Filipino workers in US camps go on strike in Iraq (KBR)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2005/May/focusoniraq_May191.xml§ion=focusoniraq

MANILA - Some 300 Filipinos employed at a US military camp in Iraq went on strike this week to protest poor working conditions, the foreign ministry said on Friday.

The workers, under contract from Prime Projects International and Kellog Brown and Root, are based in Camp Cooke in the province of Taji, the ministry said.

It was not specified what their complaints were, but the ministry said the Filipinos and the agencies that employed them failed to agree on certain demands prompting the strike.

The Filipinos were to have been repatriated amid the deadlock, but the Philippine charge d?affaires Ricardo Endaya managed to convince them to enter dialogue and temporarily return to their posts.

[TomInTib]

1. How bad can it get?

When poor (and you know they are) Filipinos strike "to protest poor working conditions" those conditions must be God-awful.

[ConfuZed]

8. Are you suggesting *ALL* Filipinos are poor? n/t

[ConfuZed]

10. C'mon bad boy answer up! n/t

[TomInTib]

11. Nope

But I would bet these workers were not from suburbia. Having had way too much exposure to KBR I guarantee these workers were not creme de society.
No offense intended, I have just been around that block for 35 years.

[ugarte]

2. These Filipinos are clearly getting greedy

Whatever happened to spreading freedom and democracy? That should be payment enough. *cough*

[Cha]

22. "Cough" is

right:(

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. Isn't the Philippines a huge Al Qaeda training ground?

Does it make a lot of sense to bring Fillipinos in as guest workers to the one place on the planet we've supposedly been trying to keep Al Qaeda out of?
Oh well, I'm sure we did our usual exhaustive background checks on each of them.
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/10/29/asia.jihad.2/

[oblivious]

17. Wanna read about terrorism in the Philippines? Try this.

It's always the same organisations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1317711

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2788118

[donsu]

4. a report I read said they were paid low salaries & had poor housing

and were worked long and hard in less then wonderful jobs. (no link, it was awhile ago)

more power to them

[dArKeR]

5. I've NEVER seen a Filipino worker WITHOUT a cell phone. "It was not

specified what their complaints were." What a bunch of lying crap from the World's incompetent Whores of Media. Because the Whore's couldn't be that stupid they'd have to be lying, right? Why wouldn't the Whores just call one of them or one of their family members whom they speak to daily?

[donsu]

6. did you know they flew Filipinos in to build prison at Gitmo?

it was for the new cell block they put up - the mostly metal one.

[dArKeR]

7. Can you tell me why America occupies land in Cuba?

[nookiemonster]

18. That's a damn good question!

Pardon my ignorance.

[Judi Lynn]

19. This might help: remarks from a former head of the U.S. Interests Section

under Jimmy Carter, Wayne S. Smith:

....the lease was signed in February of 1903 by the two governments. It was not a lease for 99 years. It is a lease and treaty that can only be modified or abrogated with the consent of both parties. So, so long as the U.S. chooses to remain there, it legally can do so. One of the first acts of the new revolutionary government of Cuba in January of 1959 was to issue a statement that the new government would honor and respect all existing international treaties and agreements and that, of course, included the Guantanamo treaty. So, the United States has a legal right to remain in Guantanamo. The question is whether it makes sense to do so.

The lease also specifies that this area be leased to the U.S. as a coaling station and for naval operations and for no other purpose, thus raising the question as to whether turning it into a penal colony is really within the terms of the lease.

We only pay 2,000 dollars a year to lease on the base. The Cuban government never cashes the check. I think it did the first year, '59, but since that time, the Cuban government has not cashed any of the rental checks. The Cuban government takes the position that the U.S. should turn the base back over to Cuba. Again, they are not saying that we must do so, they are not threatening Guantanamo. They are simply saying that it is sovereign Cuban territory, which it is, and they want to regain its use.

Acquisition of the Base

It was acquired essentially so that American naval vessels could coal, service, or whatever to facilitate their ability to protect the approaches to the Panama Canal. We long since gave up the Panama Canal. We don't control that anymore, and American naval vessels don't use coal anymore. The agreement does say naval operations, not simply coaling, and the base was useful for some time as a training facility so that fleet units could service in Guantanamo while they carried on trial runs and training operations in deep water to the South. During the cold war, of course, it would have been very difficult for the U.S. to think of turning the base back to Cuba, given that Cuba was a military ally of the Soviet Union, our principle global adversary. We couldn't be certain that if we turned it over to the Cubans, that they might not allow the Soviets to use it. And while that might or might not have been of vital importance or some real threat to U.S. security, it was a possibility that we didn't want to open. So during the cold war years, no American president could consider returning the base to Cuban control. Certainly given the international, political and strategic situation, they would have been severely criticized for doing so.
(snip/...)

http://ciponline.org/cuba/cubaproject/smithremarks.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(By the way, the man, Admiral Eugene Carroll to which Wayne S. Smith referred was a strong advocate for normalizing relations with Cuba. He made multiple trips to Cuba, and toured military facilities and had attended conferences with Cuban military officers over a span of years before he died.)

[nookiemonster]

20. Judi, thank you!

I really need to brush up on these issues.

;-)

[dArKeR]

9. Filipinos are known to endure horrendous conditions with a smile.

As aWol said, "The Philippines is the model for all the world's democracies to follow." Do any of you have any idea that most of the PI's comsumer income comes from slave labor Filipinos working abroad? They are usually married but separated from their wives, husbands and children for 10 to 20 years and only seeing them about once every two years for a short vacation. God bless the Christian Capitalists!

If you'd like to find out for yourself, go ask any Filipino you see walking down the street! A little more than we could expect a Whore "Liberal" Journalist to do!

[girl gone mad]

12. Were some of them sex workers?

I don't want to be insensitive, but that is the rumor that I heard.

[bobthedrummer]

16. Hey this administration employs mercenaries with our taxes too.

Dyn Corp for instance has a history of employees involved with child sex slaves, Afghanistan is now a Dyn Corp narco-state, why would KBR be any different?

Dyn Corp links
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=18

[burrowowl]

13. Mao was right

about one thing: people should exchange jobs for a few days, when a CEO has to clean the toilets, they may not be well cleaned but the CEO might learn something.

[Barkley]

14. "It was not specified what their complaints were..." Why not?

That's the whole point of strike -- to protest/ publicize poor working conditions.

Surely, the Filippinos would expect better negotiate for improved working conditions if their issues are made known to other labor organizaitons sympathetic to their cause.

The media is not reporting these working conditions because it would embarrass the U.S. and raise concerns/ an investigation of KBR.

[Judi Lynn]

15. 300 Pinoy workers in Iraq go on strike

300 Pinoy workers in Iraq go on strike

The Philippine Star 05/28/2005

Some 300 Filipinos employed at a US military camp in Iraq went on strike this week to protest poor working conditions, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.

The workers, under contract with Prime Projects International (PPI) and Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), are based at Camp Cooke in the province of Taji, the DFA said.

KBR is a subsidiary of Halliburton Companies, which was once headed by US Vice President Dick Cheney.

It was not specified what their complaints were, but the foreign office said the Filipinos and the agencies that employed them failed to agree on certain demands, prompting the strike.

The Filipinos were to have been repatriated amid the deadlock, but Philippine chargé d’affaires Ricardo Endaya managed to convince them to hold a dialogue instead and temporarily return to their posts.
(snip/...)

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/News200505280403.htm

[bobthedrummer]

21. Kick.

:thumbsup:
:patriot: