29 workers freed from padlocked Navotas factory

Police rescued 29 workers of a garment factory in Navotas yesterday after they were locked up and detained by their Chinese employer for demanding payment for unpaid wages.

Obviously agitated and ruffled, but otherwise safe and sound, the workers were able to leave the factory warehouse at 7 a.m. with the help of policemen and barangay officials.

They claimed they were kept against their will and prevented from going home by their employer for some three hours before they were freed.

SPO1 Milo Tengson of the Navotas police investigation and detection management bureau said Jade Chang, 40, owner of the Jade Carnation Garments factory on M. Naval street, Barangay North Bay Boulevard South, has been detained pending the filing of appropriate charges by the workers.

The workers claimed they were "detained" at around 4 a.m. as Chang ordered the two company security guards to padlock the building.

Jenilyn Mendoza, 19, a sewer, told probers they earned Chang’s ire after they insisted on getting paid for work rendered in the last three weeks. Mendoza said many of the workers, 19 of them women, were minors.

Carol Nuñez, of the Rosales Villarta Manpower Agency that contracted them, said the workers, who are supposed to be paid P120 a day, complained that management has been forcing them to render overtime work.

Nuñez said she heard of their plight a few days before yesterday’s incident.

When she went to the factory early yesterday to check on the condition of the workers, Nuñez was surprised to hear knocking coming from the warehouse.

She then learned that 29 workers, including one who was pregnant, had been locked up inside the warehouse.

Nuñez immediately informed the police. The officers later destroyed the locks and freed the workers.

Mendoza said their regular working hours are from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., but are forced to render overtime work up to 2 a.m. the following day even as they complained about not being paid for previous work rendered.

"Trabaho lang kayo. Wala pa akong pera. Magbabayad ako kung meron na akong pera," the workers quoted Chang as saying.

The other night, the workers were told to stay until 4 a.m. before finding out they were deceived by Chang. Their employer asked them to extend overtime further, telling them not to go home yet and even enticing them with a promise of ample supply of food in the work area.