PPRESS RELEASE

January 8, 2003

Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino

 Militant workers challenge GMA’s “government of platforms” on PLDT case

As the PLDT rank-and-file union, the Manggagawa ng Komunikasyon sa Pilipinas (MKP) called for the support of the militant Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and the Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), both labor groups challenged the Arroyo government today to “resolve the labor dispute by protecting the jobs of more than 500 employees and by renouncing the policy of cheap labor and contractualization”.

Victor Briz, BMP national chairperson said, “The issue at hand is not just the job security of hundreds of PLDT employees but the epidemic of contractualization that infringes labor’s Constitutional right to secure jobs”.

Briz welcomed the decision of PLDT union president Pete Pinlac to elevate the labor dispute into a “sectoral fight”. He said, “Now, more than ever, organized labor must stand as one man to support the PLDT union. Labor groups - from moderate to militant - must unite. All for one, one for all! Ang laban ng isa ay laban ng lahat. More so, contractualization is labor’s enemy number 1 and is one of the cornerstones of the State’s policy for cheap and docile labor”.

He added, “The BMP is all too willing to rally its mass membership in militant mass actions to dramatize our support to the PLDT union”. Briz announced that they would initiate protests to “compel Labor Secretary Pat Sto. Tomas to include the reinstatement of displaced PLDT workers in her order”.

Meanwhile, Partido ng Manggagawa chair Renato Magtubo said, “For organized labor, particularly its militant section, the labor dispute at PLDT is the litmus test of GMA’s declaration for a shift towards a government of platforms”.

Magtubo concluded, “If the DOLE chief does not reinstate the retrenched workers of PLDT, it means that nothing has changed. The Arroyo government remains as an instrument of capitalist oppression and exploitation on the workers and the poor while Gloria Arroyo continues to be the Chief Executive Officer of the ruling elite”. ###

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PRESS STATEMENT

January 7, 2003

Renato Magtubo

BMP Deputy Secretary-General

Chairman, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM)

 Why must workers dance the Cha-cha when our song remains the same?

Workers will not support the current appeals to amend the 1987 Constitution for its grounds are merely to preserve and extend the political careers of the trapos.

Nothing has changed as traditional politics has once more reared its ugly head. Just a few days after the grand declarations for a “government of platforms” and a “government of national unity”, trapos are now in disarray with both the advocates and opposition to a Cha-cha promoting their selfish political interests.

What is the basis of the demand for a Cha-cha? The proponents want nothing more than a change in the form of government – from presidential to parliamentary, which only addresses the concerns of politicians, not the numerous issues that beset the workers and the poor.

Why must the workers and the poor dance the Cha-cha while trapos turn a deaf ear to the cries of the poor, the moans of the underprivileged and the wailing of the oppressed? Why must the Filipino people back the Cha-cha when it fails to confront State policies that aggravate our poverty such as liberalization, deregulation, privatization, and cheap labor?

Nonetheless, the 1987 Constitution is not perfect and is laden with defects. Our opposition to the Cha-cha does not mean a defense of the Charter. Yet, the present proposals for Charter amendment do not tackle its “main defect”.

It is a Constitution that is premised on bogus and sham democracy. It is grounded on a pretense of granting “equal rights” to all and does not give primacy to the interest and welfare of the oppressed majority.

To illustrate, the Charter guarantees the “right of private property” and the “right to a decent life” and places them at par with each other. Yet, it is the minority’s “right of private property” that denies a decent life to the toiling majority.

Society is made up of conflicting classes and interests. Labor’s right to life in dignity is identical to its right to a living wage, to secure jobs, to organize unions and political organizations. But, these Constitutional guarantees infringes with the “right” of capital to accumulate and amass profit.

For the workers and the poor, we would not hesitate to dance the Cha-cha if the amendment would give supremacy to the right of the majority over the minority, if it would regard the “right of private property” as secondary to the rights of the workers and the poor. Labor’s version of Charter-change is premised on social change and genuine democracy, on replacing elite rule with the “rule of the majority”. ###

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RESS STATEMENT

January 5, 2003

Renato Magtubo

Chairman, Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party)

BMP Deputy Secretary General

 Basis of a government of national unity

TO THE PROPONENTS of a government of national unity, we have one simple question: What is the basis of unity? There seems to be unity about the need for unity-but unity toward what? There is unity and there is unity-but unity around what?

The government of national unity has evolved from an ideal into something nearly real, yet we have not heard of a platform to bind the different parties that will comprise the government of national unity.

A government of national unity forged for sharing power among rival elite factions is utterly useless to the people. It will be a win-win situation for contending camps but a losing proposition for the long-suffering masses.

It is a simplification that too much politics has caused too slow growth in the economy. The country’s problem is not an excess of politics but a lack of principled politics. There is too much noise but too little talk about the roots of the economic crisis. There is too little debate about the real causes of mass poverty.

