The Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, Inc. (EILER) is a non-governmental development organization in the Philippines providing institutional support for labor research, education and workers organizing nationwide. From its early beginnings as a church labor center in 1975, EILER was formally established in 1981 as an ecumenical service institution for labor education. From the darkest years of the Marcos dictatorship through the years past a popular uprising in 1986, EILER has brought together labor groups, church people, professionals and institutions to serve the Filipino workers.
Our mission remains to be the raising of the consciousness of workers through liberating education and developing their capability to establish, run and lead organizations in pursuit of their immediate and long-term interests. This mission becomes even more compelling as poverty, inequality and the marginalization of workers and other exploited sectors continues to endure and even worsen in this era of corporate-led globalization.
In this context, our organization is trying its best to answer the needs of the Filipino working people within the constraints of limited resources. For this we try to combine a short- and long-term approach. We respond to workers’ immediate needs by providing information, paralegal and material support for those involved in labor disputes, collective bargaining and sectoral campaigns. In the long-term, we strive for the emancipation of workers by arming them and strengthening their organizations with the knowledge and skills to fight all forms of exploitation and oppression and attain meaningful structural changes in society.
EILER’s history of propagating workers’ education in the Philippines based on the principles of genuine trade unionism spans nearly two decades. The 1980s saw EILER taking the lead in course development and full blast mass education with the course on Genuine Trade Unionism as banner course. Towards the end of that decade, GTU was carried by federations among their locals while EILER’s instruction work was directed at expanding the GTU network to cover new unions and independents. The mid-1990s saw the accent to EILER’s work shifting towards replicating capabilities among workers organizations by training instructors, leaders and education administrators.
Now that the very base of unions are being threatened by globalization and labor flexibilization, EILER sees the need to venture into education work among irregular workers in the workplace as well as in their communities of residence.
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Contact Information
Head Office:
No. 15 Anonas St. Unit D-24 Cellar Mansions, Brgy. Quirino 3-A
Project 3, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1102
Telephone: (063) 4660062
Email: eiler.inc@gmail.com
