Bobbie Jopson - Directress, Workers' Foundation of the Philippines (WFP) Kababaihan (Congress of Women) 
 

Good morning. I am Bobbie Jopson, I am happy to be with you in this WABA International Seminar in drafting an international strategy to support the breastfeeding rights of working women, maybe because I consider myself one of the lucky survivors of those who were able to combine motherhood and activism. I have a six-year old daughter who was exclusively breastfed for six months, and I have been for the past two decades and still am an active participant of the social and political movement here in the Philippines. At present, I am very much involved with the labour movement - particularly Kababaihan and WFP which we established a year ago. Arugaan and our organization were partners in setting up a creche in a factory site in Antipolo last year. 

Today, I have been asked to share with you my organization's view on maternal legislation in the Philippines. But I feel that this issue can not be thoroughly discussed without touching on several topics which I believe have a profound effect on the purpose of this gathering. Perhaps some of you will be wondering what globalization and labour practices have to do with breastfeeding. This I hope to impart by the time I finish my talk. 

Let me start off by saying that Filipino women workers are natural advocates of breastfeeding - they usually come from the provinces, and were breastfed themselves. It is the working environment that draws them away from breastfeeding. International and local women's groups have done much to advance pro-women legislation, particularly in the area of maternity rights. But implementation does not differ from the implementation of labour standards in general, which has been limited to factories where labour is organized. 

But much more has to be done to address the government's inability to address the problems of the mother and the newborn in a holistic way. Legislation and government have chosen to focus on childbearing and granting women maternity leave. But while these have helped to ease the burden of working mothers - and have helped promote breastfeeding for 6 weeks - there is a lack of legislation addressing the support services needed by working mothers and Filipino families as a whole, especially in childbearing. 

Sixty-day maternity leave with pay is only the beginning of the support working mothers need. They need additional support to be able to breastfeed their babies exclusively for six months. They need day care centers to care for their babies while at work. Establishing health centers where they can bring their sick children would help a lot in minimizing absences of working mothers from work. 

These are only a few of the many support services working women need. 

But how can we advance these when in reality our past victories are threatened? And what is this that threatens us? 

At this point, let me share the sad state of labour, women workers included. 

It is from this context that we suggest all proposals be formulated, otherwise we will end up frustrated or will just have to contend with the individual breakthroughs at the local level instead of confronting the issue at a macro level - national and global. 

A specter is haunting labour - the specter of globalization. All the triumphs paid for in blood over almost two centuries of workers' struggle are in peril. 

Globalization is becoming a virtual holocaust for unions throughout the world, an Unfair Labour Practice (ULP) epidemic of global proportions. While business is modernizing for the new millenium, labour is being pushed back more than a hundred years- when workers had no right to organize for self protection and collective bargaining. Neo-liberalism is pushing for the replacement of union-centered bargaining by "flexibilizing" labour - the modern universal password for union busting. And their alibi is the imperative of global competitiveness. 

In America the decimation of the labour movement and the deterioration of labour standards is very alarming. Between 1978 and 1991, the Steelworkers lost 827,000 members, the United Auto Workers 659,000, the Teamsters over 500,000. The building trade unions lost over a million members.  Private sector union density plummeted to 11% compared to 30% in 1970. American workers are earning $100 less per month compared to 1977, while working for an additional 160 hours per year. 

In a January 1997 speech, American Federation of Labour (AFL) President John Sweeney addressed what he calls a prevailing assumption that "in the global economy, competition requires cutting back on workers' rights and social provision." Furthermore, he said that in the last quarter century, the world has been transformed from what it was before it was taken over by post-industrial policies.  "Most people are working longer and harder just to make ends meet. Too many companies rewarded by government incentives have taken the low road in international competition. They are cutting their workforces, their wages, and benefits. They are fighting against working people and their unions. They scour the globe in search of places where working people have low wages and no rights." 

In the Philippines, workers are exerting every effort to organize themselves. But they have to pass through the eye of a needle to forge collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with their employers. Though it appears that there is an increase in the number of registered unions (7,274 with 3.5 million members), only half a million workers from 4,497 unions are covered by CBAs of 1994. Since 1990, it has become extremely difficult for unions to enter into CBAs with management. In 1994, only 762 new CBAs were signed for 56,942 workers compared to 2,431 CBAs in 1990 covering 230,025 workers. The present economic crisis sees tens of thousands of workers, both male and female, retrenched. 

Figures show that more women are employed in this highly competitive globalized economy. But this increase in employment exists under casual and contractual set-up without the corresponding protection for workers. Even the basic 60-day maternity leave with pay is not given. 

This holocaust against unionism is a product of both corporate choice and economic law. The imperative from the perspective of labour is, as an initial step,  to preserve the historic gains of more than a century of workers' struggle, protect the workers' basic rights and promote their general welfare, and adapt the struggle to the current complexities of labour-business relations in this era of globalization and neo-liberalism. 
By its very nature, this self-defense struggle of labour against business' predatory aggression must focus on state policy. 

We have no choice but to defend all victories and advances in the rights and welfare of working women, now being attacked and undermined. 

On a macro-level, we have the following recommendations: 

We call on international organizations like WABA and international development agencies like UNICEF, and ILO, not to compromise. Instead, push for the right to organize unions. Unions, in the final analysis, are the most effective in monitoring and safeguarding that rights and benefits for working women are implemented. 

Work for the illegalization of casualization and contractualization - forms used to bust or ban unions, cheapen labour and deny job security and other benefits for women workers. 

Women labour leaders and women trade unionists should be deputized as women labour inspectors to monitor and report violations of labour laws. Establish a Women Workers' Investigation Bureau (NBI type) to assist women workers and unions in the investigation and prosecution of violations related to women's rights and welfare. 

Only if governments, women's organizations, labour movements and movements for children's welfare firmly resolve to give mother and child the benefits they deserve, and take a united stand against business practices that are anti-women, can we find hope not only for breastfeeding and other maternity benefits - but for the mother and child as well.