Filipino Women Workers

In the Era of Globalization And Crisis

PHILIPPINE TRIVIA
• Where is the Philippines?
Continent? Region?
• How many islands does
the country have?
• Does it snow in the
Philippines?
• How many languages are
spoken in the Philippines?
• What is the main religion in
the Philippines?
• What is the current
population of the country?
 History Ticklers
• Did the British occupy the
Philippines?
• Under the Treaty of Paris,
how much did the US pay
for Spain to hand over the
Philippines?
• How many Filipinos died
during the 14-year long
Philippine-American war?
• Which president declared
Martial Law in the
Philippines?
• How did Martial Law end?
 Population & Labour Statistics
► 97.9 million: Population (July 2010)
► 38.2 million: Labour Force
34% in agriculture
15% in industry
51% in services
► 4.2 million: Unemployed
► PhP 912 (£12.99): Daily cost of living for family
of 6
► PhP 382 (£ 5.44): Official daily minimum wage
rates
► PhP 530 (£ 7.55): Wage gap
 Did you know that…
• The Philippines is poor because it is rich.
• The country’s population is predominantly rural
(70 percent of the total) and two-thirds of this
population depend on farming for their livelihood.
• The economy is mainly export-oriented, import-
dependent and debt-ridden.
• According to the IMF, it is a “newly industrialized
emerging market economy”.
• The biggest population of Filipino expatriates /
migrant workers lives in the UK. (Est. 203,000
majority of them employed in the health sector)
 CRISIS CRISIS EVERYWHERE
& PROFITS TO BE MADE BY
MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS!

WTO FORMULA:
NAFTA + EFTA + APEC + EPA
= LIBERALIZATION OF THE GLOBAL MARKETS
= DEREGULATION (Labor laws, Foreign plunder and 100%
ownership of national resources, tax havens, lack of
government protection for workers benefits, local produce,
relocation of jobs to countries with cheaper labour)
= PRIVATIZATION (National assets e.g. water, energy,
services)
= CONTRACTUALIZATION OF WORK
 DECENT JOBS!
NOT EMERGENCY EMPLOYMENT!

CONTRACTUALIZATION
MEANS:

 Low wages
 Multiple Job Holders
 Part-time work / Less working hours
 Lack of benefits and protection for workers
(e.g. maternity benefits, health insurance, leave,
pension)
No job security!
 Living and working
in an export-
oriented, import-
dependent, debt-
ridden economy…
In 1997, Carmelita Alonzo, a sewing machine operator at VT (Vitorio Tan)
Fashion Image Inc, died at the Andres Bonifacio Memorial Hospital in Cavite,
Philippines, after 11 days in hospital.
According to her co-workers at VT Fashion, "Carmelita was killed by her 14
hour workday every day plus overtime of eight hours every Sunday."
(Philippines News and Features, March 19, 1997)
The workers denounced the system of quotas set by the company which forced
them to work 12 to 14 hours per day. According to the Workers Assistance
Center in Rosario, Carmelita, a 35 year old mother of five, had died because of
the strict regime in VT Fashion and its sister company, All Asia Garment
Industries, which force workers to obey a compulsory 14 hour shift.
For Nanay Ceding, 62, a mother of
eight, and her neighbors in a
suburban peasant village, coping
up with extreme poverty and the
erratic climate meant leaving the
family and the farms for at least six
hours every day.
Like many other peasant women in her neighborhood, Nanay Ceding
has to go out of the village to do household chores for middle-
income families, mostly professionals and businessmen, and office
workers who find it hard to do the laundry and housekeeping while
they work the whole day.
Women agricultural workers receive 51% less pay for doing the
same work as their male counterparts.
In the past several decades, landlessness, in the form of either not
owning the land they till or the lack of land to till, has been causing
untold miseries for peasants who make up the bulk of the Philippine
population.
In terms of employment, about one-half of the labor force
is engaged in agricultural activities.
 WORKERS LOOKING FOR JOBS:
From Rural Areas → Village → City → Overseas
↓
• Failed government land reform
program has made land
inaccessible to poor farmers
• Looking for work, jobless peasants
go to the villages to vilages then to
the cities to look for work.
• For those who have the education
and the financial resources, there is
the difficult decision to look for work
overseas.
• Everyday, 3,800 Filipinos leave the
country to look for work overseas.
• 1.6 million families rely on overseas
remittances for their daily
subsistence.
• In 2009, OFWs remitted a record-
breaking US$ 16 billion into the
coffers of the government.
 TTD’S:

• GLOBALIZE WORKERS’ SOLIDARITY!

• FIGHT FOR DECENT WORK EVERYWHERE!
• SUPPORT MIGRANT WORKERS’ RIGHTS!
• SOLIDARITY WITH PEOPLES’ MOVEMENTS
FOR GENUINE CHANGE, HUMAN RIGHTS
AND PEACE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES!
WOMEN WORKERS IN THE PHILIPPINES FIGHTING FOR JOBS,
LAND, NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND PEACE!
 Thank you!
For your SOLIDARITY AND SISTERHOOD!

Maitet Ledesma
IBON Europe

Birmingham, 05 March 2011