WIN A MEANINGFUL CBA!
FIGHT FOR A ₱15,000 WAGE HIKE, JOB SECURITY, AND REGULARIZATION!
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AT WYETH PHILIPPINES?
Wyeth Nutrition Inc. is a factory producing nutritional products such as infant formula milk: Bonna 0–6 Months, Bonna 6–12 Months (formerly Bonamil), S-26 0–6 Months, S-26 6–12 Months (formerly Promil), Bonakid, and Bonakid Pre-School. It began operations in 1958 in Makati City as the first nutritional plant in the Philippines. By the 1990s, manufacturing operations expanded to the Canlubang Industrial Estate in Cabuyao, Laguna.
From its establishment until the present, Filipinos have patronized Wyeth products. The company’s vision is to “care” for infants through its products. Yet instead of care, the workers who labor to produce the milk loved by Filipino children and which brings wealth to the company experience exploitation, wage suppression, and dismissals.
Its profits have grown alongside contractual labor with meagre pay, and its investments in automation and digitalization to speed up operations and increase production volume. For workers, this has meant layoffs and worsening job insecurity. In fact, in 2023, more than 125 union members were terminated and deprived of livelihood by Wyeth.
In July 2025, negotiations began between the Wyeth Philippines Progressive Workers Union-DFA-KMU (WPPWU-DFA-KMU) and Wyeth-Nestlé management for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) covering 2025–2028. The union’s proposals included a significant daily wage increase and the regularization of contractual workers.
Out of more than 20 union proposals, management responded by merely offering a ₱64 daily increase—while cutting an estimated ₱400 from current wages by removing Saturday, Sunday, and shift differential premiums. In short, management seeks to take back hard-won benefits of workers under the guise of “alignment” with Nestlé workers.
While diverting negotiations toward the concern of financial statements, management argues that current wages and benefits are already “superior.” At the same time, it seeks to take back the fruits of workers’ past struggles, invoking “alignment” with Nestlé workers. Nestlé, the giant transnational corporation, acquired Wyeth in 2012 and has since taken control of operations and policies.
While negotiations are ongoing and workers face wage suppression, management has implemented changes in work shifts—“clustering” the entire packaging section. This has disrupted the union’s ability to gather for activities, delayed union dues remittances, and escalated harassment, such as denial of Union Leaves (ULs) and even the filing of cases against workers, including the Union President.
The union filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) case with the NCMB regarding clustering. This was implemented without union consent, and management ignored the grievance submitted by the union to discuss its impact on workers and reach resolution before implementation.
The union’s demand is clear: a meaningful CBA, a ₱230 daily wage hike, job security, and the regularization of contractual workers.
Through our labor and the sacrifice of our blood and sweat, the company earns billions, and it has more than enough capacity to grant the demands of the workers. It is unacceptable that the value of workers is disregarded, that we are subjected to wage suppression, and that there are plans to take back the victories we have won through our Union struggle.
In these attacks, the government is complicit with the capitalists, serving as the maker of neoliberal policies such as RA 6727, contractualization, the Compressed Work Week, and other anti-worker laws. These policies are designed to keep workers’ wages low and to roll back the gains of workers’ struggles, so that the capitalists can pocket ever greater PROFITS.
Even as the capitalists and the government hold down workers’ wages, they also greedily plunder our taxes from the public treasury through the bureaucrat-capitalists in government — while claiming that wage hikes would harm the economy.
In the more than six decades of the Union at Wyeth-Nestlé, history has made clear that workers can only win through collective action, together with the broad support of other workers and the people. We are ready to stand firm and launch a STRIKE if needed, as the most effective way to stop production, demonstrate the worth and strength of our labour power, and press forward our just demands.
WYETH-NESTLÉ IS NOT LOSING MONEY—IT CAN AFFORD TO GRANT WORKERS’ DEMANDS
In 2012, Nestlé SA acquired Wyeth Nutrition for USD 11.85 billion. In the years that followed, Nestlé gradually took over operations, from policy-making down to direct management of Wyeth-Nestlé.
Starting 2013, contractual workers with many years of service faced retrenchments. In 2023, mass dismissals also struck regular workers, including members of the Wyeth Sales Representative Association, as well as workers at the factory and members of WPPWU.
The company justified these retrenchments as part of restructuring, cost-saving, and cost-competitiveness measures. Today, vacancies are left unfilled while automation and digitalization projects advance. Workers are forced to shoulder heavier workloads—on average, one worker now operates 2 to 3 machines—without any corresponding wage
increase.
As a result, Wyeth-Nestlé’s profits continue to balloon from squeezing workers’ labour power. According to financial statements submitted to the SEC from 2020–2024, the company earned an average of ₱17 billion annually, peaking at ₱19 billion in 2024. Net profits grew by 24%, averaging more than ₱3 billion over the period.
Meanwhile, spending on wages and benefits for all employees, from the highest downwards, declined by 2% and averaged just ₱1.3 billion. For the last five years, wages and benefits accounted for only 8% of company revenues.
