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The right of all broadcasting workers, public or private, to organise without fear of retribution and the right specifically of all “temporary, contract, ‘block’ (a local Filipino term) to union membership” were two of the main conclusions of a UNI-MEI regional conference held in Manila, 22-24 April.



Also, a strong commitment to cooperate to improve the safety of media workers was endorsed (the Philippines has one of the world’s worst records of killings of journalists and technicians with impunity. The latter issue was dramatically brought forward by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, who participated along with UNI-MEI affiliates and observers (including from Laos and Vietnam) from 10 countries in the region. This was a practical demonstration of UNI-MEI members and members of the International Federation of Journalists to work more closely together in the region.



The UNI affiliated National Association of Broadcasting Unions (NABU) hosted the event, with much of the practical administrative work carried out by the UNI Philippines Liaison Council.



Philippines government Labour Secretary Marianito Roque addressed the opening of the conference, making some strong and hopefully far reaching statements about the right of freelancers to organise. Regie Jularbal, the legal council of KBP, the county’s broadcasters’ association, also made some very interesting statements about permitting these people to organise being the next logical step. Philippine participants said they would be highly interested to see if these statements translate into acts. Danny Edralin, chairman of the Alliance of Progressive Labour spoke on practical oragnising and some exercises on defining organising issues in broadcasting were carried out the last day. One afternoon the participants visit one power regional radio operation (Radio Veritas, which is heard all over Asia) and two of the top TV broadcasting operations.