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