Date of publication: October 24, 2009
Source: Bulatlat
» Read the original article [1]
By Marya Salamat
MANILA – For weeks now, alleged members of the military have been casing the offices in Cebu of the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), a nongovernment group that documents human-rights violations committed against workers. The CTUHR’s staff has raised concern over the surveillance, knowing fully well that workers and labor organizers have been victims of harassment and extrajudicial killings perpetrated by state agents.
The case of the CTUHR is among the dozens of similar cases in which the government consider laborers, unions and those who support them as threats to the state. It underscores the continuing violation of the rights of Filipino workers.
It is in this context that the International Labor Organization, the United Nation’s “specialized agency” tasked to uphold workers’ rights and welfare, sent to the Philippines early last month a high-level team of investigators to look into cases of laborers and unionists being threatened, harassed, abducted or killed. The team also heard testimonies about violations of the right of Filipino, particularly in the country’s economic zones, where these violations are reportedly rampant.
Although the mission still has to issue an official report of their findings, they did propose certain measures that suggested the burden of improving labor relations and of respecting workers’ rights rests on the state and its apparatuses.
Proposals
Among these proposals are a coordinated training for the Philippine police and the military on “freedom of association” and how this is part of civil liberties. Related to this is a similar training with emphasis on collective bargaining – a process where workers can assert their rights in negotiations with employers — within so-called “special economic zones” which are notorious for having the worst violations.
The mission also suggested trainings for judges and lawyers on international labor standards and their use in the judiciary.
It also proposed “continuing education” for officials of the labor department, the Civil Service Commission) and other government agencies on respect for international labor standards. The ILO mission also said “social dialogue” must be promoted at all levels.
Cleopatra Doumbia-Henry, director of the ILO International Labor Standards Department and head of the ILO team during their nine-day mission here, pointed out during their press briefing that it was “not premature” to propose these measures.
She emphasized, however, that these did not mean the ILO was already linking the allegations of rights violations to the armed forces or the police, or to the judges and the government agencies. They just singled out these agencies as the most in need of training “to reduce implementation gap” and to ensure broad “enjoyment of rights” in this country.
“Everyone is part of the solution,” Doumbia-Henry explained. “No one should be left out.”
‘Work Dignity’
The mission’s job was to provide technical assistance — “How can we work together to get things done?” — hence their proposed trainings and continuing education so that everybody knows about the laws and jurisprudence this country has ratified in the past, and so that rights are respected and “work dignity” is upheld, Doumbia-Henry said.
If there are violations, it is everyone’s duty — especially of the law enforcers, the lawyers and the judiciary — to make sure these “do not go unpunished,” she said. There is need to investigate and prosecute, that is why it is important to train those who are in position to do these.
Allegations of killings of unionists, even of just one, are serious allegations for the ILO, said Doumbia-Henry. “Any such issue has fundamental long-term implication on workers’ exercise of their rights in a climate free from fear.”
The mission, therefore, also encouraged the Arroyo government to do or continue doing the following:
* Rapidly establish a high-level tripartite inter-agency body to monitor such allegations. These “would constitute an important first step in bringing the relevant partners together to engender greater common understanding of the concerns raised.” It would also represent a “commitment to comprehensive and coherent action and an inclusive participatory approach to taking meaningful steps at the national level.”
* Legislative initiatives to bolster the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines in its crucial role of promoting and ensuring respect for civil liberties, including those of workers and trade unionists.
* A statement at the highest level of the government instructing all government actors to make special efforts to ensure that their actions do not infringe upon the basic civil liberties of trade unionists.
High Hopes
In response to the proposals, the DOLE expects help from the ILO mission in improving the country’s compliance to labor standards, to help everyone “find ways to address problems and gaps in the application of Convention 87.” This convention refers to the freedom of association and protection of the right to organize which the Philippines ratified in 1953.
Labor Undersecretary Rosalinda Baldoz agreed with the ILO team’s proposed “continuing education” for the DOLE. “The labor department needs a lot of updating,” Baldoz said.
On the other hand, the progressive labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement) said that “while the government’s repressive and labor-related apparatuses badly need trainings on trade union rights,” they hope the ILO mission would craft “recommendations that will push for justice in relation to trade-union rights violations and that will help solve the issue at the level which matters, the level of government policies and legislation.”
For the labor group, the ILO mission’s statement “essentially, but politely, points to the Philippine government and its apparatuses as the perpetrators of violations of trade union rights in the country.”
