Curse or Challenge: Contractualization’s Barriers to Unionization in the Philippines
Issued Date
2024-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
01154451
eISSN
2165025X
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85194429956
Journal Title
Philippine Political Science Journal
Volume
45
Issue
1
Start Page
56
End Page
81
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Philippine Political Science Journal Vol.45 No.1 (2024) , 56-81
Suggested Citation
Asa R.C. Curse or Challenge: Contractualization’s Barriers to Unionization in the Philippines. Philippine Political Science Journal Vol.45 No.1 (2024) , 56-81. 81. doi:10.1163/2165025X-bja10060 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/98621
Title
Curse or Challenge: Contractualization’s Barriers to Unionization in the Philippines
Author(s)
Author's Affiliation
Corresponding Author(s)
Other Contributor(s)
Abstract
While the Philippine labor movement became stronger under repressive conditions during the Marcos dictatorship, it has weakened considerably in recent decades despite Constitutional and legal guarantees to workers’ rights to unionize and organize. Some scholars attribute this decline in strength to the spread of contractual labor. This article contributes to understanding the labor movement’s decline by examining the challenges that contractualization poses to contractuals’ unionization. Using a case study method and in-depth interviews with union leaders, this article examines the barriers to contractuals’ unionization in six manufacturing companies during the height of the Rodrigo Duterte government’s actions against illegal contractualization. It builds on labor scholar Frederic Deyo’s insight that economic controls on labor have overtaken political ones under neoliberal globalization in Southeast Asia and argues that with regard to contractuals’ unionization, legal barriers predominate, economic barriers exist, and political barriers persist.