Zamboanga labor sector hardest hit by blackouts — PHILU, TUCP

ZAMBOANGA CITY — The labor sector in this city is starting to feel the pinch of incessant and rotating blackouts, according to the Philippine Integrated Industries Labor Union or PHILU.

PHILU president Jose J. Suan, also vice president of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), said his organization’s 15,000 members mostly employed with the canning, plywood and fishing industries here have been hardest hit the last four months because of the daily three-four hour blackouts.

Last December, there has been a work stoppage in most of the 11 canning factories because of the spawning period of “tamban”, the kind of fish the canning factories use to produce sardines, Suan said.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) imposed a closed season period against the catching of “tamban” from December 2011 until last month.

Work in these canneries resumed this month and Suan said that unless the power condition improves, the workers’ man-hours and working days will be reduced drastically.

He said the manufacturing plants cannot go into full-scale operations because of the intermittent blackouts.

“What may follow is labor retrenchment,” he said.

He urged the government and the private sector to address the power crisis immediately before a breakdown in the labor sector happens.

The PHILU came out Tuesday with a “Declaration of Support” endorsing the plan of the San Ramon Power Incorporated (SRPI) to build a coal-fired power plant in Sitio San Ramon at Talisayan Barangay some 20 kilometers west of the city proper..

In Suan’s assessment, more than 2,000 people out of the more than 20,000 factory workers are residents of Talisayan and adjacent barangays.

“These people stand to lose their jobs due to the lingering power outages,” Suan said.

In a worse-case scenario, Suan said that plants may have to relocate to other places where there is stable and sufficient power supply, that would cause a huge unemployment problem in Zamboanga City.

“That’s the last thing that we need. The power plant in San Ramon will finally end our perennial power problem as steady power supply will be dedicated to Zamboanga City, ad infinitum,” Suan said.

Barring hitches, SRPI will start work on the plant as early as the end of this year with the completion estimated in 2015. (PNA)

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