Paper Presented at the First Regional (Luzon) Conference of the Women's Studies Association of the Philippines (WSAP) held at the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines on October 23-25, 2000.
CONTENTS: * Abstract * Introduction * Women's Work in a Globalizing Economy * Trade Unions in a Globalizing Economy * The Philippines Export Banana Industry in the Global Market * The Collective Banana Farms * Women and Gender Issues in the Collective Banana Farms * Gearing Up Further for Globalization * Women in the Union * Women Empowerment in the Trade Union * Conclusions and Implications * ReferencesThe concern over women's participation in wage-work mounts as globalization assaults the global labor market and governments compromise the welfare of the labor sector. Created to counterbalance the unequal relationship in the global market, trade unions face the daunting tasks of ensuring the continued promotion of women's welfare in the workplace and sustaining the momentum of women empowerment through their organizations. This paper examines the roles and responses of trade unions in empowering women in the face of global market forces. It focuses on the Philippine export banana industry and presents the case of the collective banana farms in Davao province as a specific context of women's labor in the globalizing economy. It describes the participation of women in the trade union organized in the collective banana farms. Moreover, it describes two cases of women who were able to advance in the union ranks. Finally, it outlines issues which trade unions need to address to enable them to challenge the global market forces oppressing women workers.
Leoning gritted her teeth as she restrained herself from shoving her notebook into the leering face of the technical supervisor. For three hours since early morning, she, as union farm chairperson, had been negotiating, in the presence of the OIC mayor, with the farm supervisor to stop the multi-national company's (MNC) attempts to conduct packing operations using scab workers. All that she had requested was for him to sign a memorandum agreeing to the stoppage. For three months, she had led her co-workers in barricading the packing plant after the MNC declared a total lockout throughout the banana farms. The women in particular had risked their physical safety to prevent the hired paramilitary men from ushering the scab workers into the packing plant. As the workers' provisions ran out, each one had scrounged from the limited livelihood and food sources in the vast expanse of banana farms. Hungry and harried when the MNC tendered a separation pay drastically lower than the rate stipulated in the union's collective bargaining agreement, the workers gave up the struggle and scampered to claim their meager separation benefits.
Fely glared at the inquisitive male union member. She knew he was not asking her questions out of curiosity or for need to be informed, but rather to spite her. The people who chose her to lead their struggle, as they cowered in fear for their safety, had been the same ones calling her incompetent. As negotiations at the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) dragged, so did the loyalty and trust of the union members eroded. They became increasingly disappointed over the union leadership's failure to effect the increase of their wages to the standard daily rate and the release of their 1993 cost-of-living allowance (COLA). After five years in the labor courts, the Supreme Court (SC) finally ruled the release of the 1993 COLA from which the farm growers have petitioned to be exempted. Six months after the SC's decision, the DOLE Region IX still had to overcome the ineptitude of its officials to enforce the decision's writ of execution. In the meantime, despite her encouragement, Fely's members had remained mum about staging possible protest or extra-legal actions to pressure the growers, even as they rant against the union leadership's failure in the negotiating tables. As they clamored for the increase of their wages and the release of the COLA, they cowered at the danger of being replaced by a pool of reserve laborers from another farm once they stage a protest action. The labor code itself prohibits them from going on strike since the wage order and COLA issues are "non-strikable". So, instead, they labored from daybreak to early evening, seven days a week and subjected their daily income to the strict quality and fluctuating daily production requirements of the MNC.
The above are vignettes of the lives of two women among the hundreds working in the export banana plantations in Davao Province, yet alone in the leadership of the trade union under which they are organized. This paper is about them as wives, workers in an industry riding the wave of globalization, and leaders in a trade union paddling to keep afloat in its wake.
Since the early 1980s, the world economy has undergone profound transformation characterized by progressive elimination of barriers to trade and investment and unprecedented international mobility of capital (Bronson and Rousseau 1995). Alongside these transformations, governments have adjusted their economic policies to enable themselves to integrate into the new global market economy (Bronson and Rousseau 1995). Among other sectors, labor has been the most adversely affected by these structural adjustments
In the midst of this global movement are women who are both key players and (unknowing or unwilling) victims in the global economy (Pineda Ofreneo 1999). Through a "global feminization of labor" women have been integrated into the global labor market (Standing 1989:1080). This "feminization of labor" is attributed to the outward development strategies based on export-led industrialization (Standing 1989:1080). Concretely, this is exemplified by the increase in export-processing zones (EPZ's) which employ 80 percent women (Pineda Ofreneo 1999). Women's employment to export companies are not limited in the EPZ as subcontracting jobs in the informal sector also increase. Another factor is the deregulation of the labor market. Manufacturing companies employ women as temporary or contractual workers, easily dismissed, prepared to work for lower wages and longer hours, and without union rights (Standing 1989:1080, Pineda Ofreneo 1999). Women are also regarded as best suited for the repetitive and meticulous work which require manual dexterity and great patience. Young and experienced, they are paid less; old and slow, they are easily dismissed and replaced.
Banana plantations as world market factories. While much have been said about women in the popular manufacturing industries, such as garments and electronic, little attention has been given to women in the agribusiness industry, although they also fall under the manufacturing industry. Women's involvement in plantation production is best understood within the context of world market factories. Thomsen (1984) argues that women are integrated into the capitalist mode of production through their marginalization. Women form an army of industrial reserve labor force which can easily be fired and rehired (Bernholdt-Thomsen 1984, Elson and Pearson 1984). Women's wages are generally 20-30% lower than their male counterparts (Elson and Pearson 1984, Standing 1989). The value of their labor and their availability creates a cheap labor market necessary for the profitable and competitive operation of world market factories.
