Unemployment subsidy pushed

CEBU, Philippines – Labor group Partido ng Manggagawa again pushed for an unemployment subsidy in the face of the impending closure of Cebu-based electronic firm Celestica at the Mactan Export Processing Zone.

Aside from the closure of the said Cebu-based electronic company on August 31, the Taguig-based Triumph garments factory and its subsidiary Star Performance are set to close also on August 28.

The Canadian-owned Celestica has over 900 workers while the German-owned garment factories have 1,600 workers who will soon find themselves jobless.

PM chairperson Renato Magtubo, in view of the impending loss of jobs to the said workers, is calling on the government to backtrack from Charter revision and instead focus on the economic recession.

Magtubo said that the impending closure of the three companies belied the claim of the Department of Labor and Employment about a rebound in the garments and electronics industry.

“It is not a slow growth but a sluggish decline that best describes the economy. Unemployment insurance and a bailout of the workers and the poor will put money in the hands of the consumers and revive domestic demand and thus the local economy,” Magtubo said.

PM has been pushing for a bailout package for workers in the light of continuous hemorrhage in jobs in export firms.

The bailout includes an unemployment subsidy for displaced workers; tax refund for all wage earners; expansion and reform of the public employment program; extension of health care coverage for displaced workers; and moratorium on demolitions and evictions.

PM contends that the economy is practically in recession and thus urgent action must be taken.

He said that the government cannot keep on whistling in the dark and being in denial about the recession as tens of thousands have lost their jobs and many remain without work.

Magtubo said that in the immediate period, the workers of the said three companies may be able to live off their separation pay but if they cannot find another job in the next six months then their living standards will suffer in the medium to long-term period.

“Workers are being made to pay the price of a crisis that is not of their own making,” he said. — Mitchelle L. Palaubsanon/MEEV (THE FREEMAN)