SAFE AND HEALTHY WORKPLACES ARE A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE NAGKAISA!

MANILA — The biggest labor coalition in the country, the NAGKAISA! stands firmly for the full protection of every worker’s right to a safe and healthy workplace following the alarming report that two workers of Davao Mighty Steel Corporation reportedly tested positive for high radiation exposure, according to findings of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The reported findings are especially disturbing because this is not the first recent incident involving radioactive hazards in a Philippine steel plant.

Only a few months ago, in May 2026, authorities raided Philippine Sanjia-Steel Corporation in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, where the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) confirmed elevated radioactivity in parts of the facility. Reports also raised serious concerns over the protection provided to workers against potential radiation hazards.

Two incidents within a matter of months should set off alarm bells—not only radiation detectors.

NAGKAISA! urges the government to determine whether these incidents are isolated violations or symptoms of a wider problem involving the sourcing and handling of scrap metal and other raw materials, workplace monitoring, occupational safety enforcement, and the manufacture and distribution of steel products.

Occupational safety and health is not merely a compliance requirement. It is a fundamental workers’ right and a shared obligation of employers and the State. No worker should ever be forced to choose between earning a living and protecting their life and health.

Atty. Sonny G. Matula stressed that the effective implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Law must remain at the center of workplace policy and practice.“The law is clear: employers must provide a safe and healthy workplace and inform workers of hazards that threaten their life and health. Radiation may be invisible, but an employer’s responsibility cannot be. Trabaho ang pinapasukan ng manggagawa, hindi danger zone. Every worker who clocks in deserves to clock out safe and healthy and return home to their family,” Matula said.

Santiago “Ka Santi” Nolla likewise emphasized that occupational safety and health is a fundamental principle and right at work.“The right to a safe and healthy workplace is a fundamental principle and right at work recognized by the International Labour Organization. Occupational safety and health is not optional, nor can it be compromised in the name of profit or productivity. Every worker has the right to return home safe and healthy after every working day,” Nolla said.

NAGKAISA! therefore calls for a thorough and transparent investigation into the reported radiation exposure involving the Davao Mighty Steel workers; full accountability for any violations of occupational safety and health laws and standards; immediate protection, appropriate medical assistance and continuing health monitoring for affected workers; and strict implementation of the Occupational Safety and Health Law in all workplaces.

The Coalition likewise calls on the DOLE, PNRI, DENR and other appropriate government agencies to examine the Davao and Misamis Oriental incidents together and determine whether stronger nationwide inspection, radiation monitoring, and regulation of steel plants, scrap-metal inputs and related industries are necessary.

Workers and their unions must have meaningful participation in workplace OSH mechanisms. Enforcement and accountability must be strengthened, and concrete measures must be taken to prevent workplace accidents, illnesses, injuries, hazardous exposure and deaths.

A safe and healthy workplace is not a privilege. It is a fundamental right. Workers should bring home their wages—not workplace hazards. 

NAGKAISA to Hong Kong: You Can Imprison A Union Leader, But You Cannot Imprison the Truth!

NAGKAISA! strongly condemns the Hong Kong court’s conviction of veteran trade unionist and democracy advocate Lee Cheuk-yan and activist Chow Hang-tung for “inciting others to subvert state power.”

This is not justice. It is the criminalization of peaceful dissent, democratic advocacy and the right to speak truth to power.

Lee is a longtime trade unionist and former general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU). His conviction strikes at a principle fundamental to the labor movement: Unions cannot defend workers if democracy itself is criminalized.

The prosecution did not establish that Lee or Chow planned violence or sought to overthrow the government through unlawful means. Their alleged crime was their advocacy for democracy, including the Alliance’s call to end one-party rule and its peaceful commemoration of the Tiananmen victims.

Since when is calling for democracy “subversion”? Since when is remembering the dead a crime?

NAGKAISA! rejects the use of national-security laws to silence trade unionists, activists and civil society. 

An attack on one unionist is an attack on all unionists.

We stand in solidarity with Lee Cheuk-yan, Chow Hang-tung and the people of Hong Kong who continue to defend freedom, democracy and the right to organize.

They may imprison Lee. They may silence a voice. But they cannot imprison the workers’ struggle or erase the truth.

DEFEND DEMOCRACY!

FREE LEE CHEUK-YAN!

NAGKAISA! OPPOSES NAPC ENDORSEMENT OF NTF-ELCAC’S EXPANSION OF DEVELOPMENT WORK

The Nagkaisa Labor Coalition expresses serious concern over the reported endorsement by the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) to expand the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) development work.

NAPC need not hide its institutional failures under the shadow of another failing institution. NTF-ELCAC is neither a development arm nor an expert body in infrastructure projects. Giving credit to the red-tagging body for poverty reduction has driven NAPC into desperate hallucination. Inserting itself further into NTF-ELCAC’s development obscurity brings it closer into a state of irrelevance. 