While comparative productivity with male counterparts is hard to measure, appropriateness and adaptability to particular production processes make women more efficient. Women are assigned to tasks requiring the manual dexterity and docility they are famously "born with" (Standing 1989:1077, Elson and Pearson 1984, Pineda-Ofreneo 1985). In banana plantations, women are employed as sorters, washers, and packers, tasks that require very little skill and are characteristically tedious, repetitious, and monotonous. These types of work also hardly offer any chance for technical and professional advancement. While manual dexterity and docility maybe required in plantations, such as the strawberry agroindustry plants in Mexico, women's employment is mainly due to the lower wages they can be paid and the longer and more "flexible" schedule they can be required to work (Arizpe and Aranda 1981:470). This is facilitated by the availability of a large population of women with limited alternatives for work. Men had not been attracted by the wages in the agribusiness and had migrated.
Within the context of globalization, the conditions of women's work in banana plantations as best viewed as ironies. From the two situations described earlier, the following can be gleaned:
* low wages for "low" skills in the face of ever increasing quality standards;
* low take-home income for longer workhours in the face of fluctuating production quotas;
* lack of job security even as sources of livelihood become more scarce;
* lack of social security as workers are exposed to more health hazards;
* union busting even as the work systems become more fragmented; and
* lack of food sources and subsistence production in the face of increasing agro-industrialization.
Trade unions are the largest independent democratic non-governmental organizations in most countries of the world, including the Philippines. Organized at and around the workplace, unions are meant to counter-balance the inherently unequal relationship between individual workers and employers, thus ensuring the equitable distribution of the benefits of productive growth (ICFTU 1999). Within the context of globalization, trade unions stand between (but closer to) the workers and the global market forces that exists to exact the most profit from such unequal relationship.
Trade unions, themselves, however, are under fire as globalization assaults the labor market. In the Philippines, the following have been observed as structural changes in the labor force which have impinged on trade unions.
* Shift towards the service sector. A drastic increase in employment in the services sector and the stagnation of employment in the industrial sector has put a big part of the labor force beyond the coverage of trade unions (Tuaño and Aldaba 2000).
* Labor flexibility and declining job security. Labor flexibilization schemes, such as part-time/contractual labor, subcontracting parts of the production process among smaller enterprises, subcontracting certain on-site services to other firms, agency labor-only contracting, and piece rate compensation schemes, have resulted in the stagnation in the number of unionized workers (Tuaño and Aldaba 2000, Tujan undated).
* Increasing difficulty in union organizing. It has been noted that though the proportion of unionized workers has stabilized, the proportion of number of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements (CBA) has actually declined (Tuaño and Aldaba 2000). Contractualization and such other scheme of flexible hiring has lead to the increase of non-unionizable workers. Unions are stripped of bargaining power as they lose control over production and worker's with an overwhelmingly majority of the workforce non-unionized (Tujan undated).
In the face of such effects of globalization, trade unions have responded by taking an increasing realistic view of their thrust and efforts. Tuaño and Aldaba (2000) outline the following responses:
* Advocacy of social protection issues. Organized labor has sought the liberalization of union organizing rules to adapt to the government's policy of deregulation. Proposals and advocacy to amend, if not repeal the Labor Code have specifically focused on liberalizing the regulations regarding the acquisition of legal personality of unions and allowing the national federation itself to file the petition for union recognition.
* Social organizing. To respond to their narrowing coverage, unions have embarked on branching outside the traditional manufacturing labor base into areas where unions is low, such as the education sector, professionals, self-employed and construction workers.
* Increased pragmatism in labor-management discussions. Unions have taken more to the "soft" approach. It has been observed that recorded strikes have reduced from 200 in 1990 to 58 in 1999. Several unions have been collaborative with firms in discussions pertaining to cushioning the effects of the crisis and increasing their employment chances in other firms.
Over these approaches, however, it remains a question as to how central gender issues and women's roles will be in these responses to globalization.
In 1998, the Philippines ranked 4th among the biggest exporters of banana with 1.1 million tons of export valued at US$ 216 million, a 0.5% increase in volume from 1997. As such, processed bananas remain one of the biggest export-products of the Philippines. The biggest country market continues to be Japan, capturing 62% of total Philippine bananas exports in 1998. Banana export to Japan experienced tremendous increase since 1995, from only 16,345 metric tons imports in 1994 to 198,838 metric tons in 1998. The other important export markets for Philippine bananas are Saudi Arabia, Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Though the US market is dominated by Latin American exports, the Philippines still supplied a volume of 1,608 metric tons valued at US$1.9 million in 1997, the biggest among banana-exporting Asian countries.
Market expansion. Vast as it is now, the market for Philippine banana exports is still expected to expand in the Asia-Pacific region. In August 2000, after a few months of threats and negotiations with the Australian government, the Department of Agriculture (DA) announced the opening of the Australian market for Philippine bananas while projecting an additional export income of US$ 50 million per year (Mindanao Times News Online 2000). The DA also expects the expansion of the South Korean and Chinese markets, announcing that the lowering of 47% tariff imposed by China on Philippine agricultural exports has been under negotiations.
The Banana Wars and the WTO Ruling. In 1995, Chiquita, the most dominant US banana trader, instigated the move to abolish the special terms of access provided by European Union (EU) countries to banana exports from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) and to increase the access of Latin American banana exports to the EU market. Thus began the "Banana Wars". Since then, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has twice ruled in favor of the United States of America, and against the EU and ACP countries. In January 1999, WTO ruled that the special access given to ACP countries was not consistent with the WTO, thus opening further the EU market to Latin American bananas. Three months later, in April 1999, WTO ruled further that the US is entitled to impose US$191.4 million of retaliatory sanctions on EU exports to the US. Besides expanding the market for Latin American bananas, this "development" further bolstered the dominance of the three biggest banana traders, Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, in the global banana market, while strangling the smaller banana traders from the ACP countries.
