Workers want next president to lobby for SAVE

MANILA, Philippines - Workers nationwide want the country’s next president to immediately move for a freer entry of locally made garments into the United States.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the country’s largest labor group, said the new president to be elected in the coming elections must push for the recovery of the local garments industry.

“We are counting on the next Philippine president to move fast so that the US bill meant to save the ailing American textile industry may hopefully be enacted before the November mid-term elections there,” said former senator and TUCP secretary general Ernesto Herrera.

Herrera said the passage of the proposed Save Our Industries (SAVE) Act now pending with the US Congress should benefit the local industry and the Filipino workers.

The bill could also benefit the Philippines’ labor-intensive garments industry in a big way if the US market would be open to the country’s garment products.

“Once enacted, the bill will allow Philippine-made garments to enter the US market with considerably fewer restrictions, as long as the clothes use American textiles,” Herrera said.

He said ready-to-wear (RTW) clothes made in the Philippines using American textiles would enjoy definite advantages such as lower duties, thus making them even more price-competitive when they reach US stores.

“This will surely encourage more apparel makers from the US to build new factories here, bring in American textiles, harness skilled Filipino workers to design, cut and sew the garments, and then re-export the RTW clothes back to the US,” Herrera said.

He said the local garments industry, now employing some 150,000 Filipinos, could easily add 100,000 new jobs once the US bill is enacted.

”The Philippines already has a solid reputation when it comes to the manufacture of garments meant for American stores, particularly the high-end ones,” Herrera pointed out.