By Mark Friedman, Columnist and an associate member of the International Association of Machinists Local 1484
For two days, Aug.12 – 13, trade union activist Mylene Cabalona spoke to 100 local union activists in Long Beach and Los Angeles. Cabalona spoke about the struggle of call center workers in the Philippines to unionize, earn higher wages, have better working conditions and the importance of organizing in solidarity with the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU’s hotel workers, the Screen Actors Guild and BAYAN also put out a solidarity call on Instagram.
Cabalona is an organizer for call center workers in the Philippines and is president of the Business Process Outsourcing and the Business Industry Employees Network. The meeting was sponsored by a wide range of Filipino groups including BAYAN, an alliance of leftist Philippine organizations, and the Philippines-U.S. Solidarity Organization or PUSO.
“U.S. businesses are offshoring the business in the client country, the global south, due to [lower] labor costs and few labor standards to protect workers.” The Philippines has $14 trillion in debt, 20 million living in poverty with 4.5% unemployment, and 2.33 million looking for jobs as of June 2023.
Cabalona noted that the labor unions that do exist in the Philippines are under attack as they fight for better wages and benefits, job security and compliance with health and safety regulations.
“Especially during the pandemic with the companies not providing any support when you get COVID ― COVID is already an occupational hazard in the Philippines,” she said.
The youthful crowd listened with rapt attention.
Cabalona called attention to the Filipino belief that call center workers are in a better position than someone who works in a different industry.
“Just because you’re working in a location that has air conditioning, a computer and you speak English,” Cabalona said. “You have to follow a script and salaries are just below the minimum wage,” Cabalona said.
The minimum wage is 610 pesos or roughly $10.82 a day. Call center workers received 660 pesos, or $11.71.
“I’m getting [monthly] around 15,000 pesos, which is around $300 a month, but wages are even lower in the regions outside of Manila,” Cabalona said.
The Philippine labor code protects the right of workers to join a union, but in reality, it is very difficult.
Cabalona said she has been labeled a terrorist and others also have been red-tagged and are arrested, or disappear or are visited by a local “Red Squad” of the police (who receive $150 million a year from the U.S. government), framed up on firearms charges… millions of dollars are used against the labor movement. In response, workers have organized work stoppages, pickets, and “flash mob protests.”
“The call center industry makes $32.5 billion a year in profit and is comprised of 1.7 million workers,” she said. “Imagine [with] no union, how are people able to protect themselves when they can’t even bargain? They can’t join a union.”
She noted that at this time 71 union organizers and activists have been killed in the Philippines and not one of the killers has been brought to justice.
Joining the discussion was Melissa Dogoldogol, a shop steward with UNITE HERE Local 11 (a local with 15,000 members) at the Bonaventure hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
Dogoldogol explained that her union has been staging rolling walkouts to advance their demands for better healthcare, and a balanced workweek so that workers don’t have to work two jobs.
“Many workers are without documents, so they suffer wage theft. They really need a union,” Dogoldogol said.
A shop steward for the Long Term Caregivers, SEIU 2015, added, “One issue in the contract talks is to stop companies from using E-Verify to check on immigration status.”
Local healthcare worker and activist who is in BAYAN, Megan (she asked that she only be identified by her first name) discussed her situation, explaining that she made only $17 per hour, a wage of 40 hours per week is insufficient to live on in Los Angeles.
“Management dismisses our concerns and we get no respect in our efforts to care for our patients,” she said. “The California Department of Public Health only cares about how the hospital looks on paper.”
Also, a topic of discussion was the expansion in the number of military bases in the Philippines in the context of U.S. imperialism.
It’s been more than 30 years since Philippine lawmakers moved to end the permanent U.S. military presence in the country. Back in February 2023, the Defense Department announced that the Philippines is allowing the U.S. to increase its military footprint in the country again — giving access to four new military bases amid rising tensions with China.
At both meetings, activists from the LA Hands Off Cuba Committee were warmly received. The pro-Cuba organization invited meeting participants to a concert at Alvas Showroom in San Pedro called Medical Aid for Cuba on Aug. 27.
Jazz pianist Dayramir Gonzalez is headlining this concert after recently headlining at the Havana Jazz Festival. The Afro-Cuban music and dance company, Omo Ache, will also be performing at the concert.
Filipino organizations and their allies are gearing up for protests in San Francisco Nov. 11-12 against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC, a governmental forum of 21 economies in the Pacific Rim. Activists are claiming that APEC is advancing U.S. economic and political interests in the region at the expense of workers’ lives and the environment. For more information contact Puso.Socal@gmail.Com Or Linktr.Ee/Ilps.Us.