MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 1, 2010) - The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines on Monday urged the International Maritime Organization to compel ships using the so-called "Pirate Alley" off Somalia to build in fortified rooms where crew members can hide in the event of an attack.
TUCP secretary-general Ernesto Herrera, a former senator, said the installation of "panic rooms" should be among the additional defensive measures taken by merchant ships to thwart pirates prowling The Gulf of Aden.
Apart from communications equipment, Herrera said the secure rooms should have adequate food, water and ventilation provisions to enable crew members to survive until they are rescued.
TUCP is a national labor center whose member organizations include the Philippine Seafarers Union, an affiliate of the London-based International Transport Workers' Federation.
Herrera cited the rescue of 16 crew members aboard the German freighter MV Beluga Fortune, which was seized by Somali pirates on October 24.
"We are grateful to the British and German forces that retrieved the sailors who were mostly Filipinos," Herrera said in a statement.
The sailors were rescued unharmed after they sent out a distress call, cut off the ship's fuel supply, shut down all power on the bridge, and dug themselves in a safe room before they could be overwhelmed by the pirates.
Unable to take charge of the ship, or hold any crew member hostage, the pirates were eventually forced to abandon the vessel. The marauders were already gone when British and German forces rescued the crew members.
TUCP's call for "panic rooms" came immediately after pirates hijacked yet another vessel, the Panama-flagged tanker MV Polar, off Somalia. The ship's 24 crew members included 16 Filipinos.
The Gulf of Aden is part of the vital Suez Canal shipping route between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea in the Indian Ocean. The gulf is known by the moniker "Pirate Alley" on account of the growing piracy in the area.
Over 21,000 ships navigate the Gulf of Aden every year, and Herrera said many if not all of them are bound to have Filipino sailors on board.
Foreign shipping firms, mostly based in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Japan, Norway, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, and Singapore, employ more than 350,000 Filipino sailors. Without counting the MV Polar and its crew, Somali pirates are still holding 19 vessels with 428 hostages.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Group calls for "panic rooms" in ships crossing Pirate Alley
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Labor slams Philippine Trade chief's proposal to clip security of tenure
MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 17, 2010) - Filipino Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo has drawn criticism for his proposal to attract fresh investments by cutting short the right to security of tenure enjoyed by workers.
"The right of workers to security of tenure is guaranteed not just by any law, but by the Constitution itself. Secretary Domingo should read the Constitution," said former Senator Ernesto Herrera, secretary-general of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines.
Herrera portrayed Domingo's proposal as "unimaginative," and likened it to everyday calls for government to spur business activity by simply freezing wages.
"Government should stop using workers as sacrificial lambs in the drive to lure new capital," said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.
Instead, Herrera urged government to reduce administrative red tape; lessen crime and corruption; build up the country's human resources; ensure stable supply of electricity nationwide; and check unfair trade practices, including smuggling and copyright infringement, that dampen investments.
Domingo earlier sought the easing of the Labor Code's provision on security of tenure. "I think we are one of the few countries with a security of tenure provision," he said.
Security of tenure means the right to continue in employment and the right to be protected against dismissal except for just and authorized cause under conditions required by law.
"The stricter the law, the less competitive we are. We have to relax some of our labor laws to be more competitive," Domingo said.
"What Secretary Domingo wants in effect is for employers to have even more leeway in arbitrarily throwing workers out of their jobs, so that they may be replaced wholesale with new and cheaper labor," Herrera said.
The former senator said the law's security of tenure provision could not be amended without violating the Constitution.
He cited Article XIII, Section 3, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, which reads as follows: "It (the State) shall guarantee the rights of all workers to self-organization, collective bargaining and negotiations, and peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike in accordance with law.
They shall be entitled to security of tenure, humane conditions of work, and a living wage. They shall also participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting their rights and benefits as may be provided by law."
To give flesh to the mandate of the Constitution, Article 279 of the Labor Code reads as follows: "Security of tenure. - In cases of regular employment, the employer shall not terminate an employee except for a just cause."
"An employee who is unjustly dismissed from work shall be entitled to reinstatement without loss of seniority rights and other privileges and to his full back wages, inclusive of allowances, and to his other benefits or their monetary equivalent computed from the time his compensation was withheld from him up to the time of his actual reinstatement."