They thus feel “encouraged” to look forward to “stronger and more fool-proof recommendations from the mission in March 2010,” when the campaign for the 2010 national elections would likely be in full swing.
KMU hopes the incoming ILO reports will help “foil violations of trade union rights” that usually mar elections in the country. Also, they hope that it will help pressure the country’s next president and national leaders to craft policies that will uphold workers’ rights.
Final Report After ILO Assessment
“We’ve come, gathered information; we’re going to submit (our report) to the higher supervisory bodies for assessment. We’ve completed our job as far as this mission is concerned,” Doumbia-Henry said during their briefing.
But the ILO team declined to divulge yet the contents of their findings, nor talk about their impressions on the “allegations,” saying it was their job to first transmit the facts and data they gathered to ILO supervisory bodies, who in turn will examine it and make an assessment in their meetings in November-December 2009 and March 2010.
Specifically, the mission’s findings and how it was examined would come out in the report of ILO’s Committee on Experts, which assesses a country’s application of labor standards, in February 2010, while the Committee on Freedom of Association and the Protection of the Right to Organize Convention will come out with its report in March of 2010.
Contradictory Statements
The ILO is the only tripartite body in the UN composed of government, workers and employers. It expectedly has to contend with disparate interests and forces.
The Arroyo government has stalled for two years the ILO’s “invitation” to accept a high-level mission that would investigate charges of impunity of harassments, abductions and extra-judicial killings of workers and unionists. In an International Labor Conference hosted by the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland in 2007, then labor secretary Arturo Brion asked the ILO to dismiss the complaints filed by the KMU, saying the KMU is engaged in “forum shopping and other sinister designs.”
As the ILO mission finally made it to the Philippines this year, it said in its concluding press conference that it was “often confronted by contradictory statements concerning violence against trade unionists and the sufficiency of the efforts made by the government to ensure that workers may exercise their trade union rights in a climate free from fear.”
Though they refused to elaborate pending the report and assessment of ILO supervisory bodies, they explained that the contradictory statements revolve more on efforts being made to investigate and prosecute, as well as on perspectives about the killings. That the killings and disappearances actually happened were not in dispute.
But the Arroyo government, which had once called protesting workers as “terrorists,” refused to recognize the KMU complaints regarding the killings and enforced disappearances. In true “in denial” mode, as UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston previously described the government’s response to the extrajudicial killings in the country, the DOLE was in denial about the ILO high-level mission’s goal to probe the impunity of killings and rights violations of workers and union activists.
Although DOLE admitted that some of the killings may be “possibly labor-related,” it still has not categorically denounced these. Neither has it issued warnings against abductions and imprisonment of workers and unionists based on trumped-up charges.
“A statement at the highest level of the government instructing all government actors to make special efforts to ensure that their actions do not infringe upon the basic civil liberties of trade unionists could go a long way in reassuring the workers that have brought their complaints to the ILO,” the mission said in a statement.
Doumbia-Henry said a clear declaration that the government “does not condone” human-rights violations and killings of workers “will help clarify allegations of the impunity” of abductions, harassment and extrajudicial killings of laborers.
Law Covers All
Regarding the oft-repeated complaints of workers in special economic zones about the unwritten “no-union no strike” policy in the zones, Doumbia-Henry said that it is clear all labor rights – including the rights to organize and to have a collective bargaining agreement — apply in these so-called eco-zones. “There is no such thing as a special labor law in eco-zones,” she said.
Karen Curtis, deputy director of the ILO International Labor Standards Department, said they have been informed about this “no-union no strike” policy. “The Philippine Labor Code applies to special economic zones,” she affirmed, adding that “in practice, the government should ensure that workers in special economic zones are enjoying these laws.”
About the assumption of jurisdiction clause in the workers’ right to strike, Curtis said it has been the subject of long-standing dialogue between ILO and the government. She says there is need to amend current Philippine labor laws pertaining to assumption of jurisdiction. “Strike is one of the basic trade union rights that workers should be able to enjoy,” Curtis said, adding assumption of jurisdiction should be used “not in limiting way.”
This clause is often invoked by the labor department to intervene during a strike, citing national interest. Once it is imposed, according to labor unions, the strike could be deemed illegal, especially if the workers do not go back to work, which often follows an assumption of jurisdiction.
The ILO team refused to directly comment on the KMU’s complaint that it had been a victim of red-baiting by the government, exposing their officials and members to attacks. But Doumbia-Henry pointed out that “basic human rights apply to all. We should never compromise on that.”