It is globalization that has destroyed the local economy and devastated living standards. Industry and agriculture have collapsed from unfair global competition. The budget deficit has ballooned since the economy has shrunk and tariffs have been reduced. Unemployment is rising and wages are frozen as factories are shut down and contractualization is rampant. It is this that militant labor wants to be discussed and debated.

Militant labor will support a government of national unity whose basis of unity is the defense of our sovereignty and protection against globalization. However, we will oppose a government of power sharing whose platform is more of the same globalization. In such a case, class struggle and not national unity is our response.

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Solidarity Statement to Chinese Labor Leaders

January 3, 2003

BMP International Department

Defend the Persecuted Chinese Worker Leaders

 We Stand in Solidarity With the Chinese Workers

The BMP strongly condemns the persecution by the Chinese government of worker leaders Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang. According to news reports and the information we have received these worker leaders have been charged with “subversion”, a charge that carries with it the death penalty. Their families and lawyers have been denied access to them. We have also learnt that other worker leaders have been arrested.

According to some western media reports Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang are to be executed.

The charge of “subversion” was the same excuse used by the Chinese government to persecute, jail and murder the worker martyrs of the Tiananmen Square workers and students uprising under cover of it being a foreign plot to overthrow the government. Much to the shame of the Philippines progressive movement, sections of the labor movement in this country then, supported the actions of the Chinese government.

We, in the BMP, reject these lies peddled then and today. We stand resolutely with the Chinese workers as they resist job losses, non-payment of wages and attacks on their welfare benefits and living standards by a government that is hell bent on privatizing China’s national assets and introducing capitalism under the cover of “market socialism”.

In November 2002 a seven-year ban on foreigners purchase of state enterprise shares listed on stock exchanges was removed, opening the way for the privatization of an estimated US$300 billion of state assets. It’s the Chinese government that is opening the way for massive foreign capitalist intervention in China, not the workers. The privatization program will result in massive job losses. The workers are merely defending themselves.

As a result there has been an increase in workers struggles. In the early part of 2001 some 90,000 workers in northeastern China protested demanding work, unpaid wages and punishment for corrupt government officials and enterprise managers. In March last year protest actions involved 50,000 oil-workers in Daqing, 30,000 metal workers in Liaoyang and 10,000 coal miners in Fushun. The Chinese government is clearly attempting to persecute and smash this powerful movement of the Chinese working class that is arising in opposition to a privatization program leading to capitalist restoration, resulting in major attacks on the working class.

We stand united in solidarity with the Chinese workers and call on the international workers movement to launch a campaign in defense of these comrades.

TO CONTACT THE BMP INTERNATIONAL DEPT:

Email: bmp_philippines yahoo.com

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Press Release

December 24, 2002

Renato Magtubo

chair of Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party) and BMP Deputy Secretary General

 Labor solidarity for PLDT workers on strike

“We come here to defend the PLDT employees’ right to job security. All for one, one for all,” declared Renato Magtubo, chairperson of the militant party list group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM). The PM organized delegations of workers in support of the 7,000 Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) employees on their first day of strike as final negotiations bogged down yesterday.

Gerry Rivera, newly elected president of the Philippine Airlines Employees Association (PALEA) spoke of organized labor’s stand regarding the PLDT dispute: “The PLDT union has appealed to the public for understanding and unity. In response to that call, workers from different enterprises and concerned students are joining the PLDT workers in their picket lines. We say to our fellow workers at PLDT-we understand and we unite. Their fight for job security is the fight of all workers who want a job that is secure, decent and safe.”

Workers from Fortune Tobacco, Philippine Airlines, Gelmart Industries, Novelty Philippines, Asahi Glass, Metrocan and other factories, together with a delegation of students, trooped to the PLDT business office along Espana, Welcome Rotonda to lend support to the strike.

“PLDT management is a Grinch for stealing Christmas from the 500 employees to be laid off by January 1,” decried Magtubo. He added “PLDT management has no right to lay off regular workers when there are scores of contractuals under its pay. They simply want to cheapen costs at the expense of workers’ job security and decent pay.”

Rivera likewise aired the appeal for other labor groups to defend the PLDT workers. “This is just first of a wave of retrenchments at PLDT. More will come if management succeeds today. Likewise, the capitalist class is watching this dispute for PLDT is a key point in the offensive against working class rights and welfare. The working class must stand up for the PLDT employees for if capital defeats labor in this dispute, other unions will suffer the same fate.”

Magtubo echoed the same call, “Today it is the Manggagawa ng Komunikasyon sa Pilipinas (PLDT union) that is under attack. Tomorrow it will be other unions if labor does not unite and win.” The PM pledged to continue the solidarity campaign and to organize bigger delegations in the coming days until the strike is victorious. ###

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