Date of publication: September 10, 2007
Source: Financial Times
Excerpt from article:
Renato Pambid is a Filipino lawyer working with the Workers Assistance Committee, a local labour group, in the sprawling Cavite export processing zone outside Manila. His work has recently included representing employees at the Korean-owned Chong Won Fashion factory who had been sacked after forming a union.
Picketing workers have been attacked by local security staff and by armed masked men wearing military fatigues.
As the dispute started to escalate last year, Mr Pambid and others visited the Manila office of Wal-Mart, which sells clothing produced at the plant by one of its suppliers, One Step Up. "At the start we were not expecting that Wal-Mart would intervene," says Mr Pambid. With polite understatement, he adds that the US retailer has a reputation for "not being amenable to union formation"...