Though the Philippines is nowhere, at least at the moment, involved in the "Banana Wars", two probable scenarios of Philippine involvement are imminent. Either way, production of export bananas is certain to increase, and the profit driven agenda of banana exporters are sure to impose on labor. One is precisely that the Philippines is dragged into the dispute and becomes another one of the countries whose export-bananas are given access to the EU market. This is not a far probability since the three biggest banana traders in the "Banana Wars" are the very same ones operating in the Philippines. Another is that, even if Philippine bananas do not gain access to the EU market, any inability of the Latin American countries to completely fulfill its market commitments with EU countries will be filled in by the Philippines. While the Philippines may not directly supply the EU market, it will still have to increase production to supply the demands of the Asia-Pacific and Mid-East market. This happens as Latin American bananas are diverted from their Asian market to the EU countries.
There was a preview of this situation in mid-1998 when Hurricane Mitch struck South America and devastated its vast banana plantations. Though the three biggest traders did not have commitments with the EU market then, at least not until early 1999, the banana plantations of Dole in Southern Mindanao noticeably increased daily production to compensate, suspectedly, for the lack of Ecuadorian banana supply to the Japanese market. It was under this situation that the longstanding woes of the workers in the collective banana farms in Southern Mindanao turned into a climactic tragedy.
Contract growership and collective banana farming provide a very unique condition for both women's participation in economic work and in a trade union, and the profit agenda of an MNC in the export banana industry. As bad as it is already, women's labor in the banana farms become more harrowing when seen within the context of globalization. Even before the union was busted in early 1999, the labor situation in the collective banana farms has been ripe for exploitation under a globalizing economy.
Contract growership in the collective banana farms. Collective banana farming is a scheme of dividing and clustering small plantation landholdings in Southern Mindanao that would allow them to attain the scale of export production. The small landholdings are grouped into big farms wherein production operations are collectivized. Each farm has its own group of laborers and one packing plant.
Prominent among these banana farms are the 12 under contract growership with the Standard (Philippine) Fruit Company (Stanfilco) -- the banana division of Dole Philippines, Inc., an affiliate of Dole Asia, Ltd., the Asian subsidiary of Dole Foods Co. – in the municipalities of Kapalong, Sto. Tomas, Panabo and Carmen, all in Davao Province. Each farm is more or less 200 hectares in area and, between them, covers some 2,400 hectares. The banana farms are divided into two "zones", namely: the Luna Zone, consisting of the 10 farms in the municipalities of Kapalong and Sto. Tomas; and the Panabo Zone, comprised by two farms, one each in Panabo and Carmen.
Started in 1966, the banana contract growership scheme is, in principle, a joint venture between Filipino landowners, hereon to be referred to as grower/s, and the multinational company Stanfilco. Under the scheme, a grower is contracted by Stanfilco for the planting of his/her land with bananas which are exclusively purchased by the latter. In principle, a 70%-30% division of production cost is applied between Stanfilco and the individual growers. Stanfilco's 70% comes in the form of financing and technology. Stanfilco provides the capital for farm inputs and the infrastructures, facilities, equipment, and technical know-how in the production of export bananas. On the other hand, the growers' 30% comes mainly in the form of land and labor which the growers supposedly provide and pay for. The 70% Stanfilco "subsidy" is deducted from the sale of processed bananas. Growers' revenue comes from whatever is left of the sales after the deduction. Under the same contract, the grower is designated as the manager of the operations in the banana farms, while Stanfilco is identified solely as buyer and exporter of the bananas.
Contract growership, with Stanfilco as main mover, has been found to be exploitative of the growers and the laborers in two ways. One, the contract favors Stanfilco's profit-agenda while burying the growers in deep financial debt. Second, the contract exempts Stanfilco from any responsibility and liability towards the laborers, and, instead, saddles the growers with them. The growers, on their part, disowns the workers claiming that, though they are the signatories in the CBA with the union, it is Stanfilco that runs everything in the banana farms. Until the time the union was busted, the issue of employer identity remained unresolved, at least for the collective workers and some skeptical growers.
The union. The workers in these two farm "zones" were organized under the Nagkahiusang Mamumuo sa Collectives of the National Federation of Labor or NAMACOL-NFL. Although both "zones" are under one name and the supervision of the NFL Davao office, the two farms in the Panabo Zone are autonomous of each other and of the other 10 in the Luna Zone, which, although has 10 corresponding farms councils, is consolidated under one over-all Executive Committee (Execom).
The management. All the labor issues and problems in the banana farms were popularly attributed (either as direct cause or as aggravating and impeding factor), on one unresolved question, "Who is the employer?". Thrice the NFL tried, through the labor courts, and failed on all attempts to compel Stanfilco to declare itself employer of the collective workers. In the signing of the first and second CBAs between the workers' union and "management" in 1989 and 1993, respectively, Stanfilco allegedly managed to cheat and fool the unlettered growers into signing as individual employers. In all, CBA negotiations and court hearings, Stanfilco stood by its position as a buyer only and denied any responsibility or liability to the workers. Thus, the 635 growers were forced to stand, officially on paper, as employers of the workers.
Union argument. In its position paper submitted to the Supreme Court, the NFL grounded its claim on the fact that Stanfilco has control of the methods of production being the one which provides the technology and financing, and determines the day to day activities in the farms. All equipment, tools, chemical-inputs and facilities are provided and maintained by the company. All capital financing comes from Stanfilco, and under the 70-30 sharing, growers shell out only 30% of the production cost. All facilities and infrastructures were erected and are maintained by Stanfilco. The lands on which the packing plants are erected are leased to the company. The agricultural technology and the production practices were introduced and constantly overseen by the company's agriculturists, technical supervisors and operation coaches. Everyday, supervisors and coaches determine what areas are to be applied with fertilizer and sprayed with pesticides, which irrigation canals are to be dug out, how many stems are to be harvested, and how many boxes are to be packed. All these and other policies that need to be implemented in the farms are coursed through the "collective" leader, a grower elected and paid to represent the rest of the landowners in a farm. In fact, the time-worksheets of the workers are not valid without the approval (signature) of the technical supervisor.
