Written by Noel Sales Barcelona   

CAVITE, PHILIPPINES (November 2, 2010) — Alarmed over the labor situation in electronics manufacturing enclaves in the different regions in the Philippines, labor leaders from Asia and Europe will convene in the province of Cavite to discuss the international and local labor situation inside the electronic manufacturing firms.

Top officials of the International Network on Human Rights and Sustainability in Electronics (GoodElectronics) are to convene, together with their Philippine labor partners, namely the Workers’ Assistance Center (WAC), Inc., the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER), Inc., Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), Metal Workers Alliance in the Phils., the National Coalition on the Protection of Workers’ Rights – Southern Tagalog (NCPWR-ST), and other organizations, at the Mt. Sea Resort, Hotel & Restaurant in Rosario, Cavite (approx. 30 km./18.64 miles, south of Manila).

“Labor leaders from Austria, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Switzerland, the Netherlands among others, will attend that historic meeting,” e-mails Ms Cecilia V. Tuica, International Relations Program Officer of the WAC.

She said that delegates from Mexico, Amsterdam, Austria and Taiwan have arrived yesterday (Nov. 1, Manila date), while the delegation from Switzerland, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are expected to arrive today.

“Part of the program, says Ms Tuico, “is devoted to discussions regarding the labor situation in the Philippines, particularly in the electronics and semiconductor manufacturing industries, where the laborers are mostly un-unionized.”

Based on the 2010 report of the Canada-based Electronics Industry Market Research and Knowledge Network, it says that the Philippine electronics industry is made up of over 700 firms of which around 75 per cent are foreign-owned and 25 per cent domestically.

“Companies in the finished electronic products sector are classified into two: large companies that are either subsidiaries of trans-national or joint ventures, and small or medium Filipino owned firms. In the electronic components sector there are the third party subcontractors, which are mainly Filipino owned, and the multinational plants which cater to the requirements of their parent companies,” the overview of the report said.

About 48 per cent of these companies are found in the CALABARZON (Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon) area, based on the data released by the Semiconductor and Electronics Industry in the Philippines, Inc. (SEIPI), while 42 per cent are operating within the National Capital Region (NCR).

Citing the Philippine Board of Investment’s data, Ernesto Santiago of the SEIPI reports that there are 376,000 people, which represents 1.04 per cent of the country’s total workforce and their output represents about 69 per cent of the total products exported by the Philippines in 2004, making the it number one in the Philippines’ export chart.

Santiago says that the members of the sector plan to increase its workforce up to one million workers (equivalent of 3.01 per cent of the Philippines’ workforce)

Meanwhile, in 2009, it is said that the aggregated income of the country’s electronic and semiconductors’ industry is US$13.5 billion, due to the 3.9 per cent decline brought by the 12.3 per cent fall in the industry’s output.