KARAPATAN expresses its utmost solidarity with the workers of Nexperia Philippines Inc. who are on the third day of their strike, as we call on the public to show their support for striking workers and their families.
Nexperia, a Netherlands-owned semiconductor giant located at the Light Industry and Science Park (LISP) in Cabuyao, Laguna, has so far refused to agree to the workers’ legitimate demands for a PhP50-wage increase and the reinstatement of four union leaders laid off since negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement began in early 2024. The terminated union officers, including Mary Ann Castillo, president of the Kilusang Mayo Uno-affiliated Nexperia Philippines Inc. Workers’ Union (NPIWU) and its vice president Antonio Fajardo, are among the 500 workers who have been laid off in the past several months. The layoffs have considerably increased the workload of the remaining employees.
The workers have rejected management’s offer of a PhP17-peso per day wage increase, which would cost the company PhP90,000 daily — a drop in the bucket for a corporation reportedly earning as much as PhP400 million a day. The workers insist that a PhP50 per day wage increase is just and long overdue, considering the high inflation rates endured by their families.
Out of a total work force of 1,800, there are currently more than a thousand workers inside the plant, with the rest manning a picket line at the entrance of LISP.
The Nexperia management has responded to the strike by cutting off the plant’s electric power and water supply. Nexperia’s security guards have also been blocking the entry of food, water and even maintenance medicines into the plant. One of the striking workers inside the plant, Alvin Reyes, had to be rushed to a hospital after his blood pressure shot up to dangerous levels after the food, water and medicine blockade imposed by Nexperia.
Instead of helping resolve the impasse in the CBA negotiations, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has sided with the Nexperia management by assuming jurisdiction over the labor dispute. An assumption of jurisdiction order requires the strikers to return to work, giving the Nexperia capitalists more opportunity to fire union leaders and members and perpetrate other anti-worker acts. More anti-union violence looms as the Nexperia management is reportedly urging DOLE to deputize the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to forcefully break the strike.
KARAPATAN salutes the courage and militancy of the striking Nexperia workers, the vast majority of whom are women. Their determination to fight for their economic rights will surely reverberate among other workers within LISP and all other industrial enclaves in the country where backbreaking work in exchange for measly wages and repressive working conditions is the norm.
KARAPATAN will be joining Gabriela and other women activists and advocates in going to the Nexperia workers’ picket line after the International Working Women’s Day rally on March 8 to bring supplies and boost the morale of these brave, fighting workers.