat such employers as drug pushers under the law,” the President said in a statement. Under the law, the penalty for drug pushing is “life imprisonment to death” and a fine ranging from 500,000 to 10 million pesos.

Ms Macapagal ordered the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to work with the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) “to monitor these unsavory practices and stop them.”

On Wednesday, the President instructed Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas to investigate Anvil Ensembles, a garment factory in Taytay town, Rizal province, whose workers told the Inquirer that they were given drugs to keep them working for three days straight.

“Look into that. You know, I came from GTEB so we cannot allow this thing to continue,” Sto. Tomas quoted the President as saying.

Ms Macapagal headed the Garments and Textile Export Board of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) before running for the Senate.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the President was dismayed when she read last week’s Inquirer report about substandard wages and working conditions at Anvil, which makes baby clothes for leading American companies.

Bunye said the President had instructed Sto. Tomas to investigate and sanction the erring factory.

“Our President was once undersecretary of DTI and the (GTEB) was under her supervision. So it is very important for her that garment factories, especially the exporters, should be socially compliant,” Bunye said in an interview with the state-run dzRB.

The Confederation of Garments Exporters of the Philippines also put part of the burden of ridding the garment industry of sweatshops on the government. Chairman Donald Dee said the Philippine garment industry could avert a backlash from international buyers as long as the government and industry undertake concrete measures to discover and penalize labor code transgressors among apparel makers.

Audit teams mulled

One of the measures being eyed by the government and industry was the deployment of special auditing teams that would make surprise inspections of garment factories in the country. The Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) has sent 13 individuals to undergo seminars sponsored by the International Labor Organization for corporate social responsibility and Dee said they would be included in the audit teams.

According to Dominador Tuvera, assistant director of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines’ anti-sweatshop project, the number of sweatshops in the country has risen from 202 in 2001 to 254 last year.

The numbers, he said, was based on a random survey they conducted earlier.

Dee said that international buyers–which are averse to buying from sweatshop factories–were “closely watching” how the government and the industry would address the problem.

Dee noted that the local garment industry signed a responsible apparel-manufacturing compact with international buyers in 1999 to maintain world-class labor standards in factories here. “But I cannot guarantee that everybody in our industry is complying, especially since there are about 800 small garment factories in the country,” Dee said.

Sto. Tomas struck the same pessimistic note, admitting that it would be hard to promise that the Anvil case would not be repeated.

“It’s probably hard to say that this won’t happen again, because, you know, lack of compliance with labor standards is not just simply a matter of enforcement, it’s also a matter of capability,” Sto. Tomas said.

In Congress, Partido ng Manggagawa party-list Congressman Renato Magtubo asked Ms Macapagal to certify pro-labor reform bills as priority and urgent measures when she delivers her State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 28.

“The Anvil exposé? is the embodiment of the state of the working class. Hence, we demand that the coming SONA should contain solutions to the problems of the ordinary working family,” Magtubo said.

Magtubo suggested that the President direct the enactment of bills that would criminalize violations of the labor code, deputize union presidents and officers as DoLE inspectors and foster an enabling law to implement the “living wage” provision of the Constitution.
Accreditation revoked

Meanwhile, the GTEB has revoked the accreditation of Anvil, barring the controversial company from taking orders for products that fall under the “critical” category. This includes major garments such as pants, T-shirts, and jackets, said Ismael Cordon, assistant chief of GTEB’s auditing and inspection division.

Cordon said with the revocation of Anvil’s compliance certificate, the company would again have to undergo the long process of inspection by the government agency if it wished to regain its accreditation. He said the inspection process involves an extensive investigation of all aspects of its business operations, including work environment and provision of proper employee benefits, among others.

GTEB Executive Director Serafin Juliano also said the government agency has placed the garment firm on its watch list.

Juliano said the imposition of the penalties was made following an audit inspection on Anvil conducted by a team composed of representatives of auditing firm SGV & Co., Intertek Testing Services, and the GTEB.

