Honouring Heroes of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement: WAC

Workers’ Assistance Center (WAC), the Philippines

For the past 12 years, the Workers’ Assistance Center (WAC), a Filipino church-affiliated labour rights organization, has provided advice, support and legal assistance to workers in the Export Processing Zones (EPZs). In a climate of severe political and anti-union repression, WAC accompanies workers as they attempt to organize unions in order to negotiate improvements in wages and working conditions, and to be treated with respect.

In 2007, WAC provided striking workers at the Chong Won Fashion garment factory that produced clothes for Wal-Mart with day-to-day support, legal advice and a link to international campaign groups like MSN. Despite mass dismissals and frequent attempts by EPZ police and security guards to break their strike and bar them from the Zone, the workers maintained their picket line for nine long months.

For the first time ever a local organizing effort coordinated with an international campaign led by MSN and the US-based International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) was successful in pressuring Wal-Mart to admit that workers’ right to freely associate had been violated in one of its supply factories and that 117 unjustly fired union members should be reinstated.

Chong Won workers on strike

On June 10 and 11, a small group of Chong Won picketers were attacked by two groups of armed men. In the second attack, 20 men wearing ski masks and army fatigue pants and armed with M-16 rifles threatened to kill the picketers if they were on strike later that morning. When some of the workers suffered post-traumatic stress as a result of the attacks, WAC helped them seek medical assistance. Meanwhile, MSN convinced nine major US brands sourcing from the Philippines to publicly call for an impartial investigation.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart did not offer sufficient incentives to the factory owner to convince him to reinstate the fired workers. The owner decided to close the factory rather than deal with the union.

WAC recently celebrated its 12th Anniversary, pledging to continue advocating for workers’ rights and campaigning for an end to the violence and extra-judicial killings of trade unionists and human rights activists.