“Police disperse picketline using lockdown as alibi”, 11 April 2020

A picketline of economic zone workers in Dasmarinas, Cavite was dispersed last night using the lockdown as an alibi … [T]wo Dasmarinas police backed up with scores of tanods of Barangay Langkaan 1 and 2 and security guards threatened two workers in the picketline … with arrest if they will not leave the picketline. Workers of Korean-owned Sejung Apparel Inc. in the First Cavite Industrial Estate (FCIE) have been on picket-protest since December for non-payment of 13^th month pay and other violations.

…  [Jopay Odchimar, president of the labor union of Sejung workers said] “The guidelines and labor rights are not revoked or suspended just because a quarantine is in effect,” Odchimar insisted.

“For more than four months, the Department of Labor and Employment provincial and regional offices did not act on a clear case of labor standards violation despite undertaking an inspection…” Odchimar explained.

The labor dispute is due to non-payment of 13^th month pay, last salary and union busting. Sejung declared temporary shutdowns several times. The first shutdown in October last year occurred just one week after the union submitted a collective bargaining proposal … The company reopened but once more closed in December and has remained shutdown since then.