Workers at a South Korean-run shipyard in the Philippines are fighting back against a deadly safety record
We meet Rodolfo Alvarez on a gloomy, overcast afternoon. His home is not much to look at - a basic brick and cement structure halfway up a slope, in a village about two hours' drive from Subic Bay, Philippines. There is no electricity in the house. Mosquitoes hover around our ankles. Alvarez is lying in his bed, clutching a rosary. We can see the pain in his eyes.
Alvarez's wife, Rizalyn, gives us a shy, toothless smile. She does not say much and neither does her husband. Pain has worn him out. Worry lines her face. He used to be an electrician inside a shipyard owned by South Korean corporate giant, Hanjin. Three months earlier, while repairing a security alarm system, Alvarez's lower body was badly crushed by a closing barrier. The accident means he can no longer walk unaided, work on control his bodily functions.
"They had to remove everything," a visiting friend tells us. "Everything. Even his sexual organs."
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