The inspection, said Juliano, led to the conclusion that most of Anvil’s workers were paid below the minimum wage and were not provided standard employee benefits, such as Philhealth, Social Security System and Pag-Ibig services.

Anvil’s most recent re-accreditation was issued in July last year, and was supposed to be valid until Dec. 31 of this year.

A letter from Juliano to Anvil chair Margie Lazo read in part: “It was established that fraudulent documents, i.e. payroll and remittances to SSS, Philhealth and Pag-Ibig showing compliance with the standards, were presented and submitted to the audit team that conducted the audit in July 2002 when the renewal of your accreditation was being processed.”

In Makati City, members of the Kilusang Mayo Uno picketed ECOP offices.

“We challenge ECOP and Mr. Dee to come out with a list of its members complying with labor standards,” KMU secretary general Joel Maglunsod said in a statement.

Sto. Tomas said the Anvil case could be avoided if workers continue to be vigilant. She said workers who feel oppressed could file their complaints either through anonymous letters, e-mail or fax.

“We inspect on that basis,” she said.

With reports from Michelle Remo, Martin Marfil, Margaux Ortiz, Inquirer News Service

Manila Times

The government has acknowledged that 18 sweatshops are operating in violation of labor laws, although an official of the Garments and Textile Export Board was quick to say that the firms are not sweatshops but merely “socially noncompliant” because they were made to correct their violations–and they did–once discovered.

Mr. Serafin Juliano, executive director of the garments board, an office in the Department of Trade and Industry, added that the number of the “socially noncompliant” was small, since there are 429 registered exporters in the country.

The board, together with the Department of Labor and Employment, is looking into the operations of textile and garment factories following an exposé in a newspaper of one such sweatshop in Taytay, Rizal. From this one example a leftist trade union made the rash conclusion that errant textile firms flourish in Metro Manila.

We are sensitive to the distinction made by Mr. Juliano between “sweatshops” and “socially noncompliant” firms, but the truth is that some employers habitually exploit their workers and violate labor and social laws.

The relatively “small” number of errant textile and garment firms, compared with the industry’s total, does not excuse the pattern of violations discovered by either the garments board or the labor department.

The garments industry is a strong pillar of the economy. It employs approximately 400,000 workers and exports an average of $3-billion worth of clothing each year.

Employers, however, are obliged to protect their workers and upgrade their working and living conditions. They are duty bound to comply with the labor and social laws of government. The industry and the government are also obliged to observe international labor conventions, such as those mandated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Trade Organization.

For example, the core labor standards incorporated in international trade agreements call for the strict observance of a number of ILO labor conventions that seek to eliminate, among others, all forms of compulsory labor and child labor. Violation of the core principles would have costly implications for exports and trade. For the Philippines, this could mean being shut out of some of its biggest export markets where trade unions are influential.

Additionally, foreign governments or corporations could impose sanctions if they discover that the exported products are the result of infractions of international labor standards.

The government should motivate garment firms to qualify for accreditation following compliance with international labor standards under the Worldwide Apparel Program.

The garment and the textiles industry should be encouraged to police itself and discipline disobedient members.

There are a number of ways the government can deal with the sweatshops.
Throw the book at deviative employers. We are glad that Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas has ordered the Taytay factory owner to restitute workers in the amount of P5.8 million in back wages.

A system of fines could straighten out infractions.

Uncompromising orders to employers to adopt reforms on the factory floor are necessary.

The government could bar sweatshops from exporting critical items or products with huge demands.

As a final measure, the labor department could close down factories repeatedly violating labor laws.

The “corrective” solution advocated by the garments board and the Confederation of Government Exporters is acceptable in the context of saving jobs. A calibrated approach aimed at determining levels of violation, however, would separate incorrigible violators and mark them for more effective sanctions.

