Patrick Molina had been working for just four months at the mammoth South Korean-owned Hanjin shipyard, north-west of Manila, when disaster struck. The 20-year-old was sitting on a bench beside steel plates stacked on a wooden platform when it gave way and the plates crushed his right leg.
"They rushed me to the nearest hospital, a trip that took an hour and a half," said Molina, leaning on crutches at his boarding house near the Subic Bay industrial enclave, a former US naval base north-west of Manila. Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction-Philippines, the local arm of South Koreas Hanjin group, paid Molinas medical expenses but he is still waiting for the artificial leg the company has promised.
Molina is luckier than some Hanjin employees. Since construction of the shipyard began in 2006, 19 workers have died in industrial accidents, angering legislators and tarnishing what should be a showpiece of Philippine industrialisation. The 230-hectare (568-acre) Hanjin shipyard is the fourth largest ship-builder in the world, employing 18,000 people, making the Philippines a major location for the shipping industry.
The company is investing at least a billon dollars in the project and may expand it even further despite the global economic slowdown. But the shipyard has racked up what labour leaders and politicians say is an unacceptable accident record. Primo Amparo, a labour organiser at Hanjin, said there have been 5,000 accidents at the shipyard in just three years.
Additionally, he alleged Korean managers manhandle Filipino workers, the cafeteria serves bad food, workers are forced to do overtime and the company uses too many sub-contractors who bring in unqualified labourers. The poor safety record and abuse charges were investigated in February by the Philippine Congress.
While journalists have not been allowed inside the yard and requests for interviews with senior officials were turned down, Hanjin allowed a congressional team inside the sprawling complex to see for themselves if workers safety was being compromised. Delegation leader Senator Jinggoy Estrada, son of the disgraced ex-president Joseph Estrada, said he saw many lapses in safety, some of which violated labour laws.
These included workers not wearing proper safety equipment and lack of full-time doctors on-site. Although the legislators did not call for sanctions, they gave Hanjin six months to build a medical centre and comply with industrial safety laws. Amparo concedes that shipbuilding is inherently hazardous but says the accident rate was a result of Hanjin rushing to complete orders.
The shipyard was still under construction when shipbuilding began, adding to inherent dangers, he said, adding that shortcuts were taken in safety measures and not enough safety inspections were conducted. He also alleged Hanjin had cut training time for new workers to 45 days from the normal 90 days just to get more people working.
At the congressional hearings earlier, the shipbuilder admitted it had difficulty hiring accredited safety officials. Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction president Jeong Sup Shim also told the hearing: "In our country... the military culture still remains and exists... especially in the construction side," leading to occasional rough treatment.