Work stoppage in lampshade factory on

CEBU, Philippines – Workers at a lampshade factory inside the Mactan Export Processing Zone II, producing for both the export and local market, continued their work stoppage for the second straight day in protest of the suspension of seven leaders of their workers association.

Around 400 workers of the Paul Yu firm refused to work yesterday in sympathy with the seven leaders who were reportedly not allowed to enter the company premises.

Willy Dondoyano, head of the workers association and one of the seven suspended, said that more workers compared to the other day yesterday supported the mass action because they know that the suspension of the seven leaders is “baseless and merely in retaliation for the protest action last May 8 and the filing of a case last May 21 against management’s numerous unfair labor practices.”

Dondoyano said that the work stoppage completely paralyzed the “black hand,” the main department of Paul Yu’s production where welding of lampshades is done by regular workers.

After massing at the factory gates, the 400 workers walked out of the MEPZ II compound and continued to hold a program at the export zone gates.

A representative of Aboitiz Land, which owns the land on which MEPZ is located, has met the workers to mediate the dispute.

The workers plan to march to the office of the Philippine Export Zone Authority at the adjoining MEPZ I compound to air their demands.

With the labor dispute in Paul Yu escalating, workers in other MEPZ factories are expressing solidarity. Renante Pelino, president of the newly formed union at Altamode, a garments export factory in MEPZ II, said that they are in support to the fight of the Paul Yu workers against reduction in workdays.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the Department of Labor and Employment will hear the case filed by Paul Yu workers that three-day workweek implemented since December lacks proper documentation and due notice.

The workers are complaining that the workdays are reduced for regular workers while 40 percent of production is outsourced to contractors.

Workers are also complaining of non-payment of holiday pay, non-remittance of SSS deductions for agency workers, non-implementation of paternity leave and non-payment of break time. – Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)