The stains that no detergent can remove

written by Jerrieme Maderazo

graphics by Tiffany Ashley Uy

MANY OF OUR READERS NO DOUBT remember taking Chemistry 16.1 as freshmen, titrating soda and observing the changes that red cabbage pigments go through in a solution with variable pH. Students of this course rarely handled dangerous chemicals; a cheeky student’s lab report once listed “diabetes” under the hazards of soda as a reagent, arguably the most serious threat they would face in the lab. Despite this, they are decked out in complete personal protective equipment (PPE), from lab gowns complete with gloves and goggles to shield their eyes.

In stark contrast, employees manning the detergent factories of the Peerless Products Manufacturing Corporation (PEPMACO), who work with corrosive chemicals like sulfuric acid and surfactants which irritate the skin, often have nothing more than their own clothing and mumbled prayers to protect them. Forced overtime is also commonplace, resulting in fatigued workers who are prone to make mistakes. As a result, chemical burns and other accidents are commonplace at the so-called “Patayan at Sunugan,” slaughterhouse and furnace, as the employees mockingly call the plant. “Patayan at Sunugan,” that is how employees from nearby manufacturing companies call the PEPMACO plant.

Health support is also nonexistent. The lack of a clinic with a medical officer on call in the factory means that when workers do get injured, the best they can hope for is amateur advice from the human resources department, often ending tragically for the workers who are misdiagnosed and treated poorly (in more ways than one). In the past, pregnant workers have suffered miscarriages while working at the plant after the management refused to rush them to the hospital after they started bleeding. To prevent similar incidents in the future, the management has acted decisively and banned expectant mothers from working at the plant.

The employees do occasionally get to wear safety gear; when the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) conducts inspections. The management is then quick to deck their workers out in full PPE to keep up appearances. Not all of them get this chance though; workers with noticeable burns from factory accidents are hidden or given the day off to prevent difficult questions from the inspectors.

On top of health and safety issues, the workers manning these “slaughterhouses” get paid less than minimum wage— between 370 and 400 pesos for a full day’s work. They do not even get the benefits they are legally entitled to. Instead of remitting part of their salaries to the Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth and PAGIBIG, PEPMACO pockets the funds instead. Asking for accountability from PEPMACO is difficult for many of the workers are contractual, including those who had been working there for ten to fifteen years.

By now, it should be crystal clear that PEPMACO’s plants are terrible places to work in. The corporation shamelessly violates several laws and lacks basic human decency. So why won’t their workers just give up their jobs and seek employment elsewhere?

The answer is simple; it’s not as easy as it sounds. In this economy, giving up a job can mean that your family starves. If the choice is between enduring injuries to your hands or losing your children to hunger, it’s not a choice at all. Besides, leaving the terrible work environment in PEPMACO will not fix the problem, it would only pass it on to someone else. As such, the PEPMACO Worker’s Union (PWU-NAFLU-KMU) was formed,

as the workers unified in solidarity for the protection of their rights as workers and as people. However, the management has been reportedly singling out members of the union, giving them unreasonably difficult workloads and terminating them illegally. These conditions have forced the workers to go on strike on June 24, 2019.

The rising tension between the management and PWU-NAFLU-KMU culminated in a violent dispersal of the union’s picket line on the 28th of June, 2019, when approximately 300 hired goons attacked the workers’ camp at 1 AM. The goons reportedly beat the picketed unionists down with shields, arnis sticks and stones, injuring twelve workers. The union was unable to sue the attackers as the goons wore face masks during the dispersal and thus could not be identified.

The heartlessness of PEPMACO to their workers need not be justified further. Amidst all of these violations, a question arises: Why is PEPMACO doing this?

It is plain that this penny-pinching attitude is not born from necessity, since the company can afford goons to disperse the strikers and lawyers to keep from being sued. All of these are rooted in capitalist greed, which values profit maximization over human rights. Since their ideology demands the ever expansion of capital, it is their nature to do so even if it means the mass exploitation of their workers. In other words, the plight of PEPMACO workers is not separate from the plight of the workers of Nutri-Asia, to the contractual workers of Jollibee Foods Corporation, to the “sweatshop” workers in fast-fashion factories in Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. The fact that no change has been seen even as more and more injustice is brought to light is symptomatic of the strength of the status quo and the ineffective justice system in this nation. Blood has stained the factory floors and yet nothing has changed. Under the exploitative system that is capitalism, workers will never be free from exploitation.

Perhaps it is time to ask the simple question: what can we do? One step is to support the unionized workers in their calls to hold corporations such as PEPMACO accountable. This will force corporate owners to come to the negotiating table to pay heed to the demands of the workers that they should not have had to fight for in the first place. Such a union will also be able to call for boycotts in concert with their own efforts, as opposed to boycotts that are not organized by the workers themselves, which often only leads to employees being laid off without meaningful change being implemented. This first measure will be meaningless if this union is not protected by law. Legislators must enact bills that encourage the organization of unions and protect them from employers. Such laws would improve worker conditions, increase the quality of life of the working class and direct economic development to the masses.

Another step is to expose the atrocities committed by giant capitalists on the people, especially as science literate students. While we are not at the forefront of the chemistry world, our UP education has enabled us to understand the hazards of strong bases and acids, toxic vapors, and so on. The challenge to us now, as iskolar and siyentista ng bayan, is to utilize science communication so that we are able to bring science closer to the people. After all, what purpose does science serve if it only stays within our ivory towers?

And finally, we should aim for a world where exploitation is ended once and for all. And this world can only be actualized with the replacement of the current exploitative systems that we have in place. Taking from the plight PEPMACO workers, it should be clear that there is no humanitarian reason why capitalist greed should still continue to perpetuate. Therefore, the end of capitalism is the end of exploitation.