9 November, 2010Trade union and NGOs meeting at the latest GoodElectronics general meeting conclude that trade union rights and working conditions for electronics workers around the world are still far below acceptable standards and require the urgent attention of companies and governments.
PHILIPPINES: Fifty participants from NGOs and trade unions, including IMF affiliates, convened near the Cavite Export Processing Zone in the Philippines on November 3 to 5 in order to strengthen their cooperation in the face of the ongoing labour rights abuses endemic to the electronics industry.
Representatives from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Austria and the Netherlands heard how electronics workers in the Philippines receive poverty wages and are subject to myriad employment abuses. 80 per cent of the 250 000 workers in the Cavite EPZ have migrated from other parts of the Philippines and the vast majority of them are young women. Potential recruits to the factories are vetted to make sure that they are not unionists and are subjected to intrusive physical examinations as a condition for employment.
An alarming trend in Cavite is the increase in temporary and agency workers, with many companies employing more temps than regular workers. Despite the Philippine labour code not permitting agency work in core production work, it is condoned by the government.
In such a climate of insecurity and intimidation, fear of joining a trade union is high. Union activists are blacklisted from employment in the zone and the many extra-judicial killings of unionists that are committed every year in the Philippines are a direct consequence of the no-union, no-strike policy. Labour disputes are criminalized and labour inspection is massively under-resourced. In the face of these massive obstacles, local NGOs are working closely with trade unions to organise electronics workers.
At the meeting, GoodElectronics member organisations discussed how to increase their cooperation to put pressure on brand name companies to improve compliance with international labour standards and to improve workers' access to trade unions and collective bargaining. To this end, a new mission statement was developed for the network and the GoodElectronics Common Demands on the Electronics Industry were updated.
Following the meeting, a press conference was held in Manila to bring public attention to some of the current cases of labour rights abuses in the electronics industry including:
- Union busting at Foxconn and BYD in Nokia Special Economic Zones in Chennai, India as well as at touchscreen panel maker YFO in Taiwan
- Draconian working conditions leading to worker suicides in Foxconn China
- Threats of dismissals and deportation of Burmese women migrant workers at JVC Malaysia, and
- Intrusive physical examinations of women job applicants at Lite-On Semiconductor Corporation in the Philippines.