Evaluation of LO-Norway Programme of Co-operation with Alliance for Progressive Labor (APL), Philippines

Background:
The collaboration between The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO-Norway) and Alliance for
Progressive Labor in the Philippines started in 2002. Through negotiating, organizing, training, education
and campaigning the APL and its affiliated unions should be able to develop strategies on how to improve
labour rights through negotiating collective agreements benefiting its members as well as strengthening
the total capacity of the trade union movement in Philippines. Thereby the influence of the trade unions
in the Philippines would be enhanced. The programme has involved the APLs central organization. Target
groups have been elected local and national leaders of APL and the affiliated unions. Workers’ safety,
health and environment as well as gender issues have also been important elements of the project. The
evaluation covers the period 2006-2009.

Purpose/objective:
The goal of this evaluation was to assess the performance and progress, and to see if the results or
objectives are being met. The main focus of this programme has been ―strengthening of social
movement unionism by increasing the APL’s capacity to campaign for workers’ political, economic and
cultural rights.‖ Essentially, this project has intended to strengthen the APL by enhancing the Labor
Center’s capability to increase workers’ participation in shaping policies in the industry, national and
international levels through advocacy campaigns and workers’ education.

Methodology:
The evaluation mission included a nine day-study visit in three project sites. The study was conducted
using key informant interviews, focus group discussions, site visit and direct observation and use of
secondary data from APL reports. The evaluators have interviewed a total of 17 key informants. Eight
evaluation foras in different parts of the country, were conducted and attended by around 58
participants from the ranks of the mass leaders and staff of the APL .

Key finding and results:
The APL project has shown encouraging results especially in terms of its efforts to promote the rights of
the labor movement. It also works for the empowerment of the workers – not only in their workplace,
but also in the Philippine society as a whole. For a relatively young labor center established only last
1996, it has achieved parity with some of its more established labor center counterpart through the
adoption of a more unconventional trade union strategy called the Social Movement Unionism (SMU).

According to the APL, SMU is a strategy directed at recognizing, organizing and mobilizing all types of
workers and unions for engagements in different arenas of struggle. This strategy is not limited to `trade
union’ organizing and has been developed precisely to respond to new work arrangements where
employee-employer relationships do not exist or are not clear.

These findings may be attributed to the implementation of SMU strategy nurtured by the following
factors: 1) Strategic partnership with groups or entities that has been instrumental in supporting
APL’s goals such as the LO-Norway and the political party Akbayan. As part of the Norwegian civil society
groups being supported by the NORAD, the LO-Norway has always supported APL, based on the principle
of solidarity and on the NORAD principle of ―recipient responsibility.‖ While Akbayan—one of the labororiented party list group in the Philippine Congress, has supported the political and policy agenda of the APL. 2) A strong education program aimed at inculcating the values of alternative trade
unionism even among hard to reach informal sectors 3) A core of leadership and staff that are
not only committed to the cause of labor but are likewise competent enough to lead a national center like
the APL. 4) A growing membership base among the informal sector. This is the singular factor that
provides the APL with a competitive advantage relative to its competitor in the labor movement
especially in the area of political and industrial action.

Relevance:
The APL project is innovative in so far as it was able to synthesize both the requirements of traditional
trade unionism and ―community unionism‖ through the use of the SMU approach. The project itself has
demonstrated that it is consonant with global, national and sectoral policies related to issues of women,
informals and the youth. Both the members of trade unions and constituencies of women, youth and the
informal sectors have expressed an appreciation of the usefulness of the project especially in terms of
the provision of education services for their members.

We can therefore conclude that there is a definite ―demand‖ for this APL type of services. Consequently,
we can likewise say that the LO-Norway supported APL project is still highly relevant from both the
supply and demand side of the equation. In particular, APL is able to address specific gaps in the
realization of sectoral policies on labor on the global, national & local levels and at the same time garner
support from its international and local partners, affiliates and members.

Efficiency:
The LO-Norway supported APL project may be considered as a major contribution to the attainment of
the goals and concerns of the Philippine labor movement in particular and of the working people in
general. The support being extended by the LO-Norway to this project is supportive of the overall effort
of the international community to pursue the Millennium Development Goals particularly Nos. 1 and 8,
which refers to eradicating extreme poverty and global partnerships for development.

