March 27, 2007

In early September, 2006, the International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and MSN received an urgent request for the Philippine Workers' Assistance Centre (WAC) to assist Chong Won workers who were being harassed, intimidated and physically assaulted for supporting their union.

WAC also reported that two union leaders had been unjustly fired and that company security guards had distributed flyers to the workers threatening that if they voted in favour of a strike, the company would lose orders and the factory would close.

ILRF and MSN immediately contacted Wal-Mart and demanded that they pressure their supplier to respect its code of conduct and Philippine labour law. Wal-Mart agreed to carry out an investigation and to correct any problems that were identified. However, to date, it has not shared its findings with MSN. The factory had previously been audited by a commercial auditing firm.

In the days and months that followed, the workers were forced to go on strike because their employer refused to negotiate with their union, a number of strikers were assaulted by EPZ police, 117 of the strikers were served termination notices, and many of the strikers were denied entry into the Export Processing Zone, leaving a handful of workers on the picket line.

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, company management illegally involved itself in the establishment of a "Caretaker Committee" which claimed to represent the Chong Won employees. The Caretaker Committee included supervisory personnel and was supported by approximately 100 temporary contract workers (neither of whom is legally entitled to be part of the union under Philippine law).

The Caretaker Committee petitioned the Philippine Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) seeking to de-certify the legitimate union on the basis that the union's leadership (who had been illegally dismissed) was no longer employed at the factory.

In early October, 2006, MSN received word from WAC that its chairperson, Bishop Alberto Ramento, had been stabbed to death in his church by an unknown assailant. According to WAC, Bishop Ramento's name had been put on the military's "Order of Battle," or hit list, before he was brutally murdered. The murder took place during a wave of killings of journalists, union leaders and human rights activists.

On November 7, 2006, in response to a request from MSN, seven major US apparel brands, including Wal-Mart, signed a joint letter addressed to the Philippine president, raising their concerns about the increasing number of assaults on and killings of union leaders and human rights activists in the Philippines.

In early November, Wal-Mart facilitated two meetings between Chong Won management, two intermediary companies that had placed the Wal-Mart order with Chong Won, the union, WAC, and the local Wal-Mart staff person. According to WAC, it appeared that there was general agreement among the parties at the meeting that Chong Won should recognize the union and start negotiating for a collective bargaining agreement, however the employer was unwilling to do so. The Philippine DOLE had previously overturned several appeals by the company aimed at avoiding recognizing or negotiating with the union.

In late October and early November, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) carried out an investigation of the alleged worker rights violations at Chong Won, in response to a complaint from Chong Won employees. The results of the investigation were shared with Wal-Mart and the factory owner.

Not satisfied with these findings, Wal-Mart contracted the US monitoring organization Verité to carry out yet another investigation.

On December 7, 2006, ILRF staff person Brian Campbell was barred from entering the Philippines and told his name was on a government blacklist. In addition to working on the Chong Won case together with MSN, ILRF has also been active in international protests against human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings of journalists and labour and human rights activists in the Philippines.

On December 11, two union activists with the Solidarity of Cavite Workers labour organization were shot by a lone assassin outside the gates of the Yazaki-EMI factory. Jesus Buth Servida was killed instantly, and his companion, Joel Sale, sustained gunshot wounds. The gunman reportedly walked casually away from the scene of the crime.

The assassination follows an early shooting of a Solidarity of Cavite leader, Gerardo Cristobal, in April near the same plant. One of the three gunmen in that case was later identified by Critobal as a Senior Police Officer. While these assaults are not directly connected to the Chong Won dispute, they are disturbing signs of growing repression against union leaders and human rights activists in the Philippines.

On February 6, 2007, a local official from the Philippine DOLE issued an order in response to the union de-certification petition launched by the management-initiated Caretaker Committee. The order de-certified the independent union based on the circular reasoning that as its membership and leaders had been fired (for their union activity) they were therefore no longer able to represent the union. The order has been appealed.

On February 21, 2007, the WRC released its final report on its Chong Won investigation. The overwhelming conclusion of the WRC report is that Chong Won's practices violate Filipino law and applicable corporate and university licensee codes of conduct. The WRC found that "with respect to freedom of association, Chong Won's misdeeds are among the most egregious and persistent that WRC investigators have encountered."

The WRC was also highly critical of the response of Wal-Mart and other buyers, calling them "inadequate and ineffective".

• Full WRC report

In the beginning of March, 2007, Verité submitted its own report to Wal-Mart and met to discuss remediation plans. On March 26, Wal-Mart released its synopsis of the Verité report and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was reportedly submitted to Chong Won management through Wal-Mart's supplier, One Step Up. Under increasing pressure to be more transparent, Wal-Mart eventually released the full Verité report, as well as a revised MOU.

The Verité report recommends that termination notices submitted to 117 union members be withdrawn and that factory management negotiate with the union. It also confirms that the independent union is the legitimate representative of the workers, and that a majority of permanent workers (those eligible to be union members) currently support the union.

However, Wal-Mart's revised MOU does not explicitly state that Chong Won management must negotiate with the independent union.

• Full Verité report (pdf)
• Revised Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) (pdf)

More information:

• Back to the Chong Won Campaign