The Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan-Kilusang Mayor Uno or Pamantik-KMU (Union of Workers In Southern Tagalog-KMU), said those facing lay-off are mostly non-union members in electronics and car manufacturing sectors in the Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon processing zones.

Romeo Legazpi, chairman of Pamantic said workers from Samsung, Yazaki, F-Tech, Fujitsu, NEC, TDK, and Matsushita are facing lay-offs in the first quarter of 2009. In September 2008, Amkor wiped out all its 3,000 contractual women workers.

Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI), which used to employ 17,000 workers, 90 percent of which are women, terminated 3,000 contractual workers last December, in addition to the 1,000 regular workers in forced leaves also last month.

Last week, U.S. chipmaker Intel Corp., said it is closing down its assembly test facility in Cavite, that would affect 1,800 workers.

The group also assailed various schemes implemented by car manufacturing companies affected by the global financial crisis.

In the car industry sector, Toyota Motor Philippines implemented this month a Monday-no-production day and it announced to "temporarily" get rid of its 500 contractual workers and on-the-job trainees by March.

Nissan Motors laid-off 40 regular employees in December and plans to retrench an additional 70 more this February. Keihin Philippines plans to implement a four-day work month this February. Ford now maintains only 18 employees out of the previously 400 workforce. Isuzu Philippines will soon follow the steps of its mother company, which displaced 30,000 Japanese employees.