With the labor relations in the collective banana farms as background, women's labor in the banana farms becomes more harrowing when seen in the context of globalization.
Gender division of labor in the two collective banana farms. Women are a minority, but are concentrated in the most central stage of the banana production system, packing or processing. Women make up 40 percent of the 5,000-man/woman labor force in the collective banana farms. In the operations category, 95 percent of the total female labor force are assigned in the packing operations and 5 percent in field operations.
Women make up 90 percent of the 80 to 90-man/woman labor force in the packing operations. They are employed as selectors, weighers, labellers, wrappers, box stitchers, packers and checkers. It is noteworthy also that all leadpersons in the packing operations are females, but are called leadmen. Males in the packing plants average around 20 in number, and work mainly as unloaders of harvested bananas in farms still using the traditional tractor harvesting method, dehanders in farms using the cable way harvesting method, and van loaders of packed bananas.
In the field, female contractual workers join males as weeders, fertilizer applicators, "suksok" baggers, deflowerers, deleafers and nematode controllers. On the other hand, males undertake the planting, bagging, stem spray, ground spray, drainage, propping, disease control and harvesting operations.
Regular female workers were assigned exclusively to the packing operations. This had been the case since 1990 when regular female workers in the field were transferred to the packing plants by the management. Since then, all female labor in the field have been undertaken by contractual workers. It became management's policy to keep women from prolonged exposure to elements (chemicals, bodily risks, and weather) in the field.
One particular operation affected by this policy is the nematode control which employ mostly women. It was discovered that the chemicals used in nematocide cause sterility. Work in this operation has been exclusively given to temporary workers with "3-month contracts".
While the male work force is relatively steady in size throughout the year, the female worker population is most erratic. The operations where men are assigned, including those in the packing plants, are guaranteed to be daily and year-round. On the other hand, operations, including those in the field, which require women are subject to the seasons. During peak seasons (i.e. months of November to December and May to June), the female work force increase by 50% both in the field and packing operations. In the field, care for fruits slated to be harvested in the peak season would require some 30 additional women. In September 1998, for instance, contractual workers, mostly women, were recruited to care for the fruits scheduled for harvest in May 1999. In the packing operations where the box quota can run up to as much as 3,500, more workers are required. On the other hand, during off-seasons, particularly crop failure due to diseases, the female labor force is trimmed down to the core group of regular workers.
Lack of job security. In general, only the unionized regular workers were assured of permanent employment and income in the collective banana farms. In both zones, contractualization has been a prevalent practice.
In the Panabo Zone, regular recruitment of contractual workers stopped upon the organization of the union and resumed only in 1994. Since then a group of temporary workers have been maintained as reserve labor force, to be called on any day that the production quota or fieldwork require additional workers. A grower who acts as labor contractor does the hiring. Applicants are not required to submit any document. Neither are they given written copies of a contract, instead, are simply listed alphabetically.
During the boom months in the Panabo farms, all are guaranteed with daily work. During off-seasons, however, a strict but fair rotation system is followed to fill in the few vacancies. During these months, it would be fortunate for a contractual worker to be able to work four days in a month, the wage for which is only enough to pay the monthly Social Security System (SSS) contribution.
Female contractual workers originally assigned to the packing operations are temporarily given work in the field when there is need. Otherwise, they stay home. They are reassigned to the packing operations only when the day's box quota require additional workers. When the box quota is between 1,500 to 2,000 the rotation order is followed. When the quota exceeds 2,000 boxes, all contractual workers are given work. Outside of these, the packing workforce is limited to the regular workers.
Contractualization and exclusion from union membership. The collective banana farms employ some 5,000 laborers of which only 2,200 are regular and unionized. The number of regular workers is supposed to be based on the hectarage of a farm at a ratio of 1 person per I hectare. A farm of 200 hectares should, thus, employ the same number of laborers including those in the packing operations. However, farm operations actually require more laborers so as to meet the company's high production and quality requirements. Given the actual number of workers employed, it is evident that the labor standard is flawed and has been exploited by Stanfilco to limit the number of regular and, consequently, unionized workers.
Regularization impossible. In the Luna farms, contractual workers sign contracts ranging from 3 to 5 months of maximum tenure. They are not given a copy of the document. However, contractual workers usually work beyond the tenure in their contracts for as long as their services are needed in the farm. No contracts are drawn to cover the duration of the extension. In fact, it is common for workers to serve beyond the 6-month probationary period without a contract. Moreover, it is common for a worker who has been in a farm for years to remain a casual worker. When they are finally dismissed from work for the period, contractual workers are not allowed to re-apply in the same farm on the next hiring period. If they want to work, they have to apply in other farms. Thus, contractual worker's employment is a cycle of the 10 farms.
This system has been imposed to prevent contractual workers from being regularized and becoming union members Most affected by this system are the women who make up the majority of the seasonal workers. Many of the female contractual workers have accumulated years of working in a single farm but have not been regularized due to this system of hiring.
Equal wages but less earning capability for women. Women's exploitation in terms of wages is two-tiered. First, a firmly obvious scheme, is the non-plantation workers' daily minimum wage that they receive similar to the males. Second, a hidden and creeping oppression, is the underpayment of their skills and work in the packing operations, which requires them to work longer to approximate men's earnings.