Article 277 of the same Code also requires the employer to provide due process to every worker facing termination. Once removed, the worker may contest the validity of his dismissal before the labor court. The burden of proving that the discharge was for a valid cause rests on the employer.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Filipino nurses seeking US jobs continue to decline
MANILA, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 16, 2010) - The number of Filipino nurses aspiring to practice their profession in America continued to drop year-on-year in the third quarter, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines reported on Saturday.
Ernesto Herrera, TUCP secretary-general, said only 2,227 Filipino nurses took the US NCLEX for the first time from July to September, down 38 percent or 1,355 fewer compared to the 3,582 in the same three-month period in 2009.
TUCP now expects some 5,000 fewer Filipino nurses taking the NCLEX the whole of this year, according to Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.
Thus far, a total of 7,780 Filipino nurses took the NCLEX for the first time from January to September, down 35 percent or 4,074 less versus the 11,854 in the same nine-month period last year.
The NCLEX is the licensure exam administered by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing Inc. The number of Filipino nurses taking the test for the first time is a reliable indicator as to how many of them are trying to enter the profession in the US, Herrera said.
A total of 15,382 Filipino nurses took the NCLEX for the first time in the whole of 2009, down 5,364 or 26 percent from 20,746 in 2008. All told, since 2005, some 90,000 Filipino nurses have taken the NCLEX for the first time, that is, excluding repeaters.
Despite the decline in the number of Filipinos nurses seeking US employment, Herrera said the Philippines remains America's largest supplier of new foreign nurses, after India, South Korea, Canada and Nigeria.
Outside the US, the Philippines is also the United Kingdom's third biggest supplier of new foreign nurses, after India and Australia.
Herrera said many Filipino nurses have temporarily sought employment in local industries, mainly services, while waiting for more gainful work in foreign labor markets.
"We now have thousands of registered nurses engaged in services that have nothing to do with their profession, working as contact center staff, baristas, cashiers, even lotto terminal operators," Herrera said.
The Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) earlier estimated at 200,000 the jobless nurses in the country. "A total of 37,679 new practitioners passed the local licensure exam in July. They are now competing for jobs with some 160,000 unemployed nurses," PNA said.
TUCP supports the continued deployment of Filipino nurses to lucrative overseas labor markets. "We obviously have a large surplus of nurses," Herrera said.
"We would prefer that government encourage the deployment of nurses, and discourage the placement of domestic helpers overseas," Herrera said.
"Filipino nurses abroad are generally less vulnerable to employer abuse. Their skills protect them. Their skills are not easy to replace, so employers are careful not to mistreat and drive them away," he said.
"As to domestic helpers, they are extremely susceptible to abuse because they live with their employers, and their skills are easy to replace," Herrera said.
"In Hong Kong for instance, for every Filipino domestic helper, there could be dozens of Indonesians, Thais and even local Chinese replacements waiting in line. This is also true in the Middle East. Potential substitutes from Sri Lanka and Indonesia abound," he added.
Monday, November 03, 2008
House urged to pass Senate-approved bill doubling teachers’ pay
"House leaders should now stop paying lip service to the plight of our more than 500,000 public school teachers, and waste no time in passing the bill that the Senate already approved two months ago," TUCP secretary-general and former Senator Ernesto Herrera, said in a statement.
Herrera was referring to Senate Bill (SB) 2408, principally authored by Sen. Loren Legarda. The bill proposes to raise from Salary Grade 10 to 19 the entry-level pay classification for teachers in public elementary and high schools.
This means their initial monthly pay would be jacked up to a new range of P18,471 to P21,995. The existing range is P10,933 to P12,997.
On top of the preliminary P9,000-increase, public school teachers would also get a P3,000-pay raise every three years.
Once approved, the initial adjustment would likewise automatically set off commensurate pay increases for every teacher in the public school system currently receiving compensation higher than the starting rate.
Herrera stressed the need for Congress "to redeem public school teachers from grinding poverty and restore the nobility of the teaching profession."
He warned that unless the House passes the Senate-approved bill, the public school system would continue to lose thousands of highly qualified instructors forced to seek greener pasture overseas, or here in the private sector.
Herrera noted that English-speaking Filipino teachers continue to leave in droves for overseas employment, particularly for the United States, where they get up to $4,000 monthly.
"Advancing in a big way the quality of life of our teachers and keeping them constantly motivated is the best way for Congress to check and reverse the rapid decline of basic education," Herrera pointed out.
Once SB 2408 is enacted, the first-year pay for public school teachers would be almost 25 percent higher than the P15,000 average starting pay for their counterparts in the private sector.
