CEBU, Philippines - More than 200 workers of a furniture factory in Cebu City have lost their jobs in a series of terminations that began in January and which union workers of the company decried as illegal and a form of union busting.
Zosimo Borja, president of the union at the furniture factory in Sudlon, Lahug said that aside from the 200 plus workers who have already been terminated, several other workers he described as “undocumented” have also lost their jobs.
The FREEMAN is withholding the name of the company until it can get its side for comment on the allegation of Borja.
Borja, however, acknowledged that the terminations stemmed from the global financial crisis.
The union leader said the terminated workers were promised to be paid separation benefits by the company on a staggered basis, with each worker getting 12 postdated checks to be withdrawn every month.
He said the terminations were illegal because those affected were supposed to be informed 30 days prior to their termination. What happened was that they were fired without prior notice, he said.
In protest, the remaining workers are expected to launch a strike anytime within the month, Borja said.
On Tuesday, the workers are expected to have a dialogue with acting Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, as well as hold a picket at the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment.
The terminated furniture factory workers are among the latest to a growing number of jobless Filipinos both here and abroad who have lost their jobs as a result of the crisis.
For example, in Dubai, which used to be one of the biggest employers of cheap Asian labor, many of them Filipinos, an increasing number have become the latest victim of the global financial crisis as companies run short of business and money. (See story on page 27).
For many years, the Gulf emirate was a magnet for Asian workers who fed the booming economy with cheap manpower — from cleaners and gardeners to skilled and unskilled builders.
A report issued earlier this month showed that 582 billion dollars worth of building projects in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, had been put on hold due to the slowdown. That was 45 percent of the total.
Arnold, a 26-year-old Filipino machine operator, found a job in a small aluminium factory only two months after arriving in Dubai last summer. But last January, he and six others from the 15-strong workforce were laid off.
“I am staying in Dubai trying to find another job,” he said, pointing out that his previous employer lost a great deal of business when many construction projects ground to a halt, cutting demand for aluminium products.
“The crisis is worse in the Philippines. We have no future there. We are looking for part-time jobs here, anything,” Arnold told AFP as he hung out with two friends who had also lost their jobs.
Christopher, another Filipino, said he has been in Dubai for around nine months working as a welder during the day and a “barista” in the evening. He and his wife, who also works in a Dubai coffee shop, used to send 500 dirhams (about 136 dollars) a month home, where their two kids were left behind.
Migrant workers send billions of dollars home every year. One money transfer firm, UAE Exchange, said its volume last year was 12 billion dollars, most of it to India, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
Like Arnold, Christopher was working illegally in the hope that an employer would get him a work permit. Now he is searching desperately for anything.
But even for labourers who were brought to the UAE on a work visa to satisfy the needs of the once-booming economy, many are receiving the pink slip.
But poor unemployed workers cannot linger for long if jobs remain rare. “Maybe this month I have to decide to stay or go, because I don’t have any money. Now I’m borrowing from friends,” said Arnold.
The loss of jobs from the global economic crisis is taking its toll in another, more ominous sense, with analysts now saying it has heightened the potential for social unrest in Asia, where millions of people suddenly out of work will demand governments take swift and decisive action.
And while the prospect of regimes being overthrown is remote at the moment, the analysts say it will depend also on how long and how deep the financial turmoil goes, in a region not unfamiliar with major political upheaval.
“It’s impossible to predict at the moment but the historical record suggests that serious and protracted economic crises may have, in some cases, serious political impact,” said Tim Huxley, executive director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Asia, citing Europe’s experience during the Great Depression in the 1930s which fuelled the rise of far-right political movements in the run-up to World War II.
“At the moment there’s no reason to think that the present crisis will lead to major instability in any Southeast Asian country but it is simply too early to say,” Huxley said.
US intelligence chief Dennis Blair last week warned that the current crisis — the worst since the Great Depression — could lead to “regime-threatening instability” worldwide.
John Harrison, a security analyst at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said that how citizens perceive the effectiveness of government responses to the meltdown is crucial.
“If the public perceives that the government response is reasonable, then they may be less likely to pursue violent means. But the opposite could also be true,” Harrison said.
Extremist groups in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia could attempt to ride on social discontent spawned by the crisis to pursue their political agenda, he added. - with Agence France Presse/JST (THE FREEMAN)