Although each of the 12 farms exceeds the land area and labor force requirements to qualify as a plantation, the workers are still considered non-plantation workers, thus receive non-plantation wage rates. It should be noted that the Philippine wage system has segregated agricultural workers into plantation and non-plantation categories. To qualify for plantation wage rates (P132.00), a worker has to be employed in an area more than 24-hectare employing at least 20 workers. Below these requirements, a worker receives only P107.00 for eight (8) hours of work. The collective banana farms are set up to defy these requirements.
Such wage scheme arose from the set-up of the individual contracts of the landowners and the CBA signed by the 635 growers, and Stanfilco's position as buyers only. Since most of the landholdings do not qualify for the 24-hectare and 20 or more worker requirement, the workers are considered employed in a non-plantation agricultural area. Further supporting this was the union's CBA which held the owners of the individual non-plantation landholdings as employers of the workers.
In contesting this wage system, the NFL had argued that the area of each farm and the collectivized work system qualify the farms as plantations. The 200 or so workers do not work only in a single landholding, rather in a 200-hectare or so area as a whole. Although many of the landholdings do not have 24 or more hectares, each forms as part of a plantation that has more than 20 workers in the collective payroll which each grower shares with the rest. However, the labor courts of Davao and Cagayan de Oro ruled that, since the growers do not have a single corporate identity that legally binds them as one corporate entity, the collective banana farms fall under the non-plantation category.
Although the wages paid to men and women are equal, the women in the packing plants are the ones most oppressed by this wage scheme. Among the workers, the women in the packing operations are the ones most collectivized and most qualified for the plantation rates. While the 10-men teams in the field may, despite the work cycles, be limited to work in only a number of landholdings, the 60 or so women in the packing plants process all the bananas from every single grower, thus work for all the growers in the farm.Besides the 8-hour daily wage system, the CBA also prescribes the "pakyawan" system or piece-work-rate wage scheme. Under this scheme, workers are given a work quota for the day which is computed with the piece-work rate. In the packing operations, for instance, the rate per box of an ordinary 6-hands pack (P2.75) is multiplied with the day's total production quota (e.g. 2000 boxes), the total amount of which (P5,500.00) is divided among the total packing workforce (e.g P5,500/ 60 = P98) for the day's wages.
Although workers claim that the "pakyawan" system earns bigger daily income, it has been discarded in the packing operation since early 1998. The very steep quality requirements and more complicated packing patterns require longer work duration in the production of each box and make it impossible to accomplish the quota without sacrificing the overtime pay under the hourly scheme. However, it has been reported that the farms have reverted to this scheme after the union was busted.
Longer workhours, less pay. Women work the longest during normal work days, but are first ones to lose income on non-harvest days. During ordinary days, a worker's day usually starts at 4:00 a.m. when she wakes up to prepare for the assembly at 5:30 a.m. Actual work begins at around 6:00 a.m. For the women in the packing operations, packing starts when the harvested bananas begin arriving at around 7:00 a.m.. While waiting for the bananas to arrive, they are assigned janitorial and maintenance chores in the packing plant. There are 15-minute breaks at 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. Lunch break is at 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.. Work usually ends around 5:00 p.m.
During peak seasons, harvesters and packers start work as early as 3 a.m. and end as late as 11 p.m. While the breaks, including a short dinner break, are observed, this work schedule, which is regarded to be most rigid, is exhausting for the workers especially the women. Outside the breaks, their only chance to sit is when they go to the comfort room at the permission of the leadwoman.
Work in the packing operations proves to be the most tedious. Women in the packing operations have to work longer hours than men in the field operations (not to mention that the fields offer greater physical, psychological and temporal freedom than the packing plants) to earn as much as the men. Consequently, the long hours spent in the packing plants have also prevented the women from engaging in other ventures, economic or otherwise. In contrast, the men in the field, who by 3:00 p.m. are already free from work, are able to get more rest and time for other activities.
Labor relations and conditions in the collective banana farms before the union was busted in early 1999 were already allowing Stanfilco to ride the wave of globalization and compete in the open and expanding global market. However, that did not stop the company from employing other means to undermine the union and further its profit seeking agenda.
Fragmentation of the workforce, marginalization of women. In 1996, the company attempted to introduce two "new" work systems which were deemed to fragmentize the workforce had the union not been able to block them. First was the "Banana Gardening Program", underwhich a banana laborer is converted from a specialized type of worker performing one (1) work operation alone into a generalized type of worker simultaneously working on five (5) types of operations in a given time at the same rate of earnings. This system would have reduced the workforce by half. Second, introduced in the same year, was the "Banana Clustering Program" which was primarily designed to severely cut down labor cost and to prepare the structures for the eventual dissolution or busting of the union. Under this system, the entire workforce in a farm will be subdivided into clusters of 15 man-crew and assigned into specific farm parcels with a maximum area of 24 hectares. The regularly-paid wages and benefits under the law and the CBA will be discarded and replaced by a new wage system based on the total number of boxes produced, multiplied by a fixed rate per thousands of boxes and divided accordingly among the cluster members. Further, the single bargaining unit will also be subdivided after the expiration of the CBA. Thus, there will be several bargaining units depending on the number of clusters.
Fragmentation of the workforce and the consequent dissolution of the union would have only further marginalized the women in the production system and in the smaller organizations. Women's earning capacity would have been further reduced, their work hours lengthened, and their health further endangered given the established gender division of labor in the banana farms. Women would not be able to participate in the "heavy" work and be limited to the "easy" work that take longer, do not pay as much and expose them to more health hazards. In the drive to earn more by producing more boxes of processed bananas, women would be most pressured to work longer to augment the income of everyone else in the group, particularly the males.
Under such labor conditions, the dissolution of the union organization into smaller bargaining units would have only marginalized women further in the organizations. Though women's work is central to the survival of the group, it does not challenge the male's established privileged position as traditional leader. On the other hand, the length and nature of their tasks only serve to confine them to their work and leave the males with greater liberty to engage in activities in the public sphere. With a limited earning capability, women's time outside of the plantation and housework is allocated to other income generating activities to augment the household income. This leaves the women no other time except for economic and household work.
