Business NEWS

Legal teams from the country’s top law firms are ganging up on domestic labor union Philippine Metalworkers Alliance (PMA) stressing the workers are not domestic automotive manufacturers and therefore have no authority and personality to represent the local industry in the safeguard measure case imposed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which sought to stop the surge in the importation of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles into the country that caused serious injury to  the Philippine motor vehicle industry and automotive jobs.

Workers today slammed automotive firms in the country, short of calling them “selfish” and questioning their “loyalty”, for looking after their own business interest but disregarding the industry’s development and their employees.

Domestic automotive parts manufacturers and workers stood behind the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) decision to impose provisional safeguard measure on imported completely built-up (CBU) cars and light commercial vehicles (LCVs) as a step that will arrest further decline in local auto parts manufacturing and save jobs.  

The Philippine Metalworkers Alliance (PMA), a union of automotive, electronics, steel and iron steel workers, has urged the government to mandate agencies to purchase locally manufactured vehicles and raise local component requirement to 100 percent from 40 percent and control entry of imported cars to support the state-sponsored Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) Program to preserve industry jobs.