House Bill 4734, principally authored by Gabriela party-list Rep. Luzviminda Iligan, is the counterpart of SB 2408. Ilagan’s bill has been pending with the House appropriations committee since July 2007.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Bare Overseas Investments, GSIS Urged
"GSIS pensioners and members are entitled to know how much of their money has actually been stashed overseas, and in what financial products the money has been invested," said Ernesto Herrera, TUCP secretary-general.
"Retired and active government employees as well as their dependents have a right to be informed as to how our hard-earned contributions are being managed here and overseas. And GSIS officials have a duty to fully disclose the manner by which the funds are being invested," Herrera, a former senator, said.
Last year, the GSIS said it would invest up to $1 billion or P47 billion abroad under a new global investment program. Recently, however, senators have called into question the program's wisdom, amid the worsening global financial crisis set off by the sub prime mortgage meltdown in the US.
The crisis has taken its toll on at least seven large Philippine commercial banks that have so far reported $386 million (P18.1 billion) in losses on account of their exposures to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The 158-year-old US investment bank sought bankruptcy protection on Sept. 15 due to staggering losses brought about by spoiled investments in housing mortgages. The investments failed as a result of surging foreclosures and plunging home prices in the US.
Herrera, former chairman of the Senate labor, employment and human resources development committee, assailed the GSIS for treating the funds that it holds in trust "as if these are private funds for which they are not directly accountable."
He added: "Why is the GSIS being so secretive? Why can't they just come clean and tell us where the money has been parked so that pensioners and members can sleep better at night?"
"Right now, the only thing we know about the $1 billion is that it is supposedly being managed by Credit Agricole Asset Management Ltd. and ING Investment Management, and that Citibank N.A. is the fund custodian," Herrera said.
This means that New York-based Citibank has custody of the funds, but moves the money as instructed by managers at Paris-based Credit Agricole and Amsterdam-based ING.
The GSIS earlier said the money it has hoarded overseas has not been affected by the financial distress "because the funds have been oriented more toward Europe than the US."
"That is a lame excuse for the continuing secrecy and utter lack of transparency. The truth is, Europe has been among the hardest hit by the global financial crunch sparked by widespread defaults on low-grade home mortgages in the US," Herrera pointed out.
He added that several banks and investment funds in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Switzerland have either collapsed or have been bailed out by their governments.
"No financial instrument is absolutely safe nowadays -- not even traditional money market funds that had to be backed with $50 billion by the US government a few days ago just so (fund) managers can service withdrawals at face value," Herrera said.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Filipino Nurses Continue To Seek Jobs In America
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) on Saturday said a total of 9,837 Filipino nurses took the United States licensure examination for the first time from January to June this year.
Ernesto Herrera, TUCP secretary-general, said the number of Filipino nurses who took the NCLEX and implicitly sought jobs in the US in the first semester was roughly steady -- just 107 shy of the year-ago takers. He said a total of 9,944 Filipino nurses took the examination in the first half of 2007.
The NCLEX refers to the National Council Licensure Examination administered by the US (National Council of) State Boards of Nursing Incorporated (NCSBN).
In the whole of 2007, a record total of 21,499 Filipinos took the NCLEX for the first time (excluding repeaters). This was up 6,328 or 42 percent compared to the 15,171 Filipinos that took the NCLEX for the first time in 2006, according to the former senator.
The TUCP has been an aggressive backer of the country’s nurse practitioners.
The labor group has been pushing the deployment of Filipino nurses to lucrative job markets overseas, saying professionals should enjoy the right to take their skills to where these would get the greatest reward.
For years, Herrera has been urging regulators to close down a growing number of substandard nursing schools.
"Regulators should now be extra vigilant, and see to it that nursing students are kept away from low-grade schools," said Herrera, former chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development.
He cited the need for the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to shield parents and students from the proliferation of so-called "diploma mills.""We must stress that regulators are duty-bound to safeguard the hopes and dreams of tens of thousands of Filipino families to produce a nurse practitioner who will eventually lead them to a better quality of life," Herrera said.
At present, almost 500,000 students are enrolled in nursing schools nationwide, according to the CHED. Of the 132,187 graduates that took the last two Philippine nursing licensure tests in December 2007 and June this year, only 56,689 less than 43 percent passed, according to Herrera.
Last month, a Commission on Audit report revealed that of 263 nursing schools, only 111 had at least 50 percent of their graduates pass the Philippine licensure tests from 2001 to 2005.
Like the TUCP, the COA blamed the CHED for the problem, for failing to promptly close down deficient schools and raise the quality of nursing education.