Union busting. Unsuccessful in those two attempts, Stanfilco resorted to a total lock-out in the Luna Farms in late 1998 that eventually busted the union in early 1999, the same time as the WTO ruling awarding the three biggest banana traders open access to the EU market. This happened as the South American banana plantations were devastated by Hurricane Mitch and the Panabo farms ridden with the Sigatoka disease. Starting November 1998, Stanfilco imposed a lock-out in all operations, leaving the displaced workers without salaries for the previous month and oblivious to their future and the compensation of their dismissal from work.
The company attempted to resume operations employing scab workers and hired goons in military uniforms. But the union responded by putting up barricades in the packing plants and foiling the companies attempts to resume operations. Women normally took the frontline in the confrontations with the armed goons thinking their being females, meaning weak and frail, would stop the armed goons and prevent any violence. The tactic did work and it was widely encouraged by the union.
While protest actions were being staged in the farms, negotiations mediated by the heads of the local governments of Kapalong and Sto. Tomas and officials from the National Labor Standards Commission were held in futility. The local heads, not even the governor of Davao Province, were able to mediate a solution favorable to the workers. Instead, the Municipal Circuit Courts of Carmen awarded Stanfilco with temporary restraining orders to force the workers into abandoning their barricades and opening the packing plants.
After three months of silence on the fate and compensation of the separation pay of the workers, Stanfilco tendered a compensation package much lower than what is stipulated in the CBA. With a little more deception, the hungry and harried workers were lured into accepting the reduced compensation. With that, the Luna chapter of NAMACOL-NFL was busted, and operations using contractual labor resumed in the collective banana farms.
Women made up 30% of the 2,200 union membership, but, since the union was founded in 1986, only two women had officially become farm chairpersons out of the 12 possible seats. Three women held lower executive positions in a farm in the Panabo Zone, but decided to quit in the middle of their terms. Women were (and still are) the majority in the packing workforce, but only two females held the shop stewardship out of, again, 12 possible seats in the packing operations during the time of the research. Aside from these indicators, it was also observed that certain practices in the union maintain rather than challenge traditional gender norms.
Lack of knowledge of union's "transformative capacity". Women's participation in the union or in any activity outside of work and the home was grounded in the economic and aesthetic benefits received and expected from the activity. The motivations which ushered women into the union were drawn from the same motivations which women bring into economic work – that is, financial benefits. The motivations which women utilize in the production of interaction in the union, thus, confine their knowledge of the union's transformative capabilities to financial and economic improvement, and limited their participation to fulfilling those needs.
There were no organized struggles for gender-specific issues since these were not within the coverage of the women's consciousness. Such could have materialized if the women's labor consciousness had been gendered – that is, one oriented to the particular needs and demands of women's work. Such gender awareness may arise from the mother-wife consciousness which they brought into the public sphere. However, this consciousness was easily drowned in the male-dominated and oriented workplace and organization, and sanitized as general labor consciousness.
Limited visibility. Consequently, women were most visible only in the protest actions staged to protect their jobs and income in the banana farms. The roles they undertook in such protest actions arose from the constructed physical inferiority of women and the emotional cushion they provide in such volatile situations. In the Panabo Zone, women's ascent to leadership positions in the union was rationalized with these constructed notions of weakness and meekness. With this practice, the union limited women's venue for interaction to this type of activities and stunted their knowledge of union dynamics and their potential roles in them.
Lack of formal venues for engagement. Even though the aptitudes for diplomacy (pakig-baba, pangatarungan) were accorded to women, they became inconsequential as they were hardly involved in formal negotiations which required diplomacy and negotiation skills. Lack of women's representation in the planning and decision-making bodies limited the practice of such aptitude and, again, stunted women's potentials in trade union work. Aside from casting verbal barbs and complaints in meetings and confrontations with management representatives, women's voices were hardly heard in any other formal fora.
In the same line, women's advancement in the union ranks was undermined by the trivial and dispensable regard for positions most available for women. Three female officers in one of the Panabo farms fell out of the union leadership because they deemed their positions dispensable enough to give up easily. A woman candidate in the last union elections decided to vie for a leadership position with the notion that the shop stewardship in the packing operations was minor enough for her to take on without compromising her other income-generating activities.
Notions of women's place. Domestic duties were identified as the main constraints for women's pursuit of active participation and advancement in the union. With poverty necessitating women to expand their domestic duties into the productive sphere, the women were more discouraged from engaging in activities indirect or uncertain of immediate monetary returns. This necessary expansion of women's duties was further ingrained and became disabling of women's participation in the union by the prevailing notion of the household and family as the women's responsibility and priority, being mother and wife.
Given this situation and prevailing notions of women's roles, the better, if not staple option for the women was to leave leadership positions to men who had least to risk in taking to the public sphere and engaging in formal and expanded roles in the union. Again, this arose from and was reconstitutive of the structures of domination that confine women in the private sphere and liberate men in the public sphere.
Material and psychosocial benefits. However, it cannot be denied that women benefited enormously from the changes and services rendered by the union. Improved working conditions, job security, social security, medical insurance and provisions on leaves and absences have made economic work and domestic duties much easier to accomplish for the women. Knowing they have rights, though not in exact terms, changed women's perspective towards work in the collective banana farms. The women credit the union for their improved status as workers and persons, even in the larger society.
Making the connection between gender and union benefits. One issue that remained, though, was making a connection between these benefits and their impact on women as gendered individuals, so as to transcend the economic and physical dimensions of union participation. A few women did make this connection and credit the union for their autonomy over personal wants and movements. While almost all the women did enjoy this autonomy, the lack of discernment hampered them from re-orienting their gender consciousness, much less asserting such consciousness in practice in the household.
