Its goal is to protect the rights, welfare, and interests of workers in this industry, which ofte National Union of Building & Construction Workers (NUBCW)
To build a possible world of works that is humane and egalitarian for Filipino workers”
The Philippine construction industry, even before the advent of globalization, the working conditions is already far worst and inhuman. It i
s a world of works where best exemplified by the three D’s – dangerous, dirty and difficult. This is equivalent to a lobbied for the passage of Department Order No. 13, the guidelines for the implementation of occupational safety and health high D – dehumanizing. Even if the NUBCW have successfully in construction industry, many construction firms simply ignore the law before the very eyes of helpless government inspectors. The construction workers under the labor relations law in the Philippines, particularly Section 5 of the Department Order No. 19, does not permit the project-based construction workers to organize a union for collective bargaining agreement where favorable terms and conditions of employment can be negotiated. Because the majority of the 1.7 million construction workers – the project workers – cannot form a union, the rights of construction workers are not protected and they are not well represented in any tripartite bodies. In the mid-1990s, the five (5) construction workers’ associations organized by the five (5) Philippine affiliates of the Building and Wood Workers International (BWI), were banded together to form into an industry union, the National Union of Building and Construction Workers or NUBCW. Born in 2001, it was the first registered labor organization under the category of an industry union. Despite the absence of any precedence for union organizing in the construction industry, the new born NUBCW struggles its way to establish its own space in the labor movement in order to trail blazed, that is to pioneer alternative form of unionism for construction workers. It was conceived from its five parent labor federations to prove to the fragmented Philippine labor movement that world of works that is more humane and egalitarian for Filipino workers is still possible. The NUBCW is an affiliate of Building and Woodworkers International (BWI) Global Union.
