By HENRY EMPEÑO | 

LABOR group Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) has called for government takeover of the debt-ridden Hanjin shipyard in the Subic Bay Freeport in order to avert massive job displacement and pave the way for national industrialization.

But it stressed that any government intervention, which may involve the takeover by foreign investors, should not sacrifice the welfare of local workers and instead should bring about workers’ control of operations.

“The best scenario would be a government takeover for the nationalization of Hanjin and for workers’ control in its operations,” BMP Chairperson Leody de Guzman said in a statement sent to Business Mirror on Saturday.

“Workers could do a better job at administering plant operations, which was appalling (at the Hanjin shipyard) for the past 13 years (due to) numerous occupational deaths and workplace accidents,” he added.

The BMP sounded off its proposal almost three weeks after Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction Co.-Philippines (HHIC-Phil), the South Korean company which put up the Subic shipyard in 2006, filed for corporate rehabilitation with more than $1.3 billion indebtedness from local and foreign banks.

De Guzman said they feared that a government takeover would only result in the sale of the facility to local and foreign investors and fall short in rehiring tenured workers or force the latter to accept a partial settlement of their money claims.

“It is in the interest of the former Hanjin workers to revitalize the company by increasing productivity and by cutting down unnecessary costs. Nationalization is likewise better if the corporate board in a state-owned company would forego of their hefty bonuses and salaries,” he said.

Meanwhile, billions of pesos in royalties sent by HHIC-Phil to its mother company in Korea could be used to uplift workers’ living standards and to expand related industries for national industrialization, he added.

The BMP said it has come up with several options to protect Hanjin workers after Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno revealed that the government is receptive to the idea of a bailout and that it may lend funds through state-owned banks to interested foreign companies.

De Guzman said they expect the government to propose for a private-public partnership to run the shipyard. However, “for the workers, this option could only be a permissible compromise provided that their rights are not sacrificed to entice the entry of a private investor,” he added.

“The government should learn from its sorry lessons in Hanjin, which enjoyed billions in tax incentives and yet, continued to pay their workers with starvation wages,” De Guzman said.

He pointed out that documents obtained by the BMP revealed that taxes paid by Hanjin from 2007 to May 2018 amounted to P4.65 billion or an average of P387.5 million per year—“a tiny fraction as compared to its profits.”

On the other hand, he said that in 2017 alone, the export and import value of HHIC-Phil amounted to US$1.25 billion and US$388 million respectively, or P51.25 trillion and P19.4 billion.

De Guzman, who is a senatorial candidate of Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM), also called for the immediate review of tax and labor policies in special economic zones in the light of the sudden bankruptcy of HHIC-Phil.

He also pressed for the following conditions to protect Hanjin workers: (1) full payment of workers’ separation pay; (2) automatic rehiring of workers without loss of seniority rights in whatever course the government takeover will take; (3) immediate return of the 3% bond deducted by HHIC-Phil from workers’ wages; (4) issuance of unemployment subsidy to cover basic expenses of workers and their families as they await the reopening of the shipyard under new management; (5) granting of an extension and reconsideration of the workers’ housing loans under Pag-ibig at the Hanjin Village; and (6) workers representation in the management committee that would decide for the liquidation of HHIC-Phil and the transfer of ownership.