To the women who could discern such relationship, union membership has given them more alternatives on how to go about their lives. Expressed and implied by those women who claimed so was their greater control over the direction and movements in the household which they credit to the economic benefits from the union.
Leoning and Fely are the two women who were able to hold the chairpersonship in their respective farms, Leoning at Farm 40 in the Luna Zone, and Fely at Farm 20 in the Panabo Zone. Leoning got the benefit of a union rule that elevates the losing candidate with the highest vote to the position in the event that the winner is unable to dispense the duties of the position. So, though losing to a male candidate in the 1997 elections, she assumed the position when the winner decided to forego with the chairpersonship and concentrate on his position as treasurer in the Execom in the Luna Zone. Fely, on the other hand, was voted in almost unanimously in an informal election in 1989 when no one else, particularly among the men, wanted to be chairperson in Farm 20. For fear of harm from the growers, no man dared take a leadership position. She was the overwhelming choice, being the woman who had been most experienced in union work.
Individual actions and union structures. Although the giving way of men eased the ascension of the two women into the top executive positions in their respective farms councils, the rise of these women was characterized more by their individual agency or actions that put them in position to assume the leadership post when it was for the taking.
As an ordinary member, Leoning had always spoken her mind especially in aid of co-workers who encountered problems with farm managers. As such, she considered her leadership position simply as a legitimization of what she had been doing ever since. Nevertheless, she suffered the apathy of many members who did not quite believe in her leadership capability. Challenged by this, she proved her mettle as a leader when she defied union conventions by ordering protest actions in her farm without coordinating with the higher Execom and the other farm councils. These protest actions were not haphazard decisions, but were preceded by negotiations with growers and Stanfilco supervisors. Thus, she established her knack in negotiations and decisiveness in action.
Fely had been one of first members, not just among women, to take active participation in the organization of the Panabo chapter. Since the early years of the union chapter, she had taken on various responsibilities, both official and unofficial, which educated her of the union dynamics and trained her for bigger union duties. So when the then incumbent chairperson, a male, abdicated his position in 1989, she was already prepared for the chairpersonship. Her education and service to the union continued, as she remained determined to pursue her union responsibilities, even as many of her members were getting demoralized and, even, her fellow female officers were quitting.
Arenas of struggle. Each woman had her own arenas of struggle and dimensions of transformation. Empowerment is evident in what each woman can do and what each has become through such actions. Leoning maintained her opposition to the oppressive system in the packing operations. She graduated from the verbal tiffs over labor complaints with management personalities into negotiated actions.
For Leoning , the household was another crucial arena of struggle. She had to negotiate for greater control of the household income, equal division of housework, and control over her body, all of which required re-orienting her husband's gender norms and resisting established practices. She credits the union training and duties for her greater awareness of her rights, particularly as a woman, acquired patience and effective diplomacy, traits which worked in negotiating and bargaining with her husband.
Fely has the union organization itself as an arena of struggle. Faced with the challenge of preserving members' trust and loyalty in the union, she had to sacrifice much of her time, energy and income in making herself ever-present in the negotiations and hearings in Davao City, so that she can keep her skeptical and critical members informed and at bay.
Unike Leoning , Fely does not regard the household as a arena of struggle. She claims to having flexible gender division of labor in the household, equal say in decision-making and control of the household resources ever since she was married. Household gender politics was not an area of concern for as she attests that there were not much significant changes in the gender relations in her household.
On the other hand, she has the community as a crucial arena of struggle. Fely's reputation in the union extended to the barangay community where she had gained a significant identity and responsibility. Her union education and the resources of the union enabled her to protect her family and her neighbors from losing their homes. With her decent knowledge of the legal system and experience with facing legal personalities, she was able to negotiate against the eviction order filed by the owner of the land they and several other families had been occupying. She has also become a reputable barangay official whose judgement and initiatives in the community are held with trust and respect. Her taking the cudgels for a group of casual workers in their own plight for just compensation is a further integration of her labor advocacy and community involvement.
As a whole, for both women, union work has been a widening of their horizons beyond the monotony and confines of the banana farms. Leoning , for one, remained confident of her future even with the loss of her employment and the busting of the union. As she prepared to leave the banana farms with her family to another place, she had no regrets about serving the union, but could only look forward to new challenges she would face and the variety of options she has for her own self.
With the expansion of its Asia-Pacific market and the dominance of the three banana traders operating in the Philippines in the global market, Philippine export banana industry is certain to burgeon, more – that is, increase in production volume and quality. Market expansion means increase in profit, and since markets are exploited, meaning wrung of all possible profit, it is consequent that the profit seeking MNC's also stretch Philippine labor standards and wring Filipino laborers to maximize the profit global trade liberalization can possibly offer. With the liberalized market, banana traders can only increase production volume. To keep each one's vantage position in the global market, they can only continue coming up with various new banana products of the highest quality agricultural engineering can produce and of the most intricate packing patterns women's manual dexterity and patience can process.
The brunt of neutralizing the profit agenda of the MNC's and fostering the welfare of workers, especially women, in the face of such humongous movement falls on the backs of trade unions. Third world governments, with their backs pushed against the wall by structural adjustments, can only half-heartedly formulate and implement labor standards, even flexible ones at that. The enemy is not new, it has only taken new powers and momentum; trade unions, therefore, need not sway from their original thrust, but rather continue to reinvent or recreate itself, especially for the women who are most oppressed by such powers. What follows are issues which trade unions must be able to address for women workers in this globalizing economy.
