Investors wary over labor row

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — At least nine big-time foreign investors at the Clark Special Economic Zone (CSEZ) threatened yesterday to pack up and transfer to either mainland China or Taiwan after the Clark Development Corp. (CDC) allegedly failed to help solve a "crippingly labor strike" at the Yokohama Tire Philippines Inc. (YTPI) here.

"As if problem such as the lack of efficient basic utilities, varying and inconsistent policies, graft and corruption besetting us from the day we decided to invest and locate in Clark is not enough, the recent labor dispute in FILAC has proven to be our worst nightmare," said the Foreign Industrial Locators Association in Clark (FILAC) said in a letter to Bases Conversion Development authority (BCDA) chairman and CDC president Rogelio Singson.

The letter was signed by the heads of L & K Industries Philippines, Nanox and Philippines, Ametron Inc., Fuji Plastics , SMK Electronics Philippine , Sampo Technology, Poongsan Electronics, Philippine Shin-Ei, and Clark premiere’s Industrial Park.

Production at the TYPI has gone down by 80 percent since hundreds of its workers started a strike last Jan. 29 to protest the management’s suspension for 15 days of union leaders who staged walk-outs to demand the ouster of former President Estrada. Workers were accused of job abandonment.

The Yokohama Employee union (YEU) also accused the management of union busting.

"We are determined to fight the management to the end and unless the management gives in, we will continue to paralyze its production and expose its anti-worker and anti union activities," YEU said in a statement.

The FILAC said "we are very concerned over these developments.

"Way back in the early 1990s when all investors were looking at economic zones in the Calabarzon area, we were lured by the CDC’s assurance that we won’t be encountering any form of labor problems. And if any form of dispute arises, we shall be immediately assisted," the FILAC said. — Ding Cervantes