Based on the union’s forecast, if current trends continue, company revenues will grow by an average of 2% over the next three years, reaching around ₱59 billion from 2025–2027. If the downward trend in wages continues at –2%, workers’ share will fall to just 4% of
revenue, or roughly ₱2.6 billion in total.
The company’s forecasted profit for the next three years amounts to ₱23.9 billion, averaging over ₱7 billion annually. If the company grants the union’s proposal of a ₱15,000 wage increase for the 300 members of WSRA and WPPWU, and regularizes a minimum of 200 contractual workers, the company would only spend 21% of its profit on wages and benefits—still leaving it with massive earnings.
Therefore, not only can the company afford a wage hike and improved benefits, it can also regularize more than 200 contractual workers.
UNITE AND PREPARE FOR STRIKE
Nestlé is notorious as an anti-worker company and union-buster. In 1987, Meliton Roxas, union president at Nestlé, was shot dead in front of the picket line in Cabuyao. After the successful strike of the Union of Filipro Employees (UFE-DFA-KMU) in 2002, Diosdado “Ka Fort” Fortuna was gunned down by unidentified agents. In separate rulings in 2002 and 2008, the Supreme Court both sided with the union. Through the courageous struggle of workers, even a giant and brazen company like Nestlé has been forced to retreat in the face of collective action.
In the more than six decades since the founding of the WPPWU in 1959, and through its adherence to genuine, militant, and anti-imperialist unionism, the union has won shining victories in wage and benefit increases. In fact, the highest increase achieved reached ₱11,750 over three years. These gains were not freely given by the company — workers launched four strikes to secure the higher wages and benefits that Wyeth-Nestlé’s capitalists are now trying to claw back.
The interests of workers and capitalists are fundamentally opposed: increases in wages and benefits mean reductions in CAPITALIST PROFITS. That is why workers remain firm that their most powerful and effective weapon is to launch a STRIKE, to withhold their labor power and press forward their just, legitimate, and rightful demands in the CBA.
We believe that our struggle is also the struggle of workers across the country. Any rollback in our wages and benefits is also a rollback of what all workers deserve — workers who give their blood and sweat in labor yet suffer exploitation at the hands of capitalists who deny them just wages. In fact, the union’s study shows that in just 52 minutes of our labor we have already earned our day’s wage, while the remaining 7 hours and 8 minutes of our work go directly to the PROFITS of Wyeth-Nestlé.
In our struggle, the strong support of our fellow unions, federations, associations, and organizations of the entire working class is essential. Equally vital is the solidarity that can be extended by different sectors of the people throughout the nation, as well as our fellow workers and friends overseas. We call on you to join us, together with the whole people, to win our fight for Wages, Jobs, Rights, and against the neoliberal policies that oppress workers and the masses.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Workers at Wyeth-Nestlé in the Philippines are fighting for a meaningful collective bargaining agreement, higher wages, job security, and regularization of contractual workers. International solidarity is crucial in amplifying their struggle and pressuring Nestlé and the Philippine government. Here are concrete ways to act:
- Issue Statements of Solidarity
o Release official union or organizational statements supporting the Wyeth-Nestlé
workers’ struggle.
o Circulate these statements in labor networks, media outlets, and advocacy spaces. - Amplify the Campaign Online
o Share updates, articles, and materials on social media.
o Use the hashtags #15000DagdagSahod #KontraktwalGawingRegular.
o Create creative solidarity content (videos, songs, reels, posters) to help amplify the
struggle. - Organize Solidarity Protests and Actions
o Hold pickets or protest actions in front of Nestlé offices, plants, and distribution sites
in your country.
o Stage symbolic actions (banner drops, photo ops, wearing ribbons/shirts) and send
documentation to the union for visibility.
o Join or host fora, teach-ins, or public events to raise awareness. - Direct Engagement and Exchange
o Invite representatives of Wyeth-Nestlé workers to speak at union meetings,
assemblies, or online forums.
o Arrange meet-and-greet or exchange sessions between your members and Filipino
workers to build international unity. - Lobby and Pressure Institutions
o Send letters to the Philippine Senate, House of Representatives, and the
Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) urging them to investigate
contractualization and anti-union practices at Wyeth-Nestlé.
o Deliver letters or delegations to Philippine embassies and consulates in your
country, highlighting concern over labor rights violations. - Provide Material and Financial Support
o Contribute solidarity funds and resources to sustain protests, strike preparations,
and union activities.
o Encourage union federations and international networks to mobilize donations.
Social Media Channels
WPPWU: Wyeth Philippines Progressive Workers Union on Facebook
DFA-KMU: Drug Foods and Beverage Workers on Facebook
Kilusang Mayo Uno: Kilusang Mayo Uno on Facebook; @kilusangmayouno on X, Instagram.
Wyeth Philippines Progressive Workers Union
Wyeth Sales Representatives Association
Drug, Food and Allied Workers Federation – Kilusang Mayo Uno (DFA-KMU)