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This letter is in reaction to your banner story,
entitled "Sleepless in sweatshop," last July 3, which exposed the pitiful
condition of garment workers who were reportedly being drugged by the
owner of Anvil Ensembles, a garment factory in Taytay town, near Manila,
to keep them awake and working for three straight days.
Such a story reveals how sorry the labor situation is in our country where
capitalists brutally exploit the workers just to gain more profits. And
because workers have no other choice but to sell their physical abilities,
they are held hostage to the condition set by the capitalists even if they
are violative of labor standards.
The case of Anvil Ensembles is one of the nastiest examples of
capitalist-worker relationship. The management seems to have lost its hold
on sanity when it resorted to offering drugs to tired workers to be able
to meet quotas set by its principal contractors. Worse, the company
deceived its 420 employees, 330 of whom were women, when it said that the
drug it was offering contained only ascorbic acid or Vitamin C.
The Partido ng Manggagawa (PM, Workers' Party) denounces this in the
strongest terms. These firm's owners are no better than the drug lords
that the government now wants to put behind bars. In this case, the PM is
pinning a significant portion of the blame on the Department of Labor and
Employment as well as the Senate and House committees on labor, which have
been sleeping on their jobs. They are the ones who should take Duromine
capsules to keep awake when workers continue to be exploited and need
their help badly.
--RENATO B. MAGTUBO, chairperson, Partido
ng Manggagawa , 47 Masikap Street, Pinyahan, Quezon City |