NAPC was created to address the structural causes of poverty and to advance the participation and empowerment of the country’s basic sectors. Its mandate must therefore remain focused on influencing policy reforms to achieve social targets on poverty eradication, decent work, secure employment, living wages, housing, livelihood, social protection, and meaningful participation in policymaking - not on transforming anti-poverty programs into instruments of low intensity war. 

Moreover, civilian institutions must not allow development and poverty alleviation programs to be subordinated to a security framework that treats organized workers, poor communities, and legitimate dissent with suspicion. Development must be based on rights and people’s needs not on whether a community is considered strategically important to a counterinsurgency campaign. Jobs must be created because people need decent work; housing must be provided because families need secure homes; and social protection must be guaranteed because people have the right to live with dignity - not because these are tools to defeat an insurgency. 

In fact, the labor movement has consistently called for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC as its work intrudes into the free exercise of labor rights, including red-tagging. Executive Order No. 97 and the Omnibus Guidelines on Freedom of Association and Civil Liberties prohibit the labelling of workers, union members, trade unions, and organizations, while recognizing the Department of Labor and Employment’s mandate over trade unionism and freedom of association. 

Any intervention involving workers and labor communities must therefore be strictly bounded by these safeguards. NTF-ELCAC’s red-tagging, profiling and surveillance activities, and giving away projects the way traditional politicians define their legislative will never eliminate poverty.  NAGKAISA! Stands firmly for the abolition of NTF- ELCAC with all the logical and democratic reason to defund and defunct. 

Nagkaisa Strongly Condemn Alliance Verdict: Is Defending Truth a Crime?

The High Court today found former Hong Kong Alliance chair Lee Cheuk-yan and former vice-chair Chow Hang-tung guilty of “inciting others to subvert state power”. The case has been adjourned until Friday (28 August) for mitigation. We strongly condemn the verdict and are deeply concerned that the case further demonstrates how Hong Kong’s National Security Law is being used to erode long-standing freedoms of expression and association, and to narrow the space for peaceful political advocacy. 

Christopher Mung, Executive Director of Hong Kong Labour Rights Monitor, said: 

“Today’s verdict is not simply a conviction of Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung. It is also a blatant conviction of conscience and truth. For more than three decades, the Hong Kong Alliance promoted democratic ideals through peaceful and non-violent means. To now characterise such advocacy as incitement to subvert state power sends a deeply disturbing message to the world: that there is no longer room in Hong Kong for peaceful dissent or political expression.” 

At the heart of the case was not whether the defendants had planned violence, a coup or any unlawful attempt to seize power. The prosecution instead focused on one of the Alliance’s five long-standing objectives: “ending one-party dictatorship”. It argued that, as chair and vice-chair of the Alliance, Lee and Chow were necessarily involved in efforts to subvert state power through unconstitutional and unlawful means. 

Yet the prosecution failed to identify any specific unlawful means that Lee or Chow had advocated, or to establish that either defendant had planned or incited violence. Much of the case centred on statements they had made publicly. This verdict therefore clearly amounts to criminalising people for what they say, dealing another severe blow to Hong Kong’s already threatened freedom of expression. Giving evidence in court, Lee recalled how Beijing residents helped him escape Tiananmen Square 37 years ago, enabling him to leave safely. He told the court that seeking justice for the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown and building a democratic China had become his lifelong commitment. “There is no hatred in my heart, only love for the people,” he said. 

Chow described the annual June 4 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park as an expression of “love and responsibility”, rather than hatred. Both defendants repeatedly stressed that the Alliance advocated constitutional reform, democratic institutions, the rule of law and checks and balances on power, but not the violent overthrow of the government. 

For more than three decades, the Alliance organised the annual June 4 candlelight vigil in Victoria Park peacefully, calling for accountability for the Tiananmen crackdown and keeping alive the aspirations of its victims for democratic reform. For many years, Hong Kong was the only place in China where the events of June 4 could be openly commemorated and discussed. 

Hong Kong once allowed people to commemorate June 4 publicly, debate political systems and advocate for political reform. Today, forms of peaceful public expression that were once part of Hong Kong’s civic life can instead be treated as matters of national security. 

This verdict is therefore about more than the Hong Kong Alliance. It is a further example of the criminalisation of civil society in Hong Kong and the shrinking space for peaceful political and civic participation. 

History must not become a forbidden subject, and peaceful political advocacy must not be treated as a crime. 

We urge the Hong Kong authorities to respect the fundamental rights protected under the Basic Law and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to stop using national security offences to suppress peaceful political expression, and to ensure that people can express their views, participate in public debate and advocate peacefully for reform without fear of criminal prosecution. 

We also call on the international community to continue monitoring the human rights and rule of law situation in Hong Kong, and to maintain close scrutiny of this case and others involving people who have peacefully exercised their fundamental rights.