Safety nets for women workers up in assembly

CEBU, Philippines - With close to 20,000 women workers either victimized by permanent layoffs or subjected to flexibility schemes for the past six months, women workers in Cebu are initiating an assembly today to renew their call for safety nets in employment.

The grave impact of the worldwide economic crisis on women in general and women workers in particular is the theme for the assembly in barangay Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City today.

The assembly is being initiated in line with the celebration of Women’s Month.

Partido ng Manggagawa- Cebu spokesperson Dennis Derige said the effect of the crisis on women- brought about by massive retrenchments, high cost of living, and tuition fee increases- will be dramatized with the use of a stretcher, a wheelchair, and a supposedly pregnant woman in crutches.

Placards will also bear the women workers’ five-point call for a bailout, Derige said.

These bailout packages include subsidy for displaced workers from the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration; tax refund for wage earners; expansion and reform of the public employment program; extension of health care coverage for displaced workers; and moratorium on demolitions and evictions.

Participating in today’s assembly are PM chapters at the Mactan Export Processing Zone; women union members from Prince Warehouse, General Milling Corporation; displaced women workers from Lear Corporation, Nozomi, Maithland, KH, Taiyu Den, Neostone, RNY Agousti and Giardini Del Sole; women members of Save the Workers in Mepz; and several other urban poor associations.

PM recorded that majority of women affected by retrenchments and flexibility schemes by companies are those working in companies that have been greatly affected by the global financial crisis like companies in the electronics, garments, and furniture industries.

“This economic crisis has doubled our burden. First we are exploited as cheap laborers in factories affected by this crisis and then we are utilized as unpaid workers in our home,” said PM-Cebu women officer Medila Adlaon.

Adlaon said a dialogue with labor officials on the bailout call will follow today’s assembly. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/JMO (THE FREEMAN)