Rene E. Ofreneo

Precarious Philippines Expanding Informal Sector, “Flexibilizing” Labor Market

This article outlines two realities about the Philippine labor market: the continuing expansion of the large informal economy and the continuing “flexibilization” of work in the narrow organized sector of the economy. The first is a consequence of the uneven development of the economy and its weak capacity to create stable jobs for a growing population. This expansion is reflected in the chain of urban and rural poor colonies mushrooming all over the archipelago. On the other hand, the flexibilization phenomenon in the formal labor market is manifested in various forms of flexible hiring arrangements, primarily through the service contracting modality. Flexibilization has generated fierce legal debates, especially regarding the so-called management prerogative of firms to outsource jobs held by regular workers. The article contends that social protection for the “precariat” in both the formal and informal sectors requires not only the passage of protective labor laws but also, and more importantly, an overhaul of the neoliberal and crisis-ridden economic policy regime that has been in place for nearly four decades.

From Core to Periphery? Recent Developments in Employment Relations in the Philippines

We seek to describe recent developments in employment relations in the Philippines, placing these developments in the contexts of the distinctive elements of the Philippine social/political/industrial relations systems as well as the ongoing trade-based and functional integration of international markets and the recent regional economic crisis. We find that, while some firms are pursuing functional flexibility and more cooperative employment relations, the logic of competition has primarily induced firms to adopt practices that promote numerical flexibility such that a core-periphery workforce is created. We argue that the labor movement in the Philippines has been hampered in its efforts to effectively counter employer strategies by its low density, its fragmentation, and an unfavorable public policy environment; Philippine labor unions have, however, made some recent gains in organizing and inter-union coordination. We also argue that governments, both national and regional, have not done enough to counteract the negative effects of market integration on workers nor to evolve the Philippines into a higher value-added exporter.

Arrested Development: Multinationals, TRIMs and the Philippines' Automotive Industry

The aim of this paper is to show – through the illustrative experience of the automobile assembly industry and the car parts industry – that the failure of the Philippines to become another newly industrialised country (NIC) in Asia is due to the absence of a clear vision of national industrialisation, aggrauated by a zigzagging programme of industrial protection and deregulation. In the l970s, the Philippines imposed ‘local content’ requirements to participants in a ‘progressive car manufacturing programme (PCMP), to move up from the narrow import-and-assemble pattern of industrial development experience of the l950s-l960s. The vehicle industry at that time was engaged in the assembly of imported completely-knocked-down (CKD) or semi-knocked-down (SKD) parts. However, the programme to deepen the automobile industrial structure was a failure due to the indecisiveness of the government in pursuing the programme, compounded in the l980s-1990s by the haphazard way by which it embraced the IMF-World Banks structural adjustment programme aimed at promoting an export-oriented industrial (EOI) structure. In 2003, the ‘local content’ requirements were formally withdrawn in compliance with the agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs) under the World Trade Organization (WTO). By then, both the automobile assembly industry and parts industry were in deep crisis, like the rest of the industrial sector of the Philippines.

Introduction: The Dynamics of Textile and Garment Manufacturing in Asia

Abstract This article introduces the leading arguments on the promotion of garment manufacturing in late industrialising or latecomer countries, spaces opened and closed from global trading arrangements, the drivers of garment commodity value chains, nature of industrial relations and the economic significance of garment manufacturing for selected East, South and Southeast Asian countries.

Neo-liberalism and the Working People of Southeast Asia

The ASEAN Economic Community is marked by a range of specific programmes to make economic regionalism a successful reality. Yet, the economic liberalisation programme is a narrow one, without any clear economic development direction outside of its confines. Economic integration is also being driven by select corporate interests. States are not paying sufficient attention to ASEANs working populations. For ordinary persons to benefit from economic liberalisation and integration, ASEAN states would need to put them at the centre of their development programmes.