Sustainability:
The evaluators recommend that the project management add additional performance indicators for the
goal on Financial Sustainability apart from the usual target of increasing the dues collection. An indicator
about collection systems both on the local and national levels must be included as part of good
organizational performance.

Gender issues:
Gender sensitivity trainings were inserted in the course of the implementation of the program in the
succeeding years. In the APL - LO legal agreement, there is an important provision about "gender
equality being mainstreamed," but it is not clear in the reports how this is done inside APL and how is
this reflected in the project implementation. We do believe that the project management has been
addressing this concern since 2007. This is evidenced by our interviews of the appreciative women
members of the APL and the APL annual reports. But the project management must guard against the
mechanical understanding of gender mainstreaming as simply understood as inviting members and
leaders to join gender sensitivity seminars and organizing community women. It must go beyond that.

Internal democracy/ Risk analysis:
The reports states that management of the LO-Norway supported project is run in a relatively
transparent and professional manner. The various narrative and financial reports are testament to the
capacity of the national leadership and the project management to manage a multi-year, multi-million
peso and nationwide project such as the one supported by LO-Norway. This has been demonstrated
consistently through the years since the partnership between the LO and APL began in the late 1990s.

But the evaluators suggest a separate project management committee to be created to manage the dayto-
day operation of the project that is directly answerable to the Executive Committee of the APL, both
in charge of the operational and the financial side of the project.

Recommendations:
The evaluation team recommends on the basis of the 2006-2009 programme

• Improve the use of measurable indicators or benchmarks that can be used to track its performance
over time. (However when reviewing the 2010-2013 proposal of APL, we found that the crafting of
the project objectives including indicators have somewhat improved, but still needs some further
improvement.)
• Find the appropriate or relevant performance indicators per objective in order to measure these
objectives.
• Annual plans have been too activity-oriented. There are no indicative factors that can state whether
these objectives are coherently connected to the project objectives that they have established
beforehand. Quantitative targets associated with the accomplishment of some of the activities have
been revised on annual basis – and has become a set of ―moving targets.‖
• In the APL - LO cooperation agreement, there is provision about "gender equality being
mainstreamed." However, the reports have not stated how the ―mainstreaming of gender equality‖ is
achieved and how this is reflected in the project implementation.
• Because the objectives and performance indicators are not clearly spelled out, there is no indication
on the part of the leadership and project management on what kind of data are to be collected
through time in order to keep track of the progress of the APL and its project – apart from the usual
data that tracks membership size and growth.
• APL would need to acquire new methods of work and strategy when addressing the concrete or
practical needs of the informal sector. Often these needs are different from the expressed needs of
those in the formal sector. In particular, the APL might need to develop mutual aid and benefit
programs for its members over and above its emphasis on political action.
• APL should systematically keep track of its costs (e.g. direct costs & indirect costs), in order to.
These data could have been useful for a real cost-effectiveness study. Hence, it would be a good idea
if the program and finance staff of the APL starts tracking these types of costs in the future.
Knowledge of their costs would come a long way in terms of making wise decisions regarding costeffectiveness,
in defining strategies and in making realistic budget proposals for the APL leadership
and Trade Union Solidarity Support Organizations (TUSSO) and the like.
• The technical skills of the frontline staff should be improved so that they can assist their affiliates not
only in terms of political and traditional trade union work, but also in terms of assisting (if necessary)
in providing socio-economic services and other forms of mutual aid and benefit programs.
• Some revision of the workload among staff is needed.
• Leadership should rotate in order to ensure that the APL will always have a stable pool of leadership
from which to draw its visionary and competent leadership. Knowledge of the project cooperation
and the work within the cooperation should be shared among more people.
• One of the major weaknesses of APL today is financial sustainability. APL urgently needs to improve
its internal financial generation capability starting with its dues collection.

Comments from the organization, if any:
LO-Norway finds the evaluation useful. It has also been presented to APL for feedback and comments
before conclusions. The recommendations from the evaluation have been discussed with APL and will
followed up. We will include the recommendation in our future co-operation.