Loss of social and productive skills. Women have become dependent on wage work to support their families amidst their deprivation. Globalization has taken advantage of this, and, for them to earn as much, women have to enslave themselves for hours in plantation labor. The demands of plantation labor saps women of the physical and psychological capability to engage in anything else. Time is the least thing they lose to plantation work. Women face the greater danger of losing vital social skills and working capacity through their long working hours and exposure to health-sapping working conditions (Standing 1989:1092). The length and nature of women's work, particularly in the packing operations, has prevented them from developing any new skills or aptitude and engaging in any other productive activity outside of the plantation labor.
Economic work replicating housework. Plantation labor reproduces the subordination of women. The accumulation and the under-valuation of women's "easy" domestic work are replicated in women's work in the banana farms. Women's tasks in the banana farms, like domestic chores, are held as "easy", requiring minimal physical exertion. In work valuation thus, absence of physical exertion is compensated for through accumulation of the "easy" work.
Women earn less even though it is observable that women's tasks, particularly in the packing operations, involve more skills than any other operation. Even with their monotony and repetitiveness, selecting, weighing and packing are the most tedious and exact tasks in the production system. Women's monopoly of these tasks is justified by the manual dexterity and patience of women, which make them more suitable for the intricacies of the packing operations and the long work hours. Clearly, there is a comparative advantage in employing women at the expense of welfare and equity.
Women's exploitation attains another dimension in the plantation/non-plantation wage issue which deprives most the women in the packing operations of the proper plantation wages. Among all other workers in the collective banana farms, the women in the packing operations are ones who are most qualified for plantation wages. While those in stem spray, drainage, harvest and fertilization operations may work only in selected landholdings, those in the packing operations process the bananas from all landholdings, and, therefore, work for all the growers in the 200 hectare or so banana farm. The exploitation has even been graver since the ones most affected by this scheme were the unionized women who were all assigned in the packing operations.
Most alarming about these forms of exploitation is that they are sanitized in the male-dominated workplace as general labor problems. The measures used for labor standards are male-oriented, so much so that the subtleties of women's exploitation are not cognizable, not even to the women.
Concentration of power versus fragmentation of workforce. The cases of Leoning and Fely indicate that (em)power(ment) is available and exercisable only in the top executive positions. Not that the lower positions do not have any significant responsibilities and roles, but these positions are informally and trivially viewed. With planning and decision-making made in the chairperson and ExeCom levels, the lower positions are left out in the dynamics of trade unionism. Women, within the context of their participation in economic work and the union, are least motivated into pursuing officership in the union. Income prevails over personal advancement in and through the union. Exclusion from decision-making bodies and formal negotiations also impedes the exercise and development of the aptitudes and traits which women are accorded as advantages in leadership. Instead, the limited role described earlier is what takes to the surface and conditions the consciousness of women.
The advancement of the two women attests to the need to break through this barrier of informality and dispensability. Fely did it through personal actions that created a semblance of formality to the minor positions she undertook in the union. These actions were facilitated by the union through education, training and actual work in trade unionism. Leoning had to make a big jump to put herself in a position where she can acquire power.
This issue becomes very crucial as employers respond to globalization with fragmentation of the workforce. Fragmentation of the workforce, either through the segmentation of the production system or the clustering of workers, cultivates alienation among the workforce and leads further to the marginalization of women. Needless to say, this fragmentation impinges on the organization in the same way. Without small but formal venues for women's participation and stepping stones for advancement, women will remain in the periphery of the union organization.
Gender opportunism in the union. Women's limitation to buffer roles in protest actions reeks of gender opportunism which takes advantage of women's physical weakness and emotional meekness. Instead of strengths characterizing womanhood, notions of femininity are grounded in the constructed weaknesses, limitations and home-boundness of women. These are heralded as women's comparative advantage in protest actions, which, in turn, have characterized women's idea of trade unionism. In effect, women's knowledge of the unions workings and potentials are limited to protest actions. The women, thus, possess a narrow view not only of the union, but also of their own potentials and the possibilities for them in the union.
With this mindset propagated, albeit unintentionally, in the union, women are not able to challenge the household arrangements that subordinate them to men. The same notions of femininity and masculinity in the union are reproduced in the household, and vice versa.
Reinventing union posturing. Promoting women's advancement in trade unions in the face of globalization entail unions to reinvent the manner by which they posture themselves in the resolution of labor issues and problems. Women's participation cannot be limited to protest actions and to the "crucial" roles they undertake in such activities. Thus, other ways of posturing must be devised to allow the full potential of women's participation to develop. As described earlier, it has been noted that unions are becoming more pragmatic in labor-management discussions. Unions are bound to benefit more with women in negotiation tables, planning and decision-making panels given their ascribed aptitudes for diplomacy, patience and level headedness.
It cannot also be ignored that women have as much stake in union decision-making as men, being mothers and wives looking after their families as much as their husbands do. This time, however, the venue for interaction challenges notions of subordination of women and dismantles structures of male domination.
Alternative approaches and forms of organization. With the ban on unions in EPZ's, hiring schemes that allow rampant contractualization, and busting of unions in various industries, labor organizations need to devise alternative approaches and forms of organization to reach out to the women who are, otherwise, excluded from union membership and marginalized in participation. Of primary concern are the women workers displaced as unions are busted. Unions lack the mechanisms to cushion the impact on workers, especially women, after the organization is dissolved. Workers, particularly women who have not been able to development any other productive skills, are left to fend for themselves without any assistance from the federation. This imposes a greater impetus for unions to ensure the development of social and productive skills of women-members and the transformation of traditional gender power relations in the household. Women lose all capital, social or financial, for productive activity outside of plantation work and the union as they do not even have control over the separation pay they receive.
Cooperatives, enterprise-building and skills development programs, women's groups and other community-based organizations have been some of the alternatives taken by unions in reaching out and organizing workers, particularly women, traditionally outside of their coverage. The general trend is to increase non-traditional membership as traditional members decline. This happens as unions move from plant-based to craft and community-based unionism (Asper 2000).
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