Juliet Labor-Javellana and Martin P. Marfil
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Unfair practice

President Macapagal-Arroyo wants to know how a garment factory in Taytay, Rizal, was able to obtain the necessary export requirements despite the substandard wages and working conditions of its workers.

Her spokesperson Ignacio Bunye said Thursday she had ordered a stop to the sweatshop practices of Anvil Ensembles, to which her attention was called by an Inquirer report last week detailing the workers’ complaints, including shifts of up to 72 hours with the occasional help of an insomnia-inducing drug.

But Partido ng Manggagawa Representative Renato Magtubo said the real issue was not so much sweatshop operations as labor contractualization.

“Laws must be passed to oppose the unreasonable use of contractual labor,” said the newly proclaimed party-list representative.

“Without these laws, any alliance against sweatshops such as the one formed by the Congep (Confederation of Garment Exporters of the Philippines) and TUCP (Trade Union Congress of the Philippines) would be a mere talking shop.”

Bunye said the President had instructed Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas to investigate the conditions at Anvil, which makes baby clothes for leading American companies, and “impose sanctions if warranted by law.”

“Look into that. You know I came from the GTEB, so we cannot allow this thing to continue,” Sto. Tomas quoted the President as telling her two days ago.

She noted that Ms Macapagal once headed the Garments and Textile Export Board, an office under the Department of Trade and Industry, which issues export quotas to garment manufacturers only after they were inspected and found to be “socially compliant.”

Sto. Tomas said she had asked the current head of the GTEB why Anvil was able to get its export quota despite its workers’ complaints. She quoted the GTEB official as saying that the factory owners had submitted “deceptive papers.”

She said Anvil had agreed to settle with its workers but was appealing for a reduction in the 5.8 million pesos in back wages and benefits ordered by the Department of Labor and Employment.

Sto. Tomas also said it had been made clear to Anvil owners that even the back wages of workers who were no longer with the factory should also be paid, provided they came forward.

She said Anvil would still be fined for violating labor laws. But Sto. Tomas added that she saw a happy ending in the case because the young woman president of the factory said she did not want it to close down.

Mere byproduct

Sto. Tomas herself said Wednesday that sweatshops were a “scourge” of industries, particularly garments.

But Magtubo, who is also president of the Fortune Tobacco labor union, said “this scourge is a mere byproduct of contractualization.”

“The settlement at Anvil will not spell the end of sweatshop labor,” he said. “As long as labor exporting firms outsource a portion of their production process to small firms, sweatshops will continue to proliferate.”

Magtubo said even large firms were not exempt because subcontracting resulted in cheaper and docile labor.

He suggested that local union officers be deputized as inspectors to monitor the implementation of labor standards in workplaces.

Another newly proclaimed congressman, Sanlakas Representative JV Bautista, said sweatshop operations should be regarded as a heinous crime.

Elmer Labog, chair of the militant labor alliance Kilusang Mayo Uno, said workers were dissatisfied with the performance of the Dole because of persistent labor problems such as low wages, unemployment and trade union repression.

“We hold her [Sto. Tomas] guilty for the worsening suppression of workers’ rights,” Labog said.

He said these included the harassment of workers and the imposition of complicated provisions to block the recognition of labor unions.

“It is therefore not surprising that only 3.8 million workers out of an 18-million labor force are organized in active unions,” he said.

Maximo Lim, Dole director for Southern Tagalog, said Anvil had complied with some of the safety requirements.

He said the factory owners had until July 13 to comply with the order to pay its workers 5.8 million pesos in back wages and benefits.

“They have manifested that they will pay the workers, but they want to deduct [some names from the list],” Lim said in a phone interview.

He said he had directed his men to find out what was “acceptable” to both parties.

But the KMU is not impressed.

“We hope that the Dole’s statements are not just grandstanding efforts in preparation for President Macapagal-Arroyo’s accomplishment report for the State of the Nation Address on July 28,” it said in a statement.

It added: “We challenge the Dole to act on cases similar to Anvil’s. The government must act immediately